INHERENT VICE - Thomas Pynchon - Fiction

[alice wellintown]

I'd suggest any other P novel but IV. At least VL has Prairie and she
is the "teen protagonist" sort of coming of age. Seems more
appropriate. Can 13-year-old kids dig all that "strange sex" and
parody in IV? Doubt it. I'm still wondering if, since I read IV as
having an unreliable narrator, is a work that, while ostensibly sold
to the beach reader, isn't an elaborate hoax in the tradition of Poe
and Melville. Maybe it's both a poor parody of a potboiling beach read
and a hoax. Maybe it's just what Melville called "cash" or a book that
the author would rather not admit he pushed out on the world. Yeah,
that's it. So pushing it on a kid reader seems wrong. There are a
million books that kid might better spend the time with. M&D is a fine
read for a bright teen. At least she would learn something about
America. IV has little of the depth and historical perspective that VL
provides. Even Lot49, P's second orphan anmd weakest work would be a
better recommendation.

On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 1:48 AM, Otto <ottosell at googlemail.com> wrote:
> "For any thirteen-year-olds out there who may be about to give Pynchon
> a try, I'd recommend it."
>
>
> 2010/1/2 Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>:
>> http://bibliotomy.blogspot.com/2010/01/inherent-vice-thomas-pynchon-fiction.html
>>
>