IVIV: Sportello's integrity

[alice wellintown]

I don't like Larry. He's not the Dude and he doesn't have fun
adventures or funny friends. Though Bigfoot is a plus, most of Larry's
crew are just too flat on their feet and false in their features. The
book is a failure.

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> About the only thing my IV re-reads made me think about is that Pynchon,
> somehow, manages it to present to us Larry Sportello as a, more or less,
> likable character. Why is that? Is it the dope smoking?
> Is it Larry's silly way of clothing? Or the kitsch story about a little baby
> being rescued from the addiction of its parents? The Franzen-like family
> reunion in the end? Likely a mixture of all of these items.
>
> However, the text (check out the page numbers for yourself!) gives us the
> picture of a natural born persecutor ...
>
> - In Junior High, Larry took the finger prints of his classmates
>
> - Later on, he did rat in a 16 (in words: "sixteen") year old girl just
> because she was dealing with horse
>
> - His nickname "Doc", and now it becomes really interesting, Larry gained
> during the time when he was still chasing people not able to pay their
> debts. He had a little bag made of artificial red crocodile leather. Inside
> Knock Out drugs plus injection devices. Now, Larry says he never made use of
> it. But can we trust his statement? I don't think so and I'll explain to you
> why. First of all, the narrative voice is nearly identical with Larry's pov.
> Plus - and that's the crucial point by which Pynchon tells us the truth -
> the name "Doc" sticks to him! The stories are all around ... Everybody calls
> him "Doc".
>
> So no surprise that he literally kills human beings in the end. Inherent
> Vice, indeed ...
>
> KFL
>
>
>