Vineland makes the list...but not IV

[Robin Landseadel]

I'd put Inherent Vice at the very top of the list. That "glittering  
mosaic of doubt", the fog* that Doc's driving through, that skunky  
smell that wafts towards your nostrils as you open the book . . .

This is clearly Pynchon's dumbest book—not that there's anything wrong  
with that. But no question about it, this book has the dumbest jokes,  
the simplest plot—simple in the sense that the plot can be followed,  
in the old fashioned whodunnit sense, which is nothing like TRP's  
usual M.O.

Stoned humor of the seventies is the predominant voice in Inherent  
Vice and that voice—as exemplified by long-time TRP faves Cheech 'n  
Chong—takes up a lot of space in the novel. This is Historically  
Informed Performance Practice, much like Trillium's musical interests.  
Stoned Humor is a very large part of what makes Inherent Vice Inherent  
Vice and indicates why remembering 1970 might be such a big problem  
for the author of the novel. I can well imagine that this aspect in  
particular  would repel a lot of readers of Pynchon, in particular  
fans of the more Proustian Prose Passages of Pynchon on display in his  
doorstoppers. I've always valued Pynchon's flavor of stoned humor so I  
gather that the aforementioned "Glittering Mosaic of Doubt"  
illuminates the semi-koan on the jacket flap of IV:

	. . . a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember
	the sixties, you weren't there ... or ... if you were there, then you
	... or, wait, is it ...

It's obvious that Inherent Vice is a stoned derivative of the classic  
whodunnit. The unspoken but omnipresent term in Inherent Vice is as  
below. . .

	*ANNOUNCER
	Out of the fog, into the smog...

	 NICK

	(cough, cough)

	 ANNOUNCER

	Relentlessly... ruthlessly...

	NICK

	 I wonder where Ruth is?

	ANNOUNCER

	…doggedly… (bark bark)

	NICK

	Eh, get away from me…

	ANNOUNCER

	...  towards his weekly meeting with... the unknown.  At 4th and
	Drucker he turns left, at Drucker and 4th he turns right, he
	crosses MacArthur Park and walks into a great sandstone
	building. (smack)

	NICK

	Oh, my nose…

	ANNOUNCER

	Groping for the door he steps inside... (door opens/closes) 	
	(phone rings until pick up) (13 steps) climbs the 13 steps to his
	office, he walks in (walking/door opens)... he's ready for
	mystery, (door closes/walking) he's ready for excitement... he's
	ready for anything, he's...

. . . willing to mention Cheech & Chong, Cal Worthington, the Bonzo  
Dog Band and other strains of pop-cult "Stoned Humor." Just not the  
unexpressed term, that's all. Which is S.O.P. for TRP.

There was, after all, a major example of cannabis-related humor smack  
dab in the center of Gravity's Rainbow. Recall, if you will, that  
Slothrop—now transformed into that glittering new superhero of "The  
Zone" "Rocketman"—is on assignment to pick up a fat block of hash that  
Seaman "Pig" Bodine buried near the Potsdam Conference. Very soon  
after digging up the perfumed parcel, Slothrop gets sapped, Philip  
Marlowe style, leading to a blackout. This is the absolute dead center  
of the book—my Penguin edition runs 776 pages, the "Mickey Rooney  
Incident" occurs on page 388.

On Jan 16, 2010, at 5:55 AM, Otto wrote:


> I would add "Mr Nice" (1996) by Howard Marks to the list.
>
> 2010/1/16 Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>:
>> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/01/10-choice-weed-books.html