Scan barcode
A review by dylanberman
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
adventurous
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Major spoilers
Inherent Vice is an unfolding psychedelic web of hilarious and compelling characters and mysteries, all somehow connected to the powerful and illusory Golden Fang. There’s an ex junkie surf rock musician who’s faked his own death after being recruited for COINTEL pro to work with fascist vigilantes, a Jewish millionaire LA real estate mogel (surrounded by neo nazi biker gang bodyguards) who did too many psychedelics and decided he had to give up his money and create a free housing techno-commune outside of Las Vegas only to be taken away in a plot involving his wife, her boyfriend, and perhaps the FBI, there’s a Vietnam vet turned try hard hippie out of guilt who’s into environmentalism and film, his girlfriend who’s part of a cult that does acid to commune with the Sea God of Lemuria, a good boy fascist aspiring TV star cop who hides his grief and quest for revenge under hilarious machismo with a personal vendetta against the protagonist , a Reagan loving police approved assassin, and so much more. All of these characters are stumbled into by the lovable fuckup protagonist Doc Sportello, a washed up hippie stoner and private eye, just trying to figure out where his ex girlfriend went. This book is ridiculous, hilarious, and a perfectly executed analysis of the collapse of the free love 60s and all of the push for positive social change into a much more cynical and conservative 70s.
‘…yet there is no avoiding time, the sea of time, the sea of memory and forgetfulness, the years of promise, gone and unrecoverable, of the land almost allowed to claim it’s better destiny, only to the claim jumped by evildoers known all too well, and taken instead and held hostage to the future we must live in now forever.’
‘Questions arose. Like, what in the fuck was going on here, basically.’
‘What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.’
Inherent Vice is an unfolding psychedelic web of hilarious and compelling characters and mysteries, all somehow connected to the powerful and illusory Golden Fang. There’s an ex junkie surf rock musician who’s faked his own death after being recruited for COINTEL pro to work with fascist vigilantes, a Jewish millionaire LA real estate mogel (surrounded by neo nazi biker gang bodyguards) who did too many psychedelics and decided he had to give up his money and create a free housing techno-commune outside of Las Vegas only to be taken away in a plot involving his wife, her boyfriend, and perhaps the FBI, there’s a Vietnam vet turned try hard hippie out of guilt who’s into environmentalism and film, his girlfriend who’s part of a cult that does acid to commune with the Sea God of Lemuria, a good boy fascist aspiring TV star cop who hides his grief and quest for revenge under hilarious machismo with a personal vendetta against the protagonist , a Reagan loving police approved assassin, and so much more. All of these characters are stumbled into by the lovable fuckup protagonist Doc Sportello, a washed up hippie stoner and private eye, just trying to figure out where his ex girlfriend went. This book is ridiculous, hilarious, and a perfectly executed analysis of the collapse of the free love 60s and all of the push for positive social change into a much more cynical and conservative 70s.
‘…yet there is no avoiding time, the sea of time, the sea of memory and forgetfulness, the years of promise, gone and unrecoverable, of the land almost allowed to claim it’s better destiny, only to the claim jumped by evildoers known all too well, and taken instead and held hostage to the future we must live in now forever.’
‘Questions arose. Like, what in the fuck was going on here, basically.’
‘What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.’