IVIV some very spoiler-ish reader response/cultural context for Doc: Philip Marlowe

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 20, 2009, at 8:46 AM, Doug Millison wrote:

> I'm interested to dig into Doc with close reading, to see what  
> Pynchon has in fact written about him.  From the get-go, after  
> listening to Pynchon's narration in the book trailer video, I'm  
> disinclined to like Doc, because of the way he says he has  
> collaborated with the police in the past.  But I found myself liking  
> his voice, and wound up having fun reading the book. So I'm  
> motivated to look deeper.  Same with Chandler and Marlowe, in fact.   
> I've read The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely twice now -- once in  
> high school, again in the past 2 weeks. Pynchon's taking them  
> seriously, so I will, too.

As far back as 1976, I've been a fan of Raymond Chandler—The Novelist.  
No doubt I was seduced by his voice as long as I can remember, in all  
that tough-guy dialog in flim noir of the forties and fifties. I'm a  
little shy of halfway through "The Long Goodbye." Saw the Altman Film  
a little less than a month ago.  "The Long Goodbye"—the book & the  
movie—deserves a close reading in the context of Inherent Vice.

That "zonked" quality in Elliot Gould's punch-drunk portrayal of  
Philip Marlowe could simply be written off as an inherent vice of  
regularly getting beaten up on the job. Certainly it helps explain all  
that time Marlowe gets roughed up by the cops in "The Long Goodbye."  
The more rich and financially stable Marlowe becomes, the higher up he  
gets lodged in the food chain, the worse it gets, like bad karma  
rubbing off.

On one level Inherent Vice is a mystery about Gravity's Rainbow. It's  
rich with what looks like stuff he liked back in the day, and reasons  
to hook up World War II Nazis with the drug trade & rockets &  
erections. There's the details in song-lists, favorite TV shows   
[really glad to know he's a Cal Worthington fan, not to mention the  
Bonzo Dog Band],* radio stations, places to eat. . .

The line in the trailer about Doc once having been an operator for the  
cops parallels Pynchon working for Boeing, spending maybe just a  
little too much time looking into relevant technical material  
concerning all those nuclear weapons in our government's arsenal.  And  
then on to pastures greener—or at least closer to the beach—including,  
circa 1970, what was in the air, man, like the Manson shit and the  
weird acid that's been floating around lately and let's go to Tommy's  
Burger's and what's that you say about Ginger and the Professor???

*A Bonzo Dog Band realization of Thomas Pynchon Lyrics—could you  
possibly survive Vivian Stanshall performing: Floozie With An Uzi"?  
"Loonies on Leave"? Grunting "On the Good Ship Lollipop"?

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