IV "autobiographical"?

[Mark Kohut]

In a late life novel, J.M Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year, the semi-autobiographical protagonist reflects on a late Tolstoy work: Everyone says it is not so good because it presents its meanings so baldly--telling rather than showing, [in that simplistic division.]

He then asks how must the novel have appeared to Tolstoy himself. 
His answer: a simpler, clearer expression of his deepest themes.

That's one way I am trying to read and gloss Inherent Vice. 

--- On Fri, 8/28/09, Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: IV "autobiographical"?
> To: johncarvill at gmail.com
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Friday, August 28, 2009, 4:51 AM
> 
> John:
> 
> > I think the perfect metaphor for Doc's character is
> that gun he
> > carries: yes he's a 'Private Investigator', and even
> carries a gun,
> > but it's hidden beneath his floppy bell-bottomed
> jeans. It's like the
> > opposite of Marowe, isn't it? Marlowe the surface
> tough guy, with the
> > soft poetic centre. Doc's a dippy hippy on the
> outside, but has at
> > least enough inner toughness that he does, if he has
> to, get that gun
> > out from under his bell bottoms.
> 
> Heh, what a fitting image! Whether softboiled or
> hardboiled, Doc wears
> his shell on the inside and his yolk on the outside.
>  
> BTW, that final act of violence and toughness came as a big
> surprise to 
> me, and it reminded me very much of the similar scene in
> Altman's 'The
> Long Goodbye,' where the sleepy Elliot Gould suddenly pulls
> out a gun
> out of nowhere - like, where did THAT come from? - and guns
> down his
> former friend. In your long review of IV you already
> pointed out the
> many similarities between Pynchon's novel and Altman's
> film, and this
> instance of surprising violence almost reads like an
> intended homage
> to Altman and Gould.
>  
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