“Inherent Vice” aims to be a thriller, and if Pynchon’s tone undercuts that, it also makes it unusual. Here, however, he keeps things relatively simple. (This is his sixth novel in a 49-year career). “Inherent Vice” is a real departure for Pynchon, who’s known as much for the length and density of his books (“V” and “Gravity’s Rainbow,” in particular) as their rarity. I won’t reveal the ending, but it’s wistful and very southern Californian, like the stylish, period dialogue and neon characterization.

So do many characters, like Shasta Fay Hepworth and Penny Kimball, Doc’s main squeezes, and Michael Wolfmann, the shadowy real estate developer Doc aims to track down. Like Pynchon’s Los Angeles, the Golden Fang comes in and out of focus. Pynchon does not treat that lurid, Manson-defined period with gravity rather, he spins a convoluted, insistently light-hearted procedural in which private investigator Doc Sportello comes to grips – and terms – with the Golden Fang, a fantasy, a cartel, a refuge for corrupt cops, you name it. It would be daring – but winds up merely nostalgic. It unfolds in the dawn of the 1970s in a Los Angeles reeling from the Tate-LaBianca murders. It aims to be a celebration of a somewhat seedy, often-stoned private eye, presented in glorious Technicolor. The book confounds, entertains, and stumbles in almost equal measure. I liked its wit, style, and grasp of locale, but deplored its cavalier way with plot.

I quarreled with Inherent Vice, the latest novel from the reclusive Thomas Pynchon.

Inherent vice pynchon