Inherent Vice: L.A. Times Review

[Robin Landseadel]

BOOK REVIEW
'Inherent Vice' by Thomas Pynchon
Southern California's 1960s past reemerges from the haze in this  
Chandler-like tale, set in the age of cannabis.
By Carolyn Kellogg
August 2, 2009

	Inherent Vice" is Thomas Pynchon doing Raymond Chandler
	through a Jim Rockford looking glass, starring Cheech Marin
	(or maybe Tommy Chong). What could easily be mistaken as a
	paean to 1960s Southern California is also a sly herald of that
	era's end. This, of course, is exactly the kind of layered meaning
	that readers expect of Pynchon. His fans tend to be drawn to
	either his massive, bafflingly complex efforts -- the iconic,
	National Book Award-winning "Gravity's Rainbow," "Mason &
	Dixon" and "Against the Day" -- or to the more constrained, plot-
	driven narratives of "Vineland" or "The Crying of Lot 49." It is the
	big books, with their parades of gloriously obtuse set pieces, full
	of slapstick and conspiracy and minutely researched
	ephemera, that established Pynchon as a writer worthy of
	intense inquiry. Yet having a plot doesn't make his work any
	less brilliant, any less Pynchonian.  "Inherent Vice" is a perfect
	case in point. It has a plot. It has a main character. This clear
	structure will, no doubt, disappoint the big-book boosters, the
	obsessives who began contributing to the online wiki
	annotation of "Against the Day" before finishing its 1,085 pages.
	 But maybe we should all take a hit off a fat spliff and enjoy the
	dirty, brainy achievement of Pynchon's "Vice."  At the center of
	"Inherent Vice" is Doc Sportello, a low-key private investigator
	living in a dingy bachelor pad in Gordita, a beach community
	with Venice's grit and Malibu's surfers and hills. He has little
	affection for nonhippie flatlanders and a love of good weed. But
	Doc is more law and order than his indica might indicate: His
	occasional girlfriend is an assistant district attorney, and he's
	got an enduring across-the-divide, almost-friendship with
	Bigfoot Bjornsen, an LAPD detective who does Cal
	Worthington-like TV spots on the side. It's these straight-world
	connections that bring Doc's ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth
	to his doorstep asking for help. . .


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-thomas-pynchon2-2009aug02,0,6295118.story