IVIV (14): North Las Vegas

[John Carvill]

> From: Robin Landseadel

> If there is a touchstone for the Las Vegas episodes, it would be
> Hunter S. Thompson's best known work. There are echos of "F 'n L"
> throughout Inherent Vice, particularly "Stoned" as a 24/7 activity and
> the dashing of the dreams of "Freak Power."

Indeed. Not just the dreams of the Freaks, but the whole American
Dream as well. Strong echoes of F&L in IV, heightened by a segment
being set in Las Vegas.

>        ACCORDING TO TITO, THE KISMET, BUILT JUST AFTER
>        WWII, bad represented something of a gamble that the city of
>        North Las Vegas was about to be the wave of the future.
>        Instead, everything moved southward, and Las Vegas
>        Boulevard South entered legend as the Strip, and places like
>        the Kismet languished.
>        IV, 235
>
> I'm not finding a historic "Kismet" casino in Vegas so my guess that
> this emerged from Pynchon's fertile imagination.

Probably. But we continue to wonder about the reasons for calling this
character Tito. Any connection with the Yugoslavian president and
former Partisan, who flourished in the wake of WWII (as did his
country), and who walked a fine line between East & West. Maybe some
connection(s) buried in the Balkan sections of Against the Day?