Inherent Vice

Jun 13, 2012 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, crime-mystery, damn-dirty-hippies, detectives, humor, modern-lit, vast-conspiracy

Reading this book gave me a serious urge to watch The Big Lebowski again.

Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello is a private investigator in LA in 1969, and he’s also a damn dirty hippie who smokes dope constantly. Doc gets a visit from his old girlfriend Shasta who has been seeing married and wealthy Mickey Wolfman. Wolfman’s wife and her boyfriend want Shasta to help them with a scam to get Mickey committed to an asylum, but Shasta feels guilty and wants Doc to help Mickey out.

Doc no sooner gets started than h...more

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Jan 08, 2010 Ceridwen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Trilby Busch

Shelves: america-and-environs, mystery, sexy-nihilists, the-future-is-now, what-would-scooby-do, pomo-a-go-go

There's an old saw, beloved of high school US history teachers that goes: before the Civil War, correct usage was “The United States of America are”. After the Civil War, it became “The United States of America is. There's a bunch of butt-patting and high fiving after this little grammatical revelation. Once the North spiked the ball and spiked it hard in the South's end-zone, we could all change the Chicago Manual of Style and revel in the beauty of uniting a country through fraternal bloodbath...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Arthur Graham rated it 4 of 5 stars

No offense, but you have the look of a private gumshoe, or do I mean gumsandal.

— Overheard directed at Larry "Doc" Sportello, PI, at a seedy Vegas casino

On one level, Inherent Vice is a classic noir, featuring the standard litany of players and patsies in a kidnapping case gone awry. On another level, it's anything but your typical hardboiler, featuring a bumbling pothead detective in its leading role, supported by an equally unlikely cast of friends and foes in a caper with more subplots and si...more No offense, but you have the look of a private gumshoe, or do I mean gumsandal.

— Overheard directed at Larry "Doc" Sportello, PI, at a seedy Vegas casino

On one level, Inherent Vice is a classic noir, featuring the standard litany of players and patsies in a kidnapping case gone awry. On another level, it's anything but your typical hardboiler, featuring a bumbling pothead detective in its leading role, supported by an equally unlikely cast of friends and foes in a caper with more subplots and sidetracks than actual story. On still another level, it probably really is "Entertainment of a High Order", as TIME so prosaically proclaims, as if this were Pynchon's highest aim with this book — to "entertain" us. I don't know. Maybe like most writers, he's just a guy who likes the sound of his own voice, and somehow he's conned the rest of us into paying good money for the privilege of listening to him ramble on.

There are hints of Fear and Loathing peppered throughout, lamenting the (failed?) experiment of the sixties, with much of the plot firmly couched in the ominous social and political implications circa 1970. Crooked land developers, the LAPD, and organized crime outfits vie for control of the psychic/geographic landscape, surf music has begun to suffer from the same corporate zombification as other rock genres, and the advent of ARPAnet heralds the rise of depersonalized consumer culture, goodreads.com, and the omnipresent surveillance state. Inherent vice, indeed...

I'm given to understand that this isn't Pynchon's finest work, but having only The Crying of Lot 49 to compare it to, it's tough for me to say. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if a writer can keep it up for half a century without their craft going all to shit, then there's really not much else we can ask of them as readers, even if their twilight offerings just aren't the same. I'm reminded of Robbins's Villa Incognito, or Bukowski's Pulp, both great books and both of them written quite late in their respective author's careers. Neither novel has been optioned for film rights yet, at least as far as I know, but maybe the upcoming film adaptation of Inherent Vice will help to elevate it in the public eye — no way it could be worse than Vant Sant's treatment of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, right? But now I'm rambling almost as much as Pynchon does, or at least as much as I'm prone to do in my own books. Arthur out.(less)

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Feb 19, 2013 Madeleine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, our-libeary, reread-and-reread-and-reread, richard-python, mmxiii

When I first read "Inherent Vice," my Pynchon intake was woefully scant. I also read it in little bits and spurts over the span of a few months -- oh, and somewhere in all that, I got married. And was working two jobs. And had no idea that the undeservedly derisive "Pynchon Light" just means it requires still frantic but slightly less infrequent consultation of a dictionary and only one additional reference material (once again, my brain would like to thank the Pynchon Wiki for its meticulous, i...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Jenn(ifer) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cross-continental-book-club, gr-group-coreads, giggles, read-in-2013

3.5/5 stars -- rounded up because I'm feeling generous.This isn't Tommy P at his best, but it is Tommy P at his most accessible.

'Inherent Vice' is good for a laugh, but sorta like that last time I smoked pot, I doubt I'll remember much about it tomorrow. It was a fun experience -- I giggled, I zoned out, got a little paranoid... hey, I think I might have even gotten a case of the munchies. Yeah, man. I sat on my sofa, ate a bag of Doritos, a pint of ice cream, a box of cookies and 6 slices of p...more

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Mar 28, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Disclaimer: at no time was the reviewer stoned, tweaked, inebriated or involved in any felony endeavors during the reading of this book.

I have read other people referring to this as "Pynchon Lite" which reminds me of food off the vegetarian menu. I haven't read enough Pynchon to be an authority on whether this is medium well Pynchon or medium rare. The only other Thomas Pynchon I've ever read is Gravity's Rainbow, but I will say there is certainly plenty of meat on the bone in Inherent Vice.

"Le...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Mariel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: box-cutter slow dance

Recommended to Mariel by: voyeur hawk him out of his hinges

"Cop killer, better you than me
Cop killer, fuck police brutality
Cop killer, I know your family's grievin'
(Fuck 'em)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even." Once rapped Law & Order: SVU's Ice-T.

Inherent Vice is the thing inside of you that you can't avoid, your inability to resist your own self destruction. I'm gonna consider it a self medication of the void with the therapy resembling (they could be sisters) chemo that kills you as it takes care of you because while I wasn't ever a moth in the...more "Cop killer, better you than me
Cop killer, fuck police brutality
Cop killer, I know your family's grievin'
(Fuck 'em)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even." Once rapped Law & Order: SVU's Ice-T.

