Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice review

[Dave Monroe]

Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice review

In 1973, Robert Altman remade Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. The
film set Chandler’s noir story of a moral private investigator in an
amoral contemporary Los Angeles. Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice makes
a similar move, placing the archetype PI, the last good man, in
psychedelic California. He drifts through the crime world in a haze of
reefer often unable to distinguish hallucinations from reality.
Pynchon’s spoof on Hammett and Chandler is full of sex, drugs and rock
& roll, but manages to follow the rough trajectory of the traditional
noir narrative. A beautiful dame comes to him with case that leads to
a bigger mystery and suddenly he’s in over his head. The familiar
structure makes the story easier to follow than Pynchon’s other tomes;
some have gone so far as to call it Pynchon-lite. But while Pynchon
follows the formulaic structure, he retains his complexity through
asides and a non-linearity that is echoed in his protagonist’s
sleuthing.

The hero of Inherent Vice is Doc, the slightly bumbling, more than
slightly stoned PI who is called by an ex-flame to investigate her
current lover’s disappearance. The case leads to a spiders web of
murder, kidnappings, drugs, and illicit arrangements that is almost
too much to keep track of. Luckily, the reader is only along for the
ride and gets to watch Doc figure it out. We watch him take in stride
a pantheon of groovy characters and scenes, each described with
Pynchon’s razor sharp detail. Sometimes it feels that the storyline is
only an excuse for Pynchon to lead us into a stoned discussion of
maritime law, a communal house of surf musicians, or a double date
with two drug trafficking stewardesses. The result is something
between The Big Lebowski, A Confederacy of Dunces, and Scooby Doo, Doc
taking us through the paces of the noir narrative in a pair of
huaraches.

While the story is complex and full of Pynchon’s trippy absurdity, the
end does wrap-up in classic noir style. Most questions are answered,
motives explained, and Doc is left to ponder the coming age where
computers linked together will render private investigations useless
as privacy becomes extinct. There is a point where the reader may
become intrigued how Pynchon is going tie the loose ends together, but
even if he didn’t, there’s a sense that it doesn’t matter. Due in part
to Doc’s “go with the flow” attitude and in part to the string of
crazy scenes Pynchon takes us through, the reader is only along for
the ride. If in the end it doesn’t all make sense, well sometimes
that’s the way the pot brownie crumbles. It was still a hell of a
ride.

http://kemptonmooney.com/2012/08/thomas-pynchons-inherent-vice-review/