RARA-AVIS: Re: "Inherent Vice" and Other Pynchon novels

From: Kevin Burton Smith (kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com)
Date: 29 Aug 2009

  • Next message: ejmd: "RARA-AVIS: Re:The word "noir""

    Mr. T wrote:

    > I have now read Inherent Vice and was not impressed. Not bad but
    > hardly memorable, at least for me. I didn't care about historical
    > inaccuracies, but the book didn't grab me.

    I'm glad it's not just me. And if a total Pynchon fan like yourself wasn't impressed with it, that's something.

    I AM impressed, though, that you made it through to the end. I've put it aside for a while to read something fast and fun (maybe a nice juicy graphic novel like the new PARKER adaptation or the Tardi/ Manchette thingie, or something from HardCase?), but I do intend to finish the sucker before I die.

    It's a weird thing. Most of the comments and legit reviews for it have been mixed, and a lot of the opinions are at best rather fuzzy, as though everyone's afraid to say anything too directly negative...

    So we get a lot of beating around the bush, and plenty of huffing and puffing about how important the author is, but very little direct praise for this particular book. Maybe because there isn't much that's particularly worth praising.

    He spelled all the words right?

    I haven't come across many all out raves for the book, so far. At least by people who have actually read it.

    It looks like TV bimbos, wasted rock stars and cranky political pundits aren't the only ones who get published automatically.

    Kevin

    [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Aug 2009 EDT