7thriv

Thomas Pynchon has yet another book coming out. Remember the days when he was this mysterious figure (only one photograph of him ever taken! People thought he might actually be Salinger!) who published no new fiction for 17 years after his landmark "Gravity's Rainbow?" That's pretty much a thing of the past. He has now averaged a new novel every 5 years ever since "Vineland" came out: Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice"

Compared with “Gravity’s Rainbow” or “V.” or “Mason & Dixon,” this novel is Pynchon Lite. Those earlier books featured intricate, mazelike narratives and enigmatic confrontations between what he has called “average poor bastards” and emissaries of “an emerging technopolitical order that might or might not know what it was doing.” In contrast, “Inherent Vice” is a simple shaggy-dog detective story that pits likable dopers against the Los Angeles Police Department and its “countersubversive” agents, a novel in which paranoia is less a political or metaphysical state than a byproduct of smoking too much weed.

I think I'll pass, although "Gravity's Rainbow," "Vineland," and "Mason & Dixon" are some of my favorite books. Pynchon only works when you are young and post-modern.

I can't discuss Pynchon without mentioning that you should read "Positively 4th Street" by David Hadju if you want to read anything like a Pynchon biography. Hadju subject was the coupling of Joan Baez/Bob Dylan and Richard Farina/Mimi Baez. Pynchon plays a supporting role thoughout, as he was Richard Farina's roommate at Cornell, and best man at the Farinas' wedding. After decades of the "mysterious Pynchon," it's surprising to see how cool and normal he actually was, and no doubt is.