Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (2009)

"As long as American life was something to be escaped from, the cartel would always be assured a bottomless pool of new customers." 

My introduction to this book was back in 2014, when director Paul Thomas Anderson released the film version. Billed as one of the great modern auteurs adapting one of the most lauded writers in America, the film proved to be pretty loathesome, in my humble and unsolicited opinion. The plot seemed convoluted to the point of being complete nonsense and almost three hours of over the shoulder shots of people with wacky names talking about other people with wacky names led to audible groans by the end. Indeed it felt so much like an animated novel that, almost the entire time watching, I found myself thinking 'I bet this would make a great book'. 

Set in a fictional version of Los Angeles in 1970, private eye Larry "Doc" Sportello navigates his way through the murky underworld at a time when the counterculture of the 60s was dying a rapid death and authoritarian, bureaucratic, rule began it's ascent to where it is now. Doc, being a staunch pothead hippie himself, is one of many in this time struggling with this transition and how to exist within this new framework of life. 

The plot is a hyper-convoluted Raymond Chandler-esque dive into ex-girlfriends, disappearing millionaires, psychotic policemen, LA street gangs, biker gangs, clouded hippie judgements and a mysterious entity seemingly in control of it all. It is probably too complex to explain here and was, I would argue, too much to squeeze into a film format. As a novel it works better, but it's still laid on pretty thick. The backdrop of post-revolutionary America allows for a gnawing sense of paranoia to increase with every page turned and the overarching sense here is decay. It seems all of the hope that seemed to spring in the 1960s, the rise of free love on the free love freeway, is swiftly eroding all around. The fact that Thomas Pynchon still had this strong of an emotional response in 2009, when the book was published, speaks volumes to the impact that time had on those who were there. 

When it comes to revered writers in American literature, Pynchon is often considered high in the conversation. This was my first forray into his work and, I'm told, is one of the more accessible pieces he has written so I found it, for the most part, an enjoyable read. The silly character names are still a constant source of irritation but Pynchon's prose is often written like he's simply sitting you down in the corner of some smoke-filled lounge and explaining something to you. It is often very funny, and more poignant than you might expect. Particularly as this has been pitched as a sort of knock-off Big Lebowski, when that is not really the case at all. As a snapshot of the American underbelly in a time when the smoke was beginning to clear, it is an incredibly detailed and rich landscape and the fact it was published thirty nine years after the year in which it is set is quite astonishing really. It feels like this all just happened yesterday. 

"Dealing with the Hippie is generally straightforward. His childlike nature will usually respond positively to drugs, sex, and/or rock and roll, although in which order these are to be deployed must depend on conditions specific to the moment."

Pynchon does a great job of making Doc a thoroughly likeable and enjoyable character and we want nothing but the best for him which, for the purposes of the private eye elements of the story, we need. However, the novel works best using the main character as the conduit to the confusion and fish-out-of-water-ness that his people must've felt at this time. In this context, the novel works well. Where it falls short is the density of the plot. It is an interesting subversion of the tried-and-true private eye helps damsel in distress storyline, the lead character and setting elevating it above most similar fare. However, everything feels somewhat hamstrung by being shackled to the traditional plot devices that typically make a detective story work. It starts quickly to devolve into Scooby Doo levels of zany and half a dozen or so characters become interchangeable to the point where you could cut them out and you'd lose nothing. 

For large swathes, it all ends up feeling like a good edit would benefit the novel greatly. It's like a first-draft, wherein you include every single idea that comes to mind with the expectation that not everything will land, and suffers a bit for that fact. Luckily it has much in the way of humour and beautifully written passages, particularly when it comes to the evocation of this version of Los Angeles, to keep things chugging along and anyone who can throw a boner joke into a murder mystery is alright by me. But you just can't help wishing that, at times, we could turn down the wacky and just let everything breathe. Even if what you're breathing is high-grade marijuana. Maybe it's a novel that requires a second read. Although this was an assumption I made about the film and that only sent me further down my solitary path of disdain. So who knows? In the words of Doc himself "don't worry, thinking comes later".

★★★☆☆

JB.