BOOK: Inherent Vice
BOOK: Inherent Vice
By Manny Casillas | Editorial Assistant
With all the nostalgia for the 1960s front and center, it’s awfully prescient that the latest from noted recluse Thomas Pynchon takes place in 1969 Los Angeles. Pynchon’s latest (369 pages) may not have the heft of Gravity’s Rainbow or V., but it still carries all of his favorites motifs, like trash culture and conspiracies. The hero is private gumshoe Doc Sportello, who offers to help his old girlfriend track down her new lover, who is missing. The case leads him to a bevy of colorful Pynchon characters, such as a drug dealer named El Drano. Though Sportello is very much an homage to characters like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, his demeanor closely resembles ‘The Dude’ from “The Big Lebowski.” Solving the case is hardly the point; the real fun comes in absorbing all of Pynchon’s rich dialogue and humor and tasty historical references. As with all of his books, he creates a world you could get lost in.
