Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge. He received the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974.
“What he does, and brilliantly, is open windows onto a universe
where we're all in custody, but we're none of us sure who put on
the cuffs. . . . entertainment of a high order.” —TIME
“An enjoyable book by a writer whose work can be
daunting.” —John Powers, Fresh Air on NPR
“With whip-smart, psychedelic-bright language, Pynchon manages to
convey the Sixties—except the Sixties were never really like this.
This is Pynchon's world, and it's brilliant. The resolution is as
crisp as Doc is laid-back. Highly recommended.” —The Library
Journal
“A deliciously composed dark comedy . . . that most Pynchon fans
will be delighted by. . . . I found myself charmed and pleased with
the way Pynchon meets the genre square and fair, on its own terms,
and makes it his own.” —San Fransisco Chronicle
“His most accessible book . . . the author's comical mystery
(musings about the end of national innocence) as well as the
wordplay so relentlessly present in any of his books, keep
Pynchon's Inherent Vice from being just another thriller—and ensure
it is never less than entertaining.” —The Denver Post
“With whip-smart, psychedelic-bright language, Pynchon manages to
convey the Sixties-except the Sixties were never really like this.
This is Pynchon's world, and it's brilliant.” —The Library
Journal
“Terrific pastiche of California noir, wonderfully amusing
throughout (and hard to quote from in a family newspaper because of
the frequent use of, uh, colorful spoken language) and a poignant
evocation of the last flowering of the '60s, just before everything
changed and passed into myth or memory.” —Michael Dirda, The
Washington Post
“[A]n author whose work has long married the perversely dystopic to
the poetically giddy, with the same cosmic unease with which louche
noir detectives have long found a home under the insistent Los
Angeles sun.” —John Anderson, Newsday
“Inherent Vice is the funniest book Pynchon has written. It's also
a crazed and majestic summary of everything that makes him a
uniquely huge American voice. It has the moral fury that's fueled
his work from the start—his ferociously batshit compassion for
America and the lost tribes who wander through it.” —Rolling
Stone
“We should all take a hit off a fat spliff and enjoy the dirty,
brainy achievement of Pynchon's Vice. . . . It's easy to forget,
among all his games and puzzles, that Pynchon can write razor-sharp
beauty with the best of them. A page-long description of the Santa
Anas demands a place next to classic passages by Chandler and Joan
Didion . . . With Pynchon's brilliance comes
readability.” —The Los Angeles Times
“[A] deliciously composed dark comedy . . . I found myself
charmed and pleased with the way Pynchon meets the genre square and
fair.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR
“Pynchon's prose is so casually vernacular, so deeply in the
American grain, you forget that someone composed it. Inherent Vice
feels fizzily spontaneous—like a series of jazz solos, scenes, and
conversations built around little riffs of language. Does it add
up? Maybe. Do you get lost? Lured down a long linguistic dark alley
is more like it. It's always weird but always
fun.” —Newsweek
“What Pynchon is after with the prodigal absurdities of Doc's
adventures is not really parody, but something larger. They are a
way to enter into a time and place of extravagant delusions,
innocent freedoms, and an intoxicated (literally) sense of
possibility. And to do it without sententiousness, to write in
psychedelic colors disciplined by a steel-on-flint intelligence
(thus the incandescent sparks).” —The Boston Globe
“Hard to know what Thomas Pynchon was smoking when he wrote this
pitch-perfect homage to the hard-boiled California crime novel, but
it did the trick. . . . Pynchon’s just having a blast, and we are
lucky to join in.” —Pittsburgh Post Gazette
“How pitch-perfect noir can one get?” —Chicago Tribune
“[Of the] Pynchon novels, Inherent Vice is funny, maybe even the
funniest.” —The Village Voice
“Pynchon is frolicking in this psychedelic mystery, featuring
dopers, surfers, bikers, predators, and parasites, drugs and
counterfeit money, setups and switchbacks, and the Golden Fang, a
stealth ship. As Doc wiggles and smokes his way out of gnarly
