Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
There was a time when I entertained the idea that I possessed an elite mind capable of engaging in abstract thought and understanding the infinite complexities of the world. This absurd notion was laid to rest 10 or so years ago when I read - or rather attempted to read - Thomas Pynchon’s 700 page opus Gravity’s Rainbow. I read about thirty pages before coming to the sudden realization that I was unsure if the end of a sentence had been reached and what that sentence, if it had indeed finished, might possibly have been about. It was a disconcerting conclusion to come to - that I had been incapable of comprehending what Mr. Pynchon had put before me - and so I disregarded it, rationalizing that I had much on my mind and was simply too distracted. I’ll just start again and focus. And so I did, and almost came to the end of page 3 before I tossed the book across the room where it settled in its rightful place as a rather scholarly doorstop.
If reading Pynchon’s tour de force had forever punctured any inflated impressions I had of my own intellect, it did serve at least one noble function. From that point forward I could reasonably assume that anyone I came into contact with who professed great affection for Gravity’s Rainbow was either a poseur or a liar and likely both.
All of this is needlessly long prologue to telling you that I recently read Pynchon’s latest book Inherent Vice, a pot-addled piece of hard-boiled fiction that surprisingly even a normal human can read and enjoy. It is as if Pynchon thought to himself, “What would be the polar opposite of my usual impenetrable post-modern folderol? A children’s book? No, too obviously commercial. I know, how about a classic Raymond Chandler noir, only set in West L.A. in the early Seventies after ‘the wave finally broke and rolled back’ and with, you know, lots of joint-rolling and obscure references to forgotten surf bands? That’s it. I bet they’ll even make it into a movie and I’ll actually make some money from this writing thing.”
And it worked. Inherent Vice is a great work of pulp fiction. It has the added benefit of allowing you to announce at dinner parties that you have indeed read a book by Thomas Pynchon and in so doing affect only a pose, rather than indulge in outright lies.
