Inherent Vice: L.A. Times Review

[rich]

sorry, if this has been asked before but puzzled by "flatlanders"--i
get the meaning by context but is this a reference endemic to
California, geography?, flat=boring, flat=straight. curious about the
origins of the term

rich

On 7/29/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> 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
>