predicaments, Pynchon skewers urban renewal, television, government
surveillance, and the looming computer age. A bit of a mystery
himself, master writer Pynchon has created a bawdy, hilarious, and
compassionate electric-acid-noir satire spiked with passages of
startling beauty.” —Booklist
“Blessed with a sympathetic hero, suspenseful momentum and an
endlessly suggestive setting . . . [fans] will know it for the
throwaway masterwork it is: playful as a dolphin, plaintive as
whale song, unsoundly profound as the blue
Pacific.” —Publishers Weekly
“The new Pynchon: a beach read and a heartstring puller. It's
almost surreal. A.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Reading Thomas Pynchon again, one is reminded that fiction can
clarify the world—capturing it as it seems to be—and it can also
change the world by seeing it new ways. Pynchon is a magician in
the second category: He applies language to what we know and all
we’ve missed—giving new shape to both. . . . The book is exuberant,
delightfully evocative of its era, and very funny.” —O
Magazine
“Thomas Pynchon, the paranoid poet of the information age, is LA’s
greatest writer.” —Wired
“After writing over 3,000 pages (some of the best in American
fiction) on topics ranging from paranoia to Fay Wray to the
demarcation of the Mason-Dixon Line, a towering literary giant
takes on the hardened detective genre in a mere 384 pages. And he
keeps up with the best of them.” —GQ
"What he does, and brilliantly, is open windows onto a universe
where we're all in custody, but we're none of us sure who put on
the cuffs. . . . entertainment of a high order." -TIME
"An enjoyable book by a writer whose work can be daunting."
-John Powers, Fresh Air on NPR
"With whip-smart, psychedelic-bright language, Pynchon manages to
convey the Sixties-except the Sixties were never really like this.
This is Pynchon's world, and it's brilliant. The resolution is as
crisp as Doc is laid-back. Highly recommended." -The Library
Journal
"A deliciously composed dark comedy . . . that most Pynchon fans
will be delighted by. . . . I found myself charmed and pleased with
the way Pynchon meets the genre square and fair, on its own terms,
and makes it his own." -San Fransisco Chronicle
"His most accessible book . . . the author's comical mystery
(musings about the end of national innocence) as well as the
wordplay so relentlessly present in any of his books, keep
Pynchon's Inherent Vice from being just another thriller-and ensure
it is never less than entertaining." -The Denver Post
"With whip-smart, psychedelic-bright language, Pynchon manages to
convey the Sixties-except the Sixties were never really like this.
This is Pynchon's world, and it's brilliant." -The Library
Journal
"Terrific pastiche of California noir, wonderfully amusing
throughout (and hard to quote from in a family newspaper because of
the frequent use of, uh, colorful spoken language) and a poignant
evocation of the last flowering of the '60s, just before everything
changed and passed into myth or memory." -Michael Dirda, The
Washington Post
"[A]n author whose work has long married the perversely dystopic to
the poetically giddy, with the same cosmic unease with which louche
noir detectives have long found a home under the insistent Los
Angeles sun." -John Anderson, Newsday
"Inherent Vice is the funniest book Pynchon has written. It's also
a crazed and majestic summary of everything that makes him a
uniquely huge American voice. It has the moral fury that's fueled
his work from the start-his ferociously batshit compassion for
America and the lost tribes who wander through it." -Rolling
Stone
"We should all take a hit off a fat spliff and enjoy the dirty,
brainy achievement of Pynchon's Vice. . . . It's easy to forget,
among all his games and puzzles, that Pynchon can write razor-sharp
beauty with the best of them. A page-long description of the Santa
Anas demands a place next to classic passages by Chandler and Joan
Didion . . . With Pynchon's brilliance comes readability."
-The Los Angeles Times
"[A] deliciously composed dark comedy . . . I found myself charmed
and pleased with the way Pynchon meets the genre square and fair."
-Alan Cheuse, NPR
"Pynchon's prose is so casually vernacular, so deeply in the
American grain, you forget that someone composed it. Inherent Vice
feels fizzily spontaneous-like a series of jazz solos, scenes