At first glance, the most striking thing about Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice is the fact that I knew what was going on the whole time.
Really.
It’s a like a book written by a normal person and not some madman whose natural instinct is to vomit the contents of his brain onto the page wherever possible. It’s a short book, by Pynchon’s standards, and almost the entire thing is traditional narrative.
It’s been described this way by other folks, but it really feels like Pynchon Lite.
I like to think of it as “Pynchonesque” in the way that other writers are “Pynchonesque”- it’s quite mad, full of memorable characters and outrageous situations, but doesn’t take the truly remarkable flights into the stream that punctuate his greatest works. Reading it, I kept expecting it to take off into one of those exhausting jazz-like riffs and really, it never did.
Which isn’t to say I didn’t love it. It’s not a brain melting masterpiece like Gravity’s Rainbow, but it’s a wild, drug addled journey through a long gone Los Angeles, chock full of the creative turns that Pynchon produces in volume. It’s just a lesser book than one might expect from the reclusive genius.
Still it’s recommended and might be doubly so as “starter” Pynchon for those who feat the power of a 900 page stream of consciousness masterpiece.
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