Review of Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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 is good not great.  The beginning of the internet is here but it will not be released to the public till 1991.   Charlie Manson has gotten every suburbanite scared of long haired freaks.  There seems to be a quite buzz about. Los Angeles  feels like it could blow up into a Technicolor Riot at any moment. Pynchon does an incredible job of lifting up what subterranean currants made Los Angeles glow dim in the 1980’s. This is where we find Doc, a private gum shoe, investigating the disappearance of his girlfriend.

 I really enjoyed this book and think that anyone who likes Elmore Leonard or Raymond Chandler would find this book a blast.  It also could be the book for all of you interested in social history; with a need to find out what caused something to turn from a dream into now a nightmare.

All people who love Shelley Winters will love this book.  

Inherent Vice is scheduled to become a movie released in 2014.

View all my reviews

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (Raymond Chandler)

Game 3: See Rules below.  The object is to continue a conversation with an author,  from a sentence of that author.
Quote:
The girl at the desk in the Kenworthy said, "The man called you three times.  Lieutenant but he wouldn't give a number.  A lady called twice.  Wouldn't leave name or number."
Raymond Chandler The Simple Art of MurderShort Story: Spanish Blood (A future Look at this scene.)
My automated voice answering service told me when I checked my phone.   My friends had been attempting to call me, and they assumed I knew who it was that called.  Go figures.   I tried the voice recognition software that I had installed on my phone, but the phone came up with a possibility of 20 girls and 20 boys total.  Should I call each person.   That seemed time consuming, and some of those people I would rather not talk to.   Technology offered solutions but at a price.  What a price?  Time was supposed to be saved by technology, but now I felt obligated to call each of the forty people and see if they were the one.   Are you the one who called me.  Yes or no,  I should write an email to all my friends, but then  I would seem out of touch with reality.

Oh technology, thou art, a time consuming succubus.

Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing.   Rush type it.   Be sufficiently caffeinated. Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write.