Inherent Vice is the thing inside of you that you can't avoid, your inability to resist your own self destruction. I'm gonna consider it a self medication of the void with the therapy resembling (they could be sisters) chemo that kills you as it takes care of you because while I wasn't ever a moth in the flame of drugs or drink, I have lost my life, skidded my own heels, to my own voice of escapism. I've lost time to self induced unreality, if reality is getting out of bed every day and not sleeping in your clothes. How does that story go... It probably isn't good that there's a check list of rock bottom that I could nod my head to of giving myself over to longed for unlasting highs. I could stand in the path of impending doom and not move. Inherent Vice is stepping outside of your own hell trip to watch yourself not move. You could avoid it, if you didn't kiss the boo boo away with a face altering punch. There's no some kind of poetic justice, no keeping score or even. It's turns. One character utters something similar to the "Choose life" speech from Trainspotting. Get a day job, hit the time card. Talk, talk talk (too fast) about how we all share this life. They don't share it. Look away, it's not you, this time. Look at your neighbors in the eyes. Charlie Manson and his girls have switched the lights on the calendar (probably a Far Side calendar with bits to stick on your fridge when you go in to mindlessly eat). The first time it works, the second time less, the third the ghosts are eaten by Pac-men. The days step backwards into when it worked and it is dark side on the future. Your neighbors aren't meeting your eye. Come home from the war and "the freaks" are on the streets with their grand monologues. Everyone is a haircut. Change your hair, change your life they say. No soap boxes or a bath, please. Don't meet each other's eyes. Who has time for junkies? I have a feeling that I have written about mirrors and eye-meeting in my reviews fairly often. It speaks to my loneliness in the dreams. That's the feeling I had about all of these counter cultures. When do they all touch? All of these inherent vices running around in all of these people who are running around trying not to think about what it is they are trying to cover up. No one has time for anyone else. It is after Charles Manson getting down on his knees to look you straight in the eye because you are on your knees (where your vice will inevitably tell you to go) but did anyone really have time for anyone else? Hope you still have days when it still works.

Private Investigator stories have historically been my least favorite kind of story. I shouldn't say "favorite" at all because that implies any kind of preference. I actually have always really hated them. It's the posturing, the easy slide in of a rigid persona. A man's manly man. A "Hey, why not?" like if you spoke in the ill at ease slang of a few years past. Grooving in the broken record in the far out time. Hey, it's the 1960s, man. It's a Hey, why not? existence like a pick up line of they were there and that was that. I once had this boss that dropped in "Hey now, you're an all-star" pop lyrics (another time it was "Whoomp! There it is!"). The only response possible was "Please, don't". It wasn't him and it wasn't anyone. I couldn't put that period of time on any post card and wish anyone was there. I don't know this 1960s of lost hippie dream. I just thought that they weren't tied to the tracks of the war on drugs just yet. I know that Doc wanted to save Coy from the fate he won't step out of the way of for himself. Someone else tells him this. Of course someone else had to tell him this. The point isn't any of the people he meets in his career as a P.I. It isn't that Big Foot tells him he can tell the difference between being childish and child-like. It's that he can see himself not moving, that's all. The persona is kind of the point. A persona I'd do anything to avoid. Hey, why not? I hate the constant day dreaming. I wish the inherent vice wasn't there to medicate.

Hey, it's the 1960s. I wonder what it would have been like to have been welcomed open arms into long hair, free love, drug trips, banana leaves. Hey, I like the Bonzo Dog Band too. Could it have really been like that? I doubt it. The girls with their asses welcomingly pointed outwards, their tiny t-shirts. One of my recent reads was William Gaddis' J R. There's a scene in Inherent Vice of discussing the finger points of a set of nudie photographs. Dream girls who feel heat. I liked the J R scene better. It felt like the difference between watching strangers and making up what you think they might be saying. It at least comes out of you, it's really your own conversation. Turn the sound down and dream. The nude girls in Inherent Vice reminded me of watching porn and feeling ridiculous over the facial expressions the tanned guy with the lily white ass makes as he pounds away into the loudly exalting girl (with a tan to match). Someone else made up the conversation for you and it wasn't a good one. Have you seen a super hot girl who goes into jail for prostitution to get drug money? She does not stay a hot girl. I kind of felt like I was in a Murakami nightmare of what a great fantasy it is to be a prostitute. I could see the Chinese pimps acupuncturing Shasta like a pin cushion. Not pretty. No one gets murdered. They don't lose their teeth or arms. I guess that's the point of look away and hope it lasts longer for your own turn before it's their turn for the high to work and YOUR turn to die or end up in prison.

Oh yeah, I always hated the statuesque blonde shit in those hard-boiled noirs. Pin-ups against doorways. Smoke rings and lip stick calling cards. Cinderella's shoe could fit on any foot for how interchangeable they are to me. I liked that this P.I. Doc falls in love with everyone he meets. That would be a neat trick to manage. I'm terrified of heart break. I don't fall in love and don't linger in the pleasant feelings of crushes in case they'll lead to those hunger pains. I was envious of Doc who could be mildly lovelorn over one girl pining away for her homosexual ex con to fuck her up the ass. If only they loved me... Doc himself feels a directionless pang in his rectum for... something. It's his talent to be all possibilities and Hey, why not? to anyone that comes his way. That's the best when you can be vaguely lurid without anyone in particular in mind. No possibility of rejection. That's what I hated about these noirs of the stud that always gets the girl, though. It ruins it to get off. The ache of loneliness is no stronger than hunger before fast food. Prosecutors are all too willing to give Doc a blow job and a fuck (or two, or three). So he can affect about this girl of his dreams always wanting some other dude. His ex runs out on him on another guy. It's all spank me and sex fantasies and everyone pretending that everyone is someone else. But when everyone IS everyone else, always putting on a role?

