Inherent Vice [Hardcover]

"Inherent Vice" (apparently a term from Maritime Law) is rather uncharacteristic of Thomas Pynchon in many ways. At 370 pages it is short by his standards, and it is entirely lacking in the density and obtuseness of much of his work. It does not have anything like the scope of, say, "Gravity's Rainbow," nor the stylistic difficulties of, especially, "Mason and Dixon," rather it is a crime novel somewhat in the mould of Elmore Leonard, set in 1969 Los Angeles, just after the Manson murders, which are referred to continually.

The main character is Doc Sportello, a private investigator and habitual imbiber of hashish and other narcotics. He is approximately 29 years old, and espouses hippy ideals while maintaining a healthy distrust for The Man, especially as represented by the LAPD. His favourite words are "Groovy" and "Bummer," depending on the situation. His is an easygoing and well-meaning individual, if somewhat priapic. The plot is set in motion when Doc's ex-girlfriend, for whom he still has feelings- lust, mainly- shows up with an assignment for him, concerning her rich, property-developer new boyfriend, who she believes is under threat. Said boyfriend goes missing, and some other cases turn up which may be related. It's too complicated to go into, but all roads lead Doc to a shadowy entity called Golden Fang, the nature of which promises to hold the key to the mystery.

Unlike most Pynchon novels almost all the mysteries of the plot are eventually explained, and the plot is a fairly standard one for the genre. The tone is relaxed, playfully humorous, and Pynchon's fondness for dubious puns, that somehow seem funny in the context of the book, is much in evidence. It's not a masterpiece, by any means, but it's not supposed to be. It can't really be compared to "Gravity's Rainbow" or the like. Of Pynchon's previous work, its nearest relation would be "Vineland." It's not particularly substantial, but I found "Inherent Vice" a good, quick read, funny and likable, and definitely its author's most accessible work.

Thomas Pynchon, the reclusive king of American postmodern fiction, likes to keep us waiting: between 1974 and 1990 he published no novels at all. But in the last few years we've been a bit luckier, and given that in late 2006 we got the massive "Against the Day", it's amazing that this summer there's already another Pynchon novel on sale.

"Inherent Vice" is wonderful news for Pynchon fans, but arguably will also bring him a new audience too. All will hopefully be charmed by its Big Lebowski-flavoured story of a private investigator, Doc, operating in LA just as the sixties decade has finished. The plot concerns the various cases Doc takes on (all missing persons of various kinds) and requires concentration to follow, partly because of a multitude of characters ranging from Doc's ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay Hepworth, to paranoid marine law specialist Sauncho Smilax, to hippy-hating LAPD cop, 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen (addicted to eating frozen chocolate-covered bananas which he keeps in a morgue fridge).

There is the same sense of clever playfulness you always get with Pynchon, though to begin with, you might get lulled into imagining this is simply his fun take on the hard-boiled detective novel of Raymond Chandler & co. But actually this book is probably something more subtle; like his earlier book 'Vineland', which gave such a rich picture of life in Northern California in the eighties, with its paranoia and strange atmospheres, "'Inherent Vice' gets to pose the bigger question about the sixties, which is, where did it get us? And do we all, like Doc, end up 'working for criminals', even when we try not to?

Enjoyable, perplexing, kept making me burst out laughing; a great, intelligent summer book.

*sigh*

I won't summarise the plot. Other people have done that superbly. What I'll offer instead, is my general, uninformed, unexpert take on the book. As someone who's read a reasonable amount of Pynchon, but who is - by no means - a Pynchon fanatic.

I like Pynchon. A lot. I love the depth and complexity of his writing. I love the feeling of ploughing through a deep, rich, fertile text absolutely jam-packed with Significance. Replete with allusions, half-allusions, hintings, suggestions... Comments that you'd need to go 400 pages back, in order to recall the full significance of the full in-text meaning... without beginning to consider what they might otherwise mean in a broader, deeper, fuller context...

I love the fact that I've given up on most Pynchon books at least once. But have always been drawn back to them. Wanting to read them, understand them, approach them, immerse myself in them... to understand at least some of their meaning. With the hope that a second, third, fourth reading will uncover another layer, and another layer, and another layer... I have started Gravity's Rainbow 9 times, and got to the end on three. That isn't because it's a bad book; it's because of the layers of flowing, suggesting, rhythmic density have lost me sometimes... (Usually, fwiw, around the episode with the church / singing in an English midwinter...)

In Inherent Vice, all of that is gone. All of it. What's left reads - to me - like a juvenalia fest. Strip out all the effort, depth, complexity and difficulty from a Pynchon novel, and what have you got left...? The answer seems to be - as someone else has suggested - something remarkably close to Elmore Leonard. A neat, linear, eminently followable storyline with a manageable quantity of characters. All of them behaving slightly zanily, but nothing... Slothrop-esque. There's a conspiracy. But it's not a particularly well-drawn conspiracy (or maybe it's too well-drawn...). Nothing subtle. Nothing half-hidden. Nothing hinting from the shadows, full of murky and sinister suggestion. Just 'ooo, there's this thing called 'Golden Fang,' it keeps on cropping up all over. Ooo.'

Don't get me wrong, it's not completely unreadable. It's lively enough. Stuff happens. It plods along at a reasonable pace.

But I keep on getting this feeling of 'why am I bothering?' This is not the Pynchon I know, love, or appreciate. It's Elmore Leonard through and through. Bish, bash, bosh. Sorted. Yeah, there's a market for Elmore Leonard, great. Fingers crossed, this will - indeed - introduce a new generation to Pynchon. Though god only knows what they'll make of something like V, Mason and Dixon or Gravity's Rainbow after being introduced to his work through this great clumsy lump of Obviousness and Unsubtlety.

But... as someone who wants to read Pynchon because he writes in a different way... to be lost, amazed, bewildered, amused, perplexed, delighted, confounded, confused... this just is not it. Not by a long stretch.