IVIV (13) scene one question

[Robin Landseadel]

On Nov 8, 2009, at 4:31 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> John Bailey wrote:
>> Mark quoted:
>>
>> Maybe Doc's self-justification makes moral sense in the world of IV,
>> but IV's just a cartoony fiction itself so we shouldn't go furiously
>> killing baddies and use it as our ethical defence.
>>
>
> otoh, Eliot mentions the hot gates, (wasn't that also what that
> movie 300 was about? a-and the satire "Meet the Spartans"...)
> and seems to have genuine respect for the martial defense of
> democracy against empire.  And the emotions it engenders.
> "resisting authority, subduing hired guns, defending your old lady's  
> honor
> all amounted to the same thing"
>
> In fact, Inherent Vice could be construed as setting up an elaborate
> hypothetical
> case in which these emotions could be justified.  (with limiting
> factors built in,
> such as self-defense and unrepentant evil)

Or Pynchon could simply be writing a "Psychedelic Noir" and does his  
level best to respect the conventions of the genre. After all—the P.I.  
is one of the archetypical "Badasses" that Pynchon repeatedly pays  
homage to—notably in his introduction to Jim Dodge's "Stone Junction":

	. . .Through all this meanwhile runs a second plotline -- a
	whodunit, in which Daniel must solve the uncompromisingly
	earthly question of who murdered his mother, Annalee Pearce,
	in an alleyway in Livermore, California when he was fourteen,
	complete with multiple suspects, false trails, the identity of the
	killer not revealed till the final pages. The story traverses a map
	of some moral intricacy, sure-footed as Chandler, providing
	twists as elegant as Agatha Christie, as all the while Daniel's
	education proceeds. . .

http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html

and in the essay: Is It O.K. To Be A Luddite?—

	. . .There is a long folk history of this figure, the Badass. He is
	usually male, and while sometimes earning the quizzical
	tolerance of women, is almost universally admired by men for
	two basic virtues: he is Bad, and he is Big. Bad meaning not
	morally evil, necessarily, more like able to work mischief on a
	large scale. What is important here is the amplifying of scale,
	the multiplication of effect. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html?_r=1