I liked Inherent Vice enough. Basically, it was okay. When I finished it I had the feeling that if I had never read it I wouldn't have missed anything. It's entertaining... It's actually pretty lonely feeling to wise crack and cover up feelings. I'm going to need a cure. I guess I didn't say anything about the humor until now. Have you seen the first episode in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The one Buffy runs away to Los Angeles and the parts with Buffy are same old brilliant Buffy and the parts of her friends back in Sunnydale trying to carry on without her is a weight on your escapism cure. It's a story without its protagonist, without a driving force. Willow and Xander the sidekicks try to pun their way into vampire slayage. The punchline sound in the forest doesn't happen with the one undead and the wannabes to hear it. Inherent Vice is a lot of lives without their protagonists. The punch lines don't really make me laugh but more nod along "that's cute" like when Xander and Willow try to be smart asses. My inherent vice is sick of trying to entertain itself. Hey, what's the difference between being childish and child-like? So this guy Doc lives in this world when no one knows anyone and they all hope it's not their turn. He has this motif of that thing if you save someone's life you are responsible for it? People keep telling him that he saved their lives. No one saves Doc. What you're left with in the inherent vice. I kinda wish I could have pushed past the ironical cutesy stuff some and not wait to fall in love with the NEXT person who came along. And the next one. I know what their world looks like now. I don't mean to hate on what wasn't a bad book... but the P.I. moving throughout these groups of people... And this time and place... Well, it all happened and it was a whole lot of people happening at the same time. It hasn't changed. The feeling that I really had more than anything else was when Shasta doesn't even want to think about Coy. He's a junkie and she's trying to live the passed glory. She's trying to be a pin-up on a door that's shutting. Doc does to avoid thinking about himself. If that is what all of these people are doing... Well, it kind of annoys me to be all far out and groovy and hey, why not P.I. posturing and everyone is doing it counter culture. What is the inherent vice covering up? There's a hive mind in here some where and what happens when one of them gets sick? I had the feeling out of this entertaining book about something sick, about time past and getting even and the past and Charles Manson and the war on drugs and cops and pigs and hippies and freaks and for me it is going to be fun while it lasts. Please, no more.
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Jan 24, 2012 Bennet rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels-stories

I have always admired Pynchon, and believed if given a chance I could adore him.

I had a borderline religious experience reading a screaming comes across the sky and commencing the literary acid trip of Gravity’s Rainbow through a hyper-landscape of world war frantic with crazed characters going batshit with epiphanies and neuroses and rage in the most psychedelic and encyclopedic of postmodern modes, Pynchon’s . . . this is not a disentanglement from but a progressive knotting into . . . as he...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Eddie Watkins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Is this Pynchon investigating (& turning a critical eye upon) his own infatuation with the “dream of the ‘60’s”? Spying on himself?

Besides the convoluted crime plot which never lets up, delivering the goods time after time, what’s of primary interest here is how people change, how they wholeheartedly believe one thing one day and how over time that belief is turned on its head and their lives and beliefs become the antitheses of what they were when they were younger. What is the process invo...more Is this Pynchon investigating (& turning a critical eye upon) his own infatuation with the “dream of the ‘60’s”? Spying on himself?

Besides the convoluted crime plot which never lets up, delivering the goods time after time, what’s of primary interest here is how people change, how they wholeheartedly believe one thing one day and how over time that belief is turned on its head and their lives and beliefs become the antitheses of what they were when they were younger. What is the process involved here? This is what Pynchon wants to know, and though he typically foists the responsibility onto soulless authority figures who have their own occult reprogramming methods, he never does find out the deeper, more personal (even biological), reasons. It’s just what happens, though he doesn’t want to accept this. The only alternative for the individual of integrity is to remain on the fringes and resist that change.

Doc Sportello, PI, plays that role in Inherent Vice even as he's investigating why all the changes are happening. He’s an amiable guy, content to drift and flow along with herbal assistance, but he’s also a shadowy figure, a kind of transitional figure working both sides, as he makes his living by working for unscrupulous people; and late in the book an ex calls him on this very fact, and it hits him hard. But how can he get out? Deep down he knows how much he resembles the very cop who is his nemesis. What a bind!

Doc reminded me a little of Ghost Dog (from the Jarmusch movie) - gentle to the core, even sweet, but capable of violence. There’s a great scene late in the book where Doc, grateful that he’s not too stoned, engages in his own version of Samurai warrior violence – flowing with a deadly flow – to kill a thoroughly repugnant individual. This single moment of violence surprised me and added a depth to the character, an intensity that seemed absent until then.

I only detected a little reverberative cultural relevance to the contemporary world. One was a primitive computer network that Doc consults from time to time with the assistance of a friend. This was an early manifestation of the internet, so it allows Pynchon a few openings to insert anti-web barbs – how the knowledgeable individual will be expendable, how all the info only adds up to a big hollowness, and of course how nobody will be able to hide. But then at the end of the book, in a very lovely concluding passage in a dense California fog, as a convoy of strangers in cars help each other make a safe passage on difficult roads, he speculates that in the future of instant communication and info retrieval these strangers would connect with each other as it’s happening, and would even instantly organize annual reunions to commemorate their moment of brotherhood. I suspect he’s being at least partly ironic in his praises, and lamenting the loss of anonymity in such situations, but there’s also a concession to the real bonding that can occur between strangers with the help of the internet and the proliferation of social networking tools.

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Jun 17, 2012 Adam rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Dec 29, 2010 oriana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to oriana by: R. M.

Shelves: read-2010

(btw, I have an extra copy of this, in hardcover, in case anyone's looking for a swap.)

***

Bought myself a little birthday present, since this is finally out in paperback.

Now I just have to get through Fables, Master & Margarita, and Gospel of Anarchy and then, oh Pynchon, we will rekindle our torrid love affair...

***

Ah, well. Pynchon, I love you, but this was an odd one. Definitely in the quick-and-dirty tradition of Vineland, as opposed to the sprawling and stunning force of Gravity's Rainb...more

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Dec 13, 2011 Nathan Roberson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Pynchon fans, post-modern fans

There is one thing I've noticed again and again when people bring up Inherent Vice, the latest from American literary master Thomas Pynchon. Pynchon is usually not a beach read, nor a New York Times bestseller, but many people seem to think that Inherent Vice could be his first novel to fall into these categories. It is not.

