IVIV BIG DISCUSSION [spoiler] Compare & Contrast section, P. 32

[Robin Landseadel]

On Sep 3, 2009, at 6:57 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Nixon, and we know what TRP thinks of him,  "throwing fistfulls of  
> greenbacks..at local law enforcement"...Cf. Brock's funding in  
> Vineland
> and the cutting off of Zoyd (& Frenesi's) money...

And don't forget Richard M. Zhlubb in Gravity's Rainbow and Nick Exxon  
in "Roller Maidens From Outer Space."

> "you want me to rat on everybody I ever met"...'how far back do we  
> go'?, Doc appeals plaintively, with that old test of friends who can  
> trust each other 'cause they know each other's character...
> Contrast 'ratting' in Vineland, (which I know we have recently done  
> a lot of.)

Weird, really weird. Alice simultaneously called Inherent Vice "crap"  
while attempting to demonstrate that Zoyd, somehow, is a snitch. A  
point I find null & void as regards Vineland—Zoyd may be a doofus and  
a sap, but his heart is obviously in the right place. What Alice said  
would much better describe the moral vantage point of Inherent Vice.  
Everybody in Inherent Vice rats on someone else, sometime. In the end,  
the P.I. has to kill a couple of bad guys. In the end, everybody in  
the novel has to do something bad or—even worse—something really  
stupid. Usually the two combined.
>
> Why does TRP have Doc reflect on having to look 'past all that  
> depressing detail' [of Bigfoot's unhip attempt at a hip look]... to  
> even imagine Bigfoot married with kids?
> p.33 {We have] this 'mysterious power' to ruin each other's day and  
> we don't know anything 'about' each other? ....
> BB: "You've ...defined the very essence of law enforcement."

Bigfoot is one of Pynchon's most well-rounded characters. In a way the  
character Bigfoot, like Bernie Ohls in Chandler's books, is there to  
show us that the P.I. is the real deal, like mano Y mano and all that.  
Bigfoot—a badass—in part helps to set up a demonstration of Doc's  
skills as a badass. During the final shoot-em-up, Doc ends up doing  
Bigfoot a huge favor. While it's straight out of Raymond Chandler,  
Pynchon also is offering up some sympathy for the devil here.

> Relate THIS to TRP's vision of human community...

I get the feeling that the author is no longer afraid to name names,  
get down to the specifics, the various axes and relative degrees of  
good 'n evil. Particularly the charting of the ups and downs of 1970,  
as filtered through Manhattan Beach. On a certain level, the author is  
opening up. Manhattan Beach turns out to be full of Black Ops money,  
courtesy of TRW's spy satellite programs. And the author mentions the  
CIA more often in Inherent Vice than in any other of his books. The  
Mcguffin of the Golden Fang manages to usually be in the general  
vicinity of CIA most of the time, along with some neo-nazis and land  
developers. It's easy to understand Pynchon somehow making dentists a  
central part of the central cabal of "really bad people." Somthin'  
'bout all that coke. As regards TRP's "vision" of humanity consider  
the author's concern with the loss of privacy that would come along  
with the "eye in the sky" that TRW cooked up for the CIA's benefit.

http://tinyurl.com/nbpoy7

In a way Inherent Vice is the least ostentatious, baroque and  
logorrheic of Pynchon's novels, the most down to earth in spite of all  
the dope. It seems to have the most moral grey tone of all of  
Pynchon's books. It's almost as if Pynchon's playing Devil's Advocate  
here. Like the good Doc sez, might as well trust somebody who's evil  
for a change.