Inherent Vice Review: St. Petersburg Times

[John Bailey]

Manson hardly haunts IV, in the sense of a haunting being a presence
signifying its own absence or whatever... he and the Tate-LaBianca
murders and his Women are totally there, right up in everyone's grill,
not some place offstage and out of mind.

I'm more inclined to agree with Robin that the CIA are a more
important presence/absence in IV. Though not the main focus of the
book in my mind.

Having finished my second read this week, it's definitely a book that
warrants re-(and re- and re-reading). I sort of wrote off the Golden
Fang first time round as just another unsolvable possible-conspiracy a
la Tristero whose indefinite nature is deliberate. Not so second time,
though - I think IV is one of those Systems Novels people used to
write about in regard to Pynchon. Getting your head around the various
plots and counterplots and counter-counterplots in IV is actually a
bit of a mind-screwing exercise.

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:32 AM, rich<richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've found those very good, too. He writes very well
> once saw Mr Waters at the Gotham Book Mart (RIP)--didn't have the
> courage to say hi
> (p.s. his bit on the Simpsons is classic)
>
> a thread I'd to explore a bit more when we discuss IV--the Manson women
>
> pps: i'm re-reading IV
> rich
>
> On 8/7/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>> On Aug 7, 2009, at 8:51 AM, rich wrote:
>>
>>> Doc can't  bear to look but sure is partly turned on by them;  cf:
>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/my-acid-trip-with-squeaky_b_252681.html
>>>
>>> rich
>>
>> Don't forget John Waters series in HuffPo on Leslie Van Houten:
>>
>>       . . . Manson watched on camera his middle-aged despondent
>>   co-defendant Patricia Krenwinkel (who thought the first trial was a
>>   "play") tell Diane Sawyer, "Every day I wake up and I know that I am
>>   a destroyer of the most precious thing there is -- life." His
>>   gentlemanly response? "She got old on me," he snorted. What a
>>   reward for the hippy girl who stupidly gave up her life for him when
>>   she was nineteen years old. A girl convicted of seven murders for
>>   the man she believed was God, a woman so defeated now that she
>>   doesn't even ask outside her friends or family to write letters of
>>   support to the Parole Board because she "doesn't believe a date
>>   will be given." What a tribute to the one time flower-child who is
>>   described now by Karlene Faith as "a good-hearted woman who
>>   suffers the anguished burden of interminable guilt." How kind
>>   Manson is to his now horrified ex-follower who told a Parole Board
>>   in 1993, "it is very different to live with the fact that I could do
>>   something so horrible because that is not who I am, not what I
>>   believe in. On a day-to-day basis it is a terribly difficult thing
>> to live
>>   with because I feel terrible. But no matter what I do, I can't change
>>   it," she sobbed. "I am paying for this as best as I can. There is
>>   nothing more I can do outside of being dead," she cried as the
>>   board members watched her nervously, "and I know this is what
>>   you wish, but I can't take my life. I'm sorry..." she mumbled looking
>>   down in complete defeat.
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-waters/leslie-van-houten-a-frien_b_246953.html
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-waters/leslie-van-houten-a-frien_b_246996.html
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-waters/leslie-van-houten-a-frien_b_247025.html
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-waters/leslie-van-houten-a-frien_b_247113.html
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-waters/leslie-van-houten-a-frien_b_247142.html
>>
>>>
>>> On 8/7/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> It takes a beach-dweller to really appreciate a "Beach Read."
>>>>
>>>> Colette Bancroft hails from tampabay.com.:
>>>>
>>>>     . . . the Golden Fang may be more of a MacGuffin than a threat.
>>>>     The true horror that haunts the book's nostalgia for a golden
>>>>     moment in time is the Manson Family murders, which occurred
>>>>     just before the book's action and turned the peaceful hippie
>>>>     ethos inside out in one monstrous night. Doc, Bigfoot and
>>>>     others refer to them glancingly, as if they can't bear to look at
>>>>     them straight on.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.tampabay.com/features/books/article1024726.ece
>>>>
>>
>>
>