The prose of Inherent Vice is certainly not the usual style of Pynchon. It is very direct and succinct for the most part. You will come across a sentence every now and then t...more There is one thing I've noticed again and again when people bring up Inherent Vice, the latest from American literary master Thomas Pynchon. Pynchon is usually not a beach read, nor a New York Times bestseller, but many people seem to think that Inherent Vice could be his first novel to fall into these categories. It is not.

The prose of Inherent Vice is certainly not the usual style of Pynchon. It is very direct and succinct for the most part. You will come across a sentence every now and then that recalls the Pynchon of . . . of just about all his previous work. The thing to keep in mind is that this is not a serious work. Pynchon is having fun parodying the detective novel. Most of it is quick and witty.

While there are plenty of allusions to be found within this novel, (as with any Pynchon novel) most are pretty tame compared with the impossibly obscure references in Gravity's Rainbow. Pynchon continues his more recent practice of listing the year a referenced film was made. This is to distinguish from real films and films only existing in the Pynchonverse. Quite handy.

On the other hand, Pynchon makes several allusions to his previous works. These allusions are not crucial to the story, but in a satirical novel such as this they do provide some added humor. Pynchon fans such as myself should find several points throughout the novel that seem like a Valentine to the devotees.

As for the story, what's not to love? Pynchon is a master of characterizing the low-life, the deadbeat, the addicted, the pothead, etc. The lead character, Doc Sportello, as well as the rest of the misfit cast, mix easily with the usual paranoid plot that Pynchon writes so well. If you've read The Crying of Lot 49, then expect the same pacing from this novel. You'll be dying to get further to unravel the conspiracy at hand.

So I ask of my fellow Pynchon fans, do not replace Lot 49 with Inherent Vice as the first Pynchon recommendation. While the story is enticing and the prose speedy, Inherent Vice is for those already initiated. It seems as though Pynchon is looking back on his life and career, and he's having a good laugh.
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Dec 17, 2012 Jason added it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2009

This is Pynchon at his easiest. The blip of The Crying of Lot 49 is no longer the easiest to delve into (which is good, because it's also the easiest to set aside). The summary is simple. This is a detective story, about a PI, Doc Sportello, who happens to be a stoner in 1970 and instead of a Philip Marlowe tough-guy act, well, he's a hippie. The plot begins with a visit from his "ex-old lady" and swiftly kicks into gear with murder, kidnapping, a tussle with his arch-rival Bigfoot Bjornson, the...more

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May 01, 2013 Cody rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I first heard about this author Thomas Pynchon I was intrigued first off by his name. I thought what a funny sounding name. I remember exactly when I first caught a glimpse of a Pynchon novel. My brother and I had gone to our public library, and rented a copy of Gravity's Rainbow. This old beaten down copy, probably the first paperback edition, had a rocket ascending with a rainbow trailing under it (flames) against a gold backdrop.

The first reports I heard about Pynchon's latest book enti...more When I first heard about this author Thomas Pynchon I was intrigued first off by his name. I thought what a funny sounding name. I remember exactly when I first caught a glimpse of a Pynchon novel. My brother and I had gone to our public library, and rented a copy of Gravity's Rainbow. This old beaten down copy, probably the first paperback edition, had a rocket ascending with a rainbow trailing under it (flames) against a gold backdrop.

The first reports I heard about Pynchon's latest book entitled "Inherent Vice" I was interested but didn't think I would someday read it. My brother got ahold of a copy I think the day it came out. Then we went on vacation to Virginia Beach. He was reading it on the way down and finished, I believe, once we were about to leave. Cut to the next year, about summer of 2010 I picked up a hardback copy of the novel at a Half Price Books bookstore. I was a little afraid to, but its because my brother told me that Pynchon can be difficult. But I went ahead and bought it anyway. I began reading it a couple days later. When I started I was immediately interested. I found the characters to be like anybody you might've known in high school who were there in the school's conscience, but not worthy of talking to or hanging with.

Doc Sportello our groovy hero with a humble attitude faces a deranged police officer, an ex-girlfriend, a missing real-estate mogul, the murder of Glen Charlock, and a mysterious vessel called "The Golden Fang." All set in Gordia Beach, California, around the Los Angeles area in 1969, all through a haze of pot smoking.

Once I finished the novel I was baffled of what to think. I was entertained, and loved the plot and characters, but there was something else that I was feeling. I felt that I was told a good history story. That all this had happened. And of course this was my fist time reading a Pynchon Novel so i had to really think about what I just read and begin to dissect it. This book is probably one of my favorite books I've ever read. With Pynchon's imagination, and right on the money dialogue, and fantastic humor, you will not be bored with this novel. As one reviewer of this novel called it "Pynchon lite..." and I agree. I tell any of my friends who are interested in reading Pynchon for the first time I say, "start with Inherent Vice so you can be properly introduced to Mr. Pynchon himself."(less)

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Apr 24, 2013 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: l-a

Beach noir! Fun to see my hometown neighborhoods through the dark, skewed. and screwy vision of Thomas Pynchon. Surfers/dopers, stewardii, corrupt cops, the Fractured Cow, the late lamented Either / Or Book Store (probably the best bookstore ever in the history of the world), El Tarasco mexican food. And the writing. OMG the prose-- too wonderful.

