Inherent Vice review New York Magazine

[Robin Landseadel]

James Wood's Oh-So-Superior lit-crit theory of "Hysterical Realism."

	. . . One of the problems with hysterical realism, of which this novel
	is a kind of zany Baedeker, is that one suffers both the hysteria
	and the realism: the worst of both worlds. There is the weightless
	excess, the incredibilities, the boredom that always attends upon
	cartoonish, inauthentic novelistic activity. But there is also the
	boredom attendant upon the rather old-fashioned, straightforward
	realism used to create this very escape from realism.

http://www.powells.com/review/2007_03_01.html

You want some Hysterical Realism? I've got your Hysterical Realism  
right here:

	I walked around the office a little to cool off, bought myself a short
	drink, looked at my watch again and didn't see what time it was,
	and sat down at the desk once more.

	Jules Amthor, Psychic Consultant. Consultations by Appointment
	Only. Give him enough time and pay him enough money and he'll
	cure anything from a jaded husband to a grasshopper plague. He
	would be an expert in frustrated love affairs, women who slept
	alone and didn't like it, wandering boys and girls who didn't write
	home, sell the property now or hold it for another year, will this part
	hurt me with my public or make me seem more versatile? Men
	would sneak in on him too, big strong guys that roared like lions
	around their offices and were all cold mush under their vests. But
	mostly it would be women, fat women that panted and thin women
	that burned, old women that dreamed and young women that
	thought they might have Electra complexes, women of all sizes,
	shapes and ages, but with one thing in common-money. No
	Thursdays at the County Hospital for Mr. Jules Amthor. Cash on
	the line for him, Rich bitches who had to be dunned for their milk
	bills would pay him right now.

	A fakeloo artist, a hoopla spreader, and a lad who had his card
	rolled up inside sticks of tea, found on a dead man.

	This was going to be good. I reached for the phone and asked the
	 O-operator for the Stillwood Heights number.

	Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely