Book review: Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon

Published on Saturday 25 July 2009 13:18

INHERENT VICE Thomas Pynchon Jonathan Cape, £18.99 Review: STUART KELLY

THE new Thomas Pynchon confutes the category of "late works": it's neither an ostentatious attempt at a magnum opus, nor a melancholy echo of past achievements; it neither rages against the dying of the light nor against the inanities of the modern day. It is by far his most accessible novel since The Crying Of Lot 49 (1966) and at least as funny as his zany behemoth Against The Day (2006).

Set in Los Angeles at the end of the Sixties, in the shadow of the Situationist Riots and the Manson killings, the "hero" of Inherent Vice is an epic stoner and mediocre private eye, Doc Sportello. As a favour to Shasta Hepworth, his vampish ex-girlfriend, he checks out her new squeeze, a property developer called Mickey Wolfmann ("technically Jewish but wants to be a Nazi, becomes exercised to the point of violence at those who forget to spell his name with two n's"). Unfortunately, Doc is unconscious when Mickey disappears and his bodyguard is murdered, which brings him back into the orbit of Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, bte noire of hippies and frozen chocolate banana addict.

The plot spirals, meanders and chases its tail from then on, bringing in legendary surfers, a dangerous, possibly zombie, British mop-top band called Spotted Dick, a dead saxophonist who is turning up at political rallies, a cache of dollar bills with Nixon's portrait on them, a neo-Nazi with a love of Ethel Merman, and a forthcoming war between, the lost continents of Lemuria and Atlantis.

Bemused and harassed, Doc stumbles in a marijuana fug through the rising chaos and thinks the whole thing might be co-ordinated by a mysterious conspiracy called The Golden Fang, which might actually just be a tax-dodge set up by dentists.

This is a loveable, kooky version of noir detective fiction, but with the shadows of genuine darkness at its edges. Pynchon has always been obsessed with paranoia, and the doped-up hyper-sensitivity to connections is another version. But the mania is always deftly undercut by humour – the same character worries about "why there is Chicken of the Sea, but no Tuna of the Farm", and in the novel's most doolally scene, is weirded out when he sees The Wizard Of Oz for the first time in colour. Pynchon's ear for wise-cracks and quick-fire sparring dialogue, his penchant for hidden jokes and outright gags is undiminished.

The "inherent vice" of the title is a legal term for "the very nature of a good or property that leads to its deterioration"; and it applies brilliantly to Pynchon's 60s – in all its freedoms were its horrors. Liberation is a two-edged sword, creating as many psychopaths as idealists, and Pynchon captures the nervy dog-end of those days in psychedelic detail. But it is not without a redemptive sense of human possibility, especially in Doc's relationship with his parents.

Inherent Vice is Pynchon on an idiosyncratic frolic, and what a joy it is. He is the only truly Dickensian talent of our time.