Re: Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice review

[jochen stremmel]

Thanks for that, Dave. That's quite how I read the book. And if you
don't know Altman's film, you should see it soon.

Here are the first 10 minutes, a gem in itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u0uo0TxS-I



2012/8/15 Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>:
> 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/