Bookreporter.com - INHERENT VICE by Thomas Pynchon

INHERENT VICE
Thomas Pynchon
The Penguin Press
Fiction
ISBN: 9781594202247

I recently attended an author function where someone wanted to know if anyone had read Thomas Pynchon’s new book yet. Only one person at that point had; when asked how it was, the gentleman wiggled his eyebrows, touched his forefinger to his thumb, and brought it to his lips and inhaled. Everyone there laughed; they knew exactly what he meant, from prior experience with Pynchon.

Indeed, reading INHERENT VICE is a psychedelic experience, from both a topical and intellectual standpoint. It is Pynchon’s most coherent and linear work since THE CRYING OF LOT 49, and utilizes many of the same elements to propel its narration, not the least of which are sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It is also a pastiche, parody and tribute to the detective novel. Pynchon takes the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of the genre --- unusual characters, occasionally contrived coincidences, complex plots --- and exaggerate them to the extent that reading the book is at times akin to reading a pool of milk, but an extremely interesting pool of milk.

A private detective is at the heart of any mystery novel worthy of the name, and indeed, INHERENT VICE has one in the form of Doc Sportello, who serves as the reader’s guide through the drug-laden streets of Los Angeles, circa 1970. Doc spends a good portion of the novel under the influence of controlled substances, resulting in his involvement in situations that coherent thinking would dictate he avoid. The ball starts rolling when Shasta, Doc’s ex-girlfriend, asks him to investigate a possible plot against Mickey Wolfmann, a real estate magnate and Shasta’s current love interest, which is being hatched by Mickey’s wife and her boyfriend. At about the same time, Doc is retained by a black militant to locate a prison friend of his who is in the Aryan Brotherhood, and is also hired to find a local musician who supposedly died of a drug overdose. Of course all of these investigations quickly intersect, the nexus being the Golden Fang, which may or may not be a mysterious smuggling boat, an assassin’s guild, a dentist’s investment group, or something else.

As one might expect, Pynchon’s trademarks are all present, and in spades. Hordes of characters, important or otherwise, wander on and off the page. Names of people, groups, fictional places and objects are oddly and occasionally hysterically named (a fictional British rock band bearing the name “Spotted Dick” continued to be funny for some reason right through to the end of the book). Perhaps most significantly, however, Pynchon continues to toss off intermittently brilliant passages that ironically seem to manifest themselves just when the reader’s attention starts to wander, and in unlikely places to boot. This is especially true of the first and last third of the book. And then there are the objects that seem to populate every page, walking on, performing a bow, and then disappearing forever. A Las Vegas antique dealer, for example, has for sale a number of remarkable artifacts, including a decorative ashtray from the Sands “once thrown up into by Joey Bishop.”

Pynchon is one of those authors who is perhaps more widely known than widely read. His work comes wrapped in a density that is challenging to break through, while the length of a number of his novels has been somewhat daunting as well. INHERENT VICE is (relatively) short and set in a place and time that is somewhat readily identifiable, wrapped in a genre that is familiar and, in this case, somewhat accessible. While one does not have to be under the influence to follow the proceedings that take place, those who are past or present imbibers will nod knowingly in spots. Does it work as a detective novel? Not exactly. But if you have been tempted to read a Pynchon book in the past but put it off for any number of reasons, INHERENT VICE would be the place to start.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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