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Aug 06, 2012 Xavier rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literatura-norteamericana

Tercer libro de Pynchon en mi recorrido. Pensemos en una novela negra atravesada por la psicodelia de finales de los 60s, drogas, tensiones políticas, playas californianas y surfistas, todo esto envuelto en la clásica paranoia conspirativa de Pynchon y obtendremos Vicio Propio. La primera particularidad que se encontrará quien se ha enfrentado a libros anteriores de Pynhchon radica en el hecho de que a diferencia de obras como La Subasta del Lote 49 o El Arco Iris de Gravedad, no hay que esperar...more Tercer libro de Pynchon en mi recorrido. Pensemos en una novela negra atravesada por la psicodelia de finales de los 60s, drogas, tensiones políticas, playas californianas y surfistas, todo esto envuelto en la clásica paranoia conspirativa de Pynchon y obtendremos Vicio Propio. La primera particularidad que se encontrará quien se ha enfrentado a libros anteriores de Pynhchon radica en el hecho de que a diferencia de obras como La Subasta del Lote 49 o El Arco Iris de Gravedad, no hay que esperar a sintonizar la particular "Frecuencia Pynchon" para desde allí avanzar con facilidad en la lectura. En Vicio Propio Pynchon releva al lector de esta obligación (aunque se podría decir que este estilo es lo que hace única a su narrativa)por lo que la lectura no presenta mayores problemas para avanzar y felizmente no decae en ningún momento gracias a las dosis de humor y referencias culturales que se despliegan por todo el texto.

Hay dos formas de leer este libro a partir de Doc Sportello, el detective hippie y pothead que es nuestro personaje principal. La primera es preparar un viaje por una playa hippie, llevar el libro de Pynchon, un cargamento de marihuana y un playlist con el soundtrack de Vicio Propio. Quizás esta sea la forma mas cercana de entender la narración desde Doc Sportello y verse atrapado entre las fuerzas que habitan California en 1970. Puede que no se llegue a comprender mucho de la conspiración existente en el libro pero se la enfrentará con la autenticidad de Doc al tomarse sin muchos problemas los sucesos venideros en la historia. La segunda forma de leer Vicio Propio es más oscura y conlleva el entendimiento del contexto subyacente en la trama y la transición de una época hacia otra. Nixon en la presidencia, Reagan como gobernador de California, corrupción dentro de la policía, tráfico de drogas duras, violencia, armas y un fortalecimiento de la derecha política que extiende sus redes de forma imparable sobre los restos de la generación de la década anterior.

De cierta manera Vicio Propio trata sobre eso, sobre el fin de una época y el desmoronamiento de las utopías formadas entonces, donde las fuerzas que recorren la sociedad existente se vuelven determinantes en las elecciones que toman los individuos, destapando la realidad en su crudeza.

¿Como actuaría John Garfield en esta situación?(less)

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Sep 08, 2011 Gregory Rothbard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Shelley Winters

Thomas Pynchon is a writer who compels the reader to work hard through his books to find a gem at the end of his rainbow. If you want something easy Mr. Pynchon probably is not your cup of tea. But if you are willing to be submerged in a new experience Pynchon is your guide.

Here Pynchon, our rough guide, takes us to the Los Angeles neighborhood that surrounds LAX. The time is 1969, and the mood is hazy. Our government has us involved in a never ending war with a place called Vietnam. The economy...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Noah Gittell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My introduction to Pynchon. I have always been intimidated by Pynchon because of his reputation of being a difficult read. "Inherent Vice" is known as his most accessible, and that reputation was right on target. Pynchon has a lot of fun with this one. It's a detective novel set in 1970 Los Angeles, a place and time I had never really seen represented in fiction before. The only other work that springs to mind is Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," so maybe it's no surprise th...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Paul Baker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-literature

I am not a huge fan of Thomas Pynchon, but I have a friend who is quite devoted. Prior to this book, I had only read Gravity's Rainbow. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but was not motivated to read other books by Pynchon. However, earlier this year, my friend loaned me his copy of Inherent Vice, explaining that it was like Raymond Chandler on acid and I couldn't resist giving it a try. Later, reading the review from The New Yorker, which extensively quotes Raymond Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of M...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Colin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Pynchon fans, or people who are looking for a truly off-kilter book to spend quality time with

Shelves: four-star

If you're a Pynchon fan and somehow have neglected to pick this book up, you might be in for a bit of a surprise when you inevitably get around to it. Likewise, if you've managed to keep clear of Pynchon due to his well-earned reputation for writing difficult books, you'll probably be in for quite a surprise if you can be coaxed into giving Inherent Vice a try. And if you've tried Pynchon before and then promptly swore to never, ever try him again, well... You're just out of luck, I suppose.

Here...more If you're a Pynchon fan and somehow have neglected to pick this book up, you might be in for a bit of a surprise when you inevitably get around to it. Likewise, if you've managed to keep clear of Pynchon due to his well-earned reputation for writing difficult books, you'll probably be in for quite a surprise if you can be coaxed into giving Inherent Vice a try. And if you've tried Pynchon before and then promptly swore to never, ever try him again, well... You're just out of luck, I suppose.

Here's the deal: Inherent Vice is not in the least bit a difficult book to read. It's a little convoluted, sure, and for those who can only take so many stoned hippies, criminals, and surfers in one book, it could prove to be something of a test of endurance. But really, somehow Pynchon has written a book that's still indisputably a Pynchon novel without bogging it down in all of his usual literary detours. I suppose one could argue that Pynchon isn't Pynchon without his tangents--but there's enough off-kilter and delightfully weird and warped passages throughout the novel that all but the most stridently fundamentalist of Pynchon purists should be kept quite happy.

Inherent Vice concerns itself with the misadventures of hippie gumshoe Doc Sportello, who early in the novel is hired by his ex girlfriend to investigate what she fears is a plot to lock her current lover, a married real-estate mogul by the name of Mickey Wolfmann, away in a mental institution. Not long afterward, Sportello is tasked by two unrelated clients to locate one of Mickey's bodyguards who seems to have gone missing and to track the whereabouts of a dead rock and roller, whom the client insists is actually alive. Inherent Vice being a detective yarn, these disparate threads eventually connect, drawing in other threads while spawning new ones--this also being a Pynchon novel on top of being a detective yarn,a veritable army of quirky characters insert themselves into the plot by seemingly whatever method they have at their disposal, then proceed to do their best to derail the novel. Most of them are stoners or psychopaths, and with them come rampant disillusions, delusions, hallucinations, conspiracy theories, and an incomprehensible amount of drugs.

