Pynchon's (im)perfect crime - Miami Herald Review of IV

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 3, 2009, at 11:04 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:

>  Carvill John wrote:
>>
>> QUite a negative one:
>> http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/story/1166076.html
>>
>
> but doesn't make a convincing case:
> the negativity of the review is based on the plot's resemblance to The
> Big Lebowski,
> yet there are so many differences that even not having read the book,
> dozens spring to my mind.  A-and, if it resembles TBL in some respects
> (not many), so what!
>
> Despite the relative brevity of the review, it manages to ramble.


	The problem for readers is that we have seen the likes of Doc
	before -- notably with ``the Dude,'' the drug-addicted slacker
	turned by circumstances into a would-be private investigator in the
	Coen brothers' film The Big Lebowski. Despite their differences,
	"the Dude'' is probably what Doc would have been like in the
	1990s. And, in addition to the California setting, the drug-related
	humor, and the array of false leads, book and movie share a
	central plot device: the apparent disappearance of a young
	woman whom the protagonist scrambles to find.

While many readers of Inherent Vice will note the resonances to The  
Big Lebowski, & some to the Robert Altman/Elliott Gould "Long Goodbye— 
fewer still to "Nick Danger, Third Eye"*—what all these works have in  
common is Raymond Chandler. If any writing deserves the pejorative Lit- 
Crit term "Hysterical Realism" it's Chandler's work, and the  
Firesigns, the Coens and Altman 'n Gould all are making variations &  
comments on Chandler's high-gloss pulp. As does Pynchon. The  
disappearing ex, doing her best to reinvent herself with a different  
identity—so what if there's a few bodies disposed in the process?—is  
THE figure at the core of Noir.

* fewer still will note The Bonzo Dog Band's immortal "Big Shot."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6VCtIXwVV4