INHERENT VICE - Thomas Pynchon - Fiction

In 2001, TIME magazine named Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth the best American novelists of the century (or was it the best living American novelist, or the best "contemporary" American novelist? Something of that flavor) and I, being 13 at the time and skeptical but literarily promiscuous, decided to read more of them. I was already familiar with Roth from the likes of PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT and I MARRIED A COMMUNIST, but I hadn't come across Pynchon. (Perhaps the author's famously reclusive nature had something to do with it, but more likely, none of the places I was going for literary recommendations were apt to suggest V or MASON AND DIXON.) I started with THE CRYING OF LOT 49, and richly appreciated the entendre-laden character names, otherworldly plot contrivances (the shadow postal service!) and story-lines that dipped in and out of coherence, set among swarthy Californian climes. On a superficial level, Pynchon was obviously penning a send-up of the hardboiled detective novel, but as in every Pynchon novel, there were a skyscraper's worth of levels, and this was just one.

Even after the heady experiences of reading VINELAND and GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, I still think that THE CRYING OF LOT 49 is Pynchon's best novel, and in many ways INHERENT VICE revisits the same territory, with its private-eye central character, Doc Sportello, a missing real-estate mogul, a hippie band, a shadowy syndicate-type organization, and a crazy boutique doctor. (Notably, the novel's publicity is updated; Pynchon recorded the voice-over for a video introduction to the book [YouTube video here] in which he puts on a slight accent for his first-person narration as Doc Sportello himself.)

The plot is, as always, multi-threaded and fascinating despite indications that it is not trying too hard in the suspense bracket. Doc Sportello is an easy-going hippie, familiar with all sorts of illegal substances, but a sometime-accomplice of the local LAPD, and something closer to a frenemy to Bigfoot Bjornsen, the detective who sometimes runs him in on possession charges, and sometimes turns to him for advice. Doc is supported by a cast of hippies and hippie hangers-on, including such throwaway jokes as a paranoid stoner neighbor named Denis (rhymes with penis) and a lawyer companion named Sauncho. Don Quixote isn't a bad comparison for this detective, who ends up chasing leads into the desert (well, Las Vegas) even as it turns out that his involvement is itself a setup, and the original crime of kidnapping was something closer to the work of a federal protection program.

It isn't exactly worth recounting the entire cast of characters and their elaborate connections to one another; it suffices to say that discovering this web through the narrative is enjoyable and teeters just short of being difficult to keep in mind all at once. Pynchon has a well-known affinity for the hippie movement, and accordingly his portrayal of Doc is likable and recognizable. Despite being something similar to Kakutani derisively labels "Pynchon Lite," by which I assume she means readable and accessible, INHERENT VICE is an excellent introduction to Pynchon, despite being his most recent work. For any thirteen-year-olds out there who may be about to give Pynchon a try, I'd recommend it.