If it all sounds like a bit much, well, that's the joy of a Pynchon novel--the man just doesn't know when to stop, nor would anyone in their right (wrong?) mind really want him to. That Inherent Vice is actually quite easily comprehensible, moves forward without the troublesome starts and stops present in so much of Pynchon's other works, and actually works to develop interesting characters in a genre over-run with mediocrity is all something of a miracle, a miracle of that special variety that only a national treasure like Pynchon could bring to fruition.

To be perfectly honest though, the best thing about this book is that it's another Pynchon novel. I know that I wasn't alone in worrying that Against the Day would be Pynchon's last--the man is getting on in years and he isn't exactly known for maintaining a speedy or even a regular output of work. Yet, only three years after Against the Day's release, here it is. No, it doesn't rise to the same heights as Gravity's Rainbow, and yes, it does lack a lot of that post-modern insanity that made so much of his early work memorable, but still. New Pynchon, accessible Pynchon, funny and beautiful Pynchon--I've got nothing to complain about.

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Oct 30, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Caveat: I read this while recovering from oral surgery, doped out on codeine. So I was probably easier on it than I would otherwise be.

Most people probably know by now that this is 'Pynchon-lite' or some such thing. It was reviewed in Entertainment Weekly, for god's sake. And, in my addled state, I decided this is a good thing. Like Pynchon was bridging the gap between himself circa Gravity's Rainbow and television cop shows. This is good because with IV you get what you get from the better cop...more Caveat: I read this while recovering from oral surgery, doped out on codeine. So I was probably easier on it than I would otherwise be.

Most people probably know by now that this is 'Pynchon-lite' or some such thing. It was reviewed in Entertainment Weekly, for god's sake. And, in my addled state, I decided this is a good thing. Like Pynchon was bridging the gap between himself circa Gravity's Rainbow and television cop shows. This is good because with IV you get what you get from the better cop shows - a few laughs, tension and mystery - with what you get from the better novels - a filtering of the world through one story, although the boundaries around the 'one' story here are pretty fuzzy.

I don't think that it's a parody of private investigator books, or at least there's no evidence of that. In fact, far from broad comedy, it's quite moving. Anyone who's ever been part of any counter-culture and thought about that counter-culture will recognize their thoughts in this book. The Big Bad Copper turns out to be as put upon and oppressed as the Righteous Hippie. The familiar point being: the counter-culture, and those fighting it, are always just flies on the ass of the elephant that is capitalism. The great thing about Inherent Vice is that it dramatizes this fact.

Good old Hippy Doc comes to see that he's much the same as the Cop, and that neither of them are even remotely close to being the Man, who (hilariously) lives in a gated community inside another gated community. The Cop might live a bit closer to this center of power, but there are just as many gates between him and the Man as there are between the Hippy and the Man. Everything outside that larger gated community counts the same: for nothing. In this book, unlike a lot of similar books from the last 50 years, the paranoia turns out to be dead-on, the conspiracy really is there. But it doesn't give a shit about you, it's not trying to keep you down. It doesn't have to, because, as the final interview between Doc and the Man makes clear, you need the conspiracy to survive. Depressing. The novel's not as depressing as this makes it seem though. I think. The ending's not exactly definitive either way.

ps: Given this impressively drawn picture of the world, I'm glad I didn't read the Bookforum review before the novel. The reviewer seems to think the whole book is about how we can't know anything, how memory is unreliable, and how people have stopped reading. There really are bigger fish to fry. If only literary critics would wake up to the smell. (less)

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Aug 16, 2009 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

After six novels spanning a literary career of about forty-seven years, Thomas Pynchon has become less and less obscure. Not so much in the sense of his persona as a writer; that will always remain ambiguous, and it is irrelevant to the books that he writes, as William Gaddis would argue. It is rather what makes a Thomas Pynchon novel so great, that has become more apparent. Which is also why his latest, a "part- noir, part- psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon —" in which "private eye Doc Sport...more

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Sep 14, 2009 Isaiah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Largely ineffectual trifle that looks to be cobbled together from a combination of Wikipedia and Lester Bangs/Mickey Spillane Cliff's Notes (are either one of them still alive and using Wikipedia regularly?), this book reveals what happens when a 70 year old shut-in tries his hand at nerd schlock and instead churns out an aimless, tedious, meandering rewrite of the Big Lebowski without any of the wit. There's not a chance in hell a guy who wasn't named "Thomas Pynchon" could even get a book like...more

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Aug 16, 2009 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Extraordinarily entertaining novel of a pot-head detective in LA ca. 1971. It’s part Raymond Chandler, part Cheech and Chong and all TRP.

I think you just have to read it to know. It's not particularly nostalgic unless you were there. There are lots of characters with odd names, a complex plot with many digressions. There’s not a lot of serious arcana unless you missed the ‘60s for some reason. There are a lot of subtle and not so subtle allusions Pynchon’s prior works. It’s a very fun read. Def...more

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Oct 22, 2009 Gus Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pynchon's first stab at "genre" fiction is a rowdy, rollicking romp through the classic detective noir genre. While it's certainly missing a lot of Pynchon's trademark existentialist mischief, Pynchon proves he's adept at writing a pretty good detective novel; Pynchon does a terrific job of mimicking novelists like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and Inherent Vice captures the pace and twists and turns of a work like The Big Sleep.

