When I first read Thomas Pynchon, his oeuvre consisted of three novels — V, The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow — and one collection of short stories, Slow Learner, which in comparison to the novels felt fairly dregs-ish. That was all: someone else accepted his National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow, and then silence. Since Pynchon had absented himself from public discourse to an extreme like no other writer since J.D. Salinger, it was kind of assumed that he, like Salinger, was pretty much done writing, or done sharing his writing, and that would be that.
Eventually, this assumption proved wrong; there was Vineland in 1990, which I did not love, but perhaps should revisit; the massive Mason & Dixon (1998) and Against the Day (2006), two uber-Pynchonian tomes; and then, surprise, tomorrow — or just past midnight tonight, if you’re near a bookstore with Pynchon-head staffers — Inherent Vice. (Here in LA, both Skylight Books and Book Soup will be open late).
Despite all this Pynchon bounty — heck, the once-complete recluse has blurbed books, written CD liner notes and been on The Simpsons — part of my brain still sees a new Pynchon book as a kind of heaven-sent manna, unexpected and vital.
Admittedly, that manna might be entirely lousy, like Vineland was to me on my first read, or exhausting, as I found Mason & Dixon.
So when I got to not only read Inherent Vice before it came out but review it for the LA Times, I was excited — and trepidatious. What if it sucked? I’d have to say so. I’d been on a run of saying things sucked, so I was prepared. I girded myself.
I was gleeful to find that Inherent Vice is a great fun book. It’s smart and pop-culture-y and detective-y and dirty, it uses LA as a genuine setting, stays with a narrator who’s sweet yet has a cynical-enough eye, has goofy names and clever anachronisms and a kind of sadness. There are more layers to it than are apparent in the first pages, I think. And if you finish it and the name Dan Duryea pops into your head, we should talk.
Although recent years have provided far more Pynchon than I’d ever hoped, I have to say I’m looking forward to reading his next one. Even if it’s Vineland II: Electric Boogaloo.
