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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
funny
medium-paced
TL;DR - An incredible psychedelic noir painted with a masterful, if difficult, prose.
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My first Pynchon, and as much as I'd love to spend an hour talking the humor and delight of this novel, I'm left a bit dazed. That was a tough onboarding - I got my butt kicked.
Inherent Vice cared very little for my frequently drifting attention: It continued to not care as it left me halfway through a page very confused as to how I arrived. It did that a dozen dozen times throughout. That unceasing demand for attention leaves me describing the writing as "Sub-optimal for reading around bedtime". It proved a real challenge for me, it's not too frequent that I have to engage so much to stay on track with a novel.
It was such a challenge, that even having finished it with a solid grasp on the events and characters, I still feel like I've failed to "properly" read the novel.
I guess that just means that there is a reread some day in my future. What a treat.
-----------------------------------
My first Pynchon, and as much as I'd love to spend an hour talking the humor and delight of this novel, I'm left a bit dazed. That was a tough onboarding - I got my butt kicked.
Inherent Vice cared very little for my frequently drifting attention: It continued to not care as it left me halfway through a page very confused as to how I arrived. It did that a dozen dozen times throughout. That unceasing demand for attention leaves me describing the writing as "Sub-optimal for reading around bedtime". It proved a real challenge for me, it's not too frequent that I have to engage so much to stay on track with a novel.
It was such a challenge, that even having finished it with a solid grasp on the events and characters, I still feel like I've failed to "properly" read the novel.
I guess that just means that there is a reread some day in my future. What a treat.
Look there’s obviously shit here that aged badly but cant we just be grateful that one of the highest achieving literary minds of 20th century America decided to write a stoner comedy as a septuagenarian?
Inherent Vice follows filthy old hippy PI Larry “Doc” Sportello, whose ex girlfriend mysteriously pays him a visit to inform him about a plot against her new guy, real estate big shot Mickey Wolfmann. From there things take a labyrinthine level of turns while throwing in countless characters who in bite sized interactions all become extremely memorable via their colourful and myopic ways.
Pynchon *is* 72 at the time of publication but the book still betrays the fact constantly. His dedication to recreate the 1970s sometimes borders on cringe ideas of what a joke is and isn’t, however the book is full of jokes that also land, and there’s a real musicality to Pynchon’s writing that ties all of this together very well.
Doc’s mind is absolutely beautiful, the guy is stumbling through basic convos and ideas but deep within we get a sense that he’s actually this quick witted and introspective person trapped in a haze of cannabis. I’ve only read Crying of Lot 49 outside of this but I love the way Pynchon’s worlds are so detailed in bizarro ways that they read like they’re both of their half-century old decade and the future at the same time, which we get here in his ode to self indulgent Californians and their niche restaurants, massage clinics, drug parties and psychiatric institutes.
Pynchon’s classic touch of paranoia beautifully accompanies a time when free love shit was on the verge of becoming outdated and thinking the government tapped everything was the new black. Despite the semi low stakes feel of the book in tone, there are enough dangers and threats to allow Pynchon to speak out against copaganda, surveillance and police misconduct/brutality in his own eccentric way.
Watched the movie after finishing this and was kinda fascinated by how different it ended up feeling to the book. There’s a sadness to the way Sportello operates that’s only evident if you stop buying into the bullshit monologue constantly running in his head, which I was too hopped up on to get off that train.
Anyway this probs hurts my street cred as someone who normally reads feminist LatAm books and nothing else but I had a good time with it.
Inherent Vice follows filthy old hippy PI Larry “Doc” Sportello, whose ex girlfriend mysteriously pays him a visit to inform him about a plot against her new guy, real estate big shot Mickey Wolfmann. From there things take a labyrinthine level of turns while throwing in countless characters who in bite sized interactions all become extremely memorable via their colourful and myopic ways.
Pynchon *is* 72 at the time of publication but the book still betrays the fact constantly. His dedication to recreate the 1970s sometimes borders on cringe ideas of what a joke is and isn’t, however the book is full of jokes that also land, and there’s a real musicality to Pynchon’s writing that ties all of this together very well.
Doc’s mind is absolutely beautiful, the guy is stumbling through basic convos and ideas but deep within we get a sense that he’s actually this quick witted and introspective person trapped in a haze of cannabis. I’ve only read Crying of Lot 49 outside of this but I love the way Pynchon’s worlds are so detailed in bizarro ways that they read like they’re both of their half-century old decade and the future at the same time, which we get here in his ode to self indulgent Californians and their niche restaurants, massage clinics, drug parties and psychiatric institutes.
Pynchon’s classic touch of paranoia beautifully accompanies a time when free love shit was on the verge of becoming outdated and thinking the government tapped everything was the new black. Despite the semi low stakes feel of the book in tone, there are enough dangers and threats to allow Pynchon to speak out against copaganda, surveillance and police misconduct/brutality in his own eccentric way.
Watched the movie after finishing this and was kinda fascinated by how different it ended up feeling to the book. There’s a sadness to the way Sportello operates that’s only evident if you stop buying into the bullshit monologue constantly running in his head, which I was too hopped up on to get off that train.
Anyway this probs hurts my street cred as someone who normally reads feminist LatAm books and nothing else but I had a good time with it.