Inherent Vice can be best described as The Maltese Falcon...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Gloriagloom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: americani

Quasi con senso di sollievo i vari esegeti della narrativa fast food hanno salutato l'ultimo Pynchon come il più accessibile, semplice, leggibile dei suoi libri, come se complessità sia una parolaccia, una rose tatoo, una categoria da cui liberarsi con fastidio in questi tempi di semplificazione coatta, e quindi, sede migliore non poteva che essere la collana Stile Libero dell'Einaudi dove vendere un tanto al chilo uno degli ultimi scrittori di un certo peso senza neppure prendersi la briga di m...more Quasi con senso di sollievo i vari esegeti della narrativa fast food hanno salutato l'ultimo Pynchon come il più accessibile, semplice, leggibile dei suoi libri, come se complessità sia una parolaccia, una rose tatoo, una categoria da cui liberarsi con fastidio in questi tempi di semplificazione coatta, e quindi, sede migliore non poteva che essere la collana Stile Libero dell'Einaudi dove vendere un tanto al chilo uno degli ultimi scrittori di un certo peso senza neppure prendersi la briga di metter su una veste editoriale un minimo decente, una qualche notarella sparsa, fino al ridicolo della nota biografica finale dove vengono tranquillamente ignorati i suoi titoli più importanti perchè pubblicati da altre case editrici (oramai all'Einaudi, con la memoria storica, anche se di una cosa così futile come la letteratura, si son fatti più realisti del re, del loro re e padrone)
E' uno strano oggetto Vizio di forma, ambiguo e sfuggente come il suo Autore. Assolutamente indigeribile per l'incauto acquirente che poco mastica il mondo di Pynchon, e non per un problema di leggibilità ,tutti i canoni Aristotelici di unità vengono qui rispettati per la prima volta dal beffardo vecchietto - quanto per una impossibiltà di definirlo all'interno di un genere. Pynchon si diverte a smontare pezzo per pezzo il genere noir, riducendolo a un giocattoletto rotto di cui s'intravede la debolezza dei meccanismi in mezzo alle molle balzate fuori, mischiando gli stili letterari dei vari santoni - Crumley, Lansdale - , creando intrecci complicatissimi degni di Chandler, -talmente complicati da incartarsi a ogni piè sospinto - ma trasportando il tutto in una lingua di terra, di spiaggia losangelina, sul finire degli anni '60, a cavallo tra il tramonto delle utopie libertarie e l'alba minacciosa di Manson e Nixon, e affidando il ruolo guida al più improbabile degli investigatori e al più rilucente dei personaggi letterari , tal Doc Sportello, che ha fatto dell'inadeguatezza, dell'erba e del caso la sua prassi investigativa. Si naviga a vista tra donne fatali, poliziotti corroti, oscure band di surf music, programmi televisivi dimenticati, b movie, gruppi di rinascita ariana, sesso, droga e rock'n' roll. Effetti primari e secondari del thc permeano completamente la struttura e la lettura del libro, come se una piccola sfocatura sempiterna allignasse tra le pagine. Va letto con occhiali magici appoggiati sul naso: lettura da spiaggia, come ebbe a definirlo lapidariamente l'autore stesso, ma da spiaggia venusiana che si affaccia sul mare della poca tranquillità.
Come sempre per godere appieno la lettura di Pynchon, anche qui piena di rimandi, giochi e citazioni nascoste, è obbligatorio l'uso dell'impagabile Pynchon Wiky, http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/... -, con le annotazioni certosine a ogni singolo capitolo.
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May 05, 2013 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've gotten several recommendations to read Pynchon in the past, and I finally checked out 2009's Inherent Vice when I found out P.T. Anderson and Joaquin Phoenix were teaming up to bring it to life on screen. I'm hoping this is one of those examples of a so-so book getting adapted into a great movie.

The book has three characters that I genuinely enjoy, one of them being aging P.I. stoner Doc Sportello, who at his best creates laugh out loud moments in the vein of Hunter S. Thompson or Jeff "Th...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, literary

A Silly Detective Story

Pynchon, Thomas (2009). Inherent Vice. New York: Penguin Press.

This is a lighthearted detective story, with the PI, Doc Sportella, trying to solve a kidnap case. Doc is a late 60’s, early 70’s hippie who chain smokes joints as he romps through Los Angeles looking for clues. Inevitably, the police pick him up as a suspect, but fear not, in the end, all is well.

The story is mainstream but still recognizably Pynchonesque, with a cast of hundreds, most of them wacky, a convolu...more A Silly Detective Story

Pynchon, Thomas (2009). Inherent Vice. New York: Penguin Press.

This is a lighthearted detective story, with the PI, Doc Sportella, trying to solve a kidnap case. Doc is a late 60’s, early 70’s hippie who chain smokes joints as he romps through Los Angeles looking for clues. Inevitably, the police pick him up as a suspect, but fear not, in the end, all is well.

The story is mainstream but still recognizably Pynchonesque, with a cast of hundreds, most of them wacky, a convoluted plot that just barely hangs together, infused with a mood of paranoia. Characters have playful names that deliberately bump you out of the story, such as Riggs Warbling, Bigfoot Bjornsen, Puck Beaverton, Japonica Fenway, and my favorite, Vincent Indelicato.

That is consistent with the silly tone of the book overall. It is not a serious mystery, because not only is it hard to remember what’s going on and who’s who, but neither Doc nor any other character is well motivated or challenged (maybe that’s the marijuana thing), so the reader actually doesn’t care about the story or the characters. About the only thing keeping you turning the pages are the trenchant descriptions and the humorous, but not-believable dialog.

Doc, making his single allowed call to his lawyer from the jailhouse:

“All’s I get here’s a three-minute, call, Saunch, they’ve got me in Compton, and it’s Bigfoot again.”
“Yeah well, I’m watching cartoons here, okay? And this Donald Duck one is really freaking me out? …
“You have a pen, Saunch? Here’s the processing number, prepare to copy.”…
“It’s like Donald and Goofy, right, and they’re out in a life raft, adrift at sea? for what looks like weeks? and what you start noticing after a while, in Donald’s close-ups, is that he has this whisker stubble? like, growing out of his beak? You get the significance of that?"
“If I find a minute to think about it, Saunch, but meantime here comes Bigfoot and he’s got that look, so if you could repeat the number back, OK, and…”
“We’ve always had this image of Donald Duck, we assume it’s how he looks all the time in his normal life, but in fact he’s always had to go in every day and shave his beak. The way I figure, it has to be Daisy. You know, which means, what other grooming demands is that chick laying on him, right?”

