Best Essay on Inherent Vice Yet

[Robin Landseadel]

	 . . . Trained by his larger historical novels to expect the
	overwhelming from Pynchon, some readers find it hard to
	respect him when he relaxes . . .

http://www.collegehillreview.com/004/0040501.html

It's like moving from Bruckner's Ninth, in a very heavy, threatening D  
minor, to the almost jaunty A major of Bruckner's aspirational Sixth.  
Right now, I'm liking the Sixth more, even though it doesn't seem as  
"important" as the  blitzkrieg threat-down Wilhelm Furtwängler offers  
up in his 1944 taping of Bruckner's Ninth.

I love the verbal play and 3D computer animated characters of Inherent  
Vice a whole lot more than the cardboard cutout sundowns of "V.". I  
know it's not as important as Gravity's Rainbow, but it is more fun.  
"Unbuttoned" Pynchon is a whole lot like "Unbuttoned" Beethoven—it's  
an acquired taste.