This book is really about Thomas Pynchon. It is clever-funny, completely silly, and in the end, unsatisfying. (less)

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Mar 07, 2013 Eric rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice ‘Doc’ Sportello is a private investigator, who gets a visit from his old girlfriend Shasta, who wants to kidnap the wealthy Mickey Wolfman, probably so she can take his money. While Doc is trying to find out details about this idea, more and strange and sometimes humorous side characters keep coming into the story to the point thatthe book completely loses its plot. Witty comments seem to become the main focus of the story full of wit, drugs and lots of shagging...more In Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice ‘Doc’ Sportello is a private investigator, who gets a visit from his old girlfriend Shasta, who wants to kidnap the wealthy Mickey Wolfman, probably so she can take his money. While Doc is trying to find out details about this idea, more and strange and sometimes humorous side characters keep coming into the story to the point thatthe book completely loses its plot. Witty comments seem to become the main focus of the story full of wit, drugs and lots of shagging, but no plot.

I did not read this story, but listened to it on a series of twelve CD’s in which some yank, with this deep voice and accent, like the Casey Casey, had narrated this story that had been written in a stream ofconsciousness, full of characters that try to make these cool comments, full of American wit such as “...Like Godzilla said, let’s go and eat some place” or “Your house has been plundered? Wow, how did you notice??”, for at least 25 hours long.

I cannot imagine how a novelist, whom the cranky, eccentric,Yale critic Harold Bloom said was one of the best authors alive, and whom the Nobel and Booker prize Committee nominated, can manage to write so boring that I, a keen reader, shall even give up trying to listen to his whole novel twice,before deciding to finish it at the end. Disc nine even made me doze off twice,until I gave up on it and decided to move on to disc ten in order to get to eleven and twelve.I also remember long hours of breathing a sigh of relief whenever there was apause, when thinking it is the end of the story, only to find out that thenarrator was only taking a breath before reading the rest of Pynchon’s drivel.

The problem with Pynchon is that he thought that hiding away from publicity may make people not judge his work by his personality, which had the opposite effect than it was supposed to, since it is his apparently reclusive attitude that not only fascinates reporters, and critics, but potential readers like me, who, despite not trusting the public opinion a lot,still obviously trust it too much.

The clever wit, dialogues, and creative way that the story was told show that Pynchon is very intelligent, but that matters very little if a writer just writes stories to brag about this brilliance. Pynchon’s book put me off reading Tom Wolf’s , The Electric-Kool Aid Acid Test, because Wolf’sbook sounds very similar to Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, in its style and drug addicted, eccentric, sex-obsessed characters, that also impressed the eightyone year old Harold Bloom, for some reason. Bloom is a prude who loves books written by prudes about hippies.

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Mar 03, 2013 Kirstie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thomas Pynchon is insanely talented but this isn't one of his best works. It's probably one of the easiest ones to follow in terms of plot (though this is relative to his other volumes, not the total canon of all literature ever published or anything) It's set in the late 60s in California and sometimes I wonder if, given the fact that Pynchon is a famous recluse, he's just used to recalling this time period most vividly if he was actually experiencing life amongst other people more frequently....more Thomas Pynchon is insanely talented but this isn't one of his best works. It's probably one of the easiest ones to follow in terms of plot (though this is relative to his other volumes, not the total canon of all literature ever published or anything) It's set in the late 60s in California and sometimes I wonder if, given the fact that Pynchon is a famous recluse, he's just used to recalling this time period most vividly if he was actually experiencing life amongst other people more frequently. One can't be sure but there seems to be little in the way of point in this novel for me. What's the over-arching take away? The reason behind this work? It seems more like an adventure of a hippie-druggie detective who has just enough brain cells left to make a few discoveries without killing himself along the way.

The plot is complex involving real estate tycoons, famous cops who are well known actors (again, this is California), people of various socioeconomics who have preferred drugs of choice and seem so loyal to these drugs it's sad that they couldn't find something else to be so passionate about. You see rich housewives, failed actresses trying to get rich, the daughters of the incredibly wealthy, skinheads, surfer musicians, and everything in between...however, this is mainly a character study about Doc Sportello who should be a great deal more nervous about falling into traps when murders are being committed all around him. He takes things as they come and has this over arching it's all going to work out in the end type of sense to him instead.

Also, Pynchon still doesn't know how to write a sex scene. I feel I should re-iterate this. It makes me concerned for him that he's needed a woman to keep him comfort all these times to remember what it's like..well, at least to help him write about it. OR, more preferably, he could just stick to what he knows and leave the sex scenes out altogether. That would be my preference.

I'm not sure why PT Anderson felt this novel was so special he should do a film adaptation of it but, seeing as how I respect PT's work, I felt I should read this book to see. I admit I couldn't open the cover for so long because the cover itself made me extremely nauseous. In this case, it would have been okay to have judged the book by the cover. I think Pynchon still shows us an adventurous plot and an interesting character study but only read this one if you've read many of his others and can't get enough and also if you somehow want to read about California in the late 1960s...God knows there just isn't enough literature about that already. #sarcasm

Memorable quotes:

pg. 7 "In the real estate business, God knows, few of us are strangers to moral ambiguity. But some of these developers, they make Godzilla look like a conservationist..."

pg. 22 "Maybe it was all the exotic sensory input that caused Doc to then swoon abruptly and lose an unknown amount of his day."

pg. 132 "English zombies! look at them, man, American zombies are at least out front about it, tend to stagger when they try to walk anywhere, usually, in third ballet position, and they go, like 'Uunnhh...uunnhh' with that rising and falling tone, whereas English zombies are for the most part quite well spoken, they use long words and they glide everywhere, like, sometimes you don't even see them take steps, it's like they're on ice skates..."

pg. 171 "This was not a moment he'd been either dreading or hoping for, though now and then somebody would remind him of the ancient American Indian belief that if you save somebody's life, you are responsible for them from then on..."

pg. 334 "What goes around may come around, but it never ends up in exactly the same place, you ever notice? Like a record on a turntable, all it takes is one groove's difference and the universe can be into a whole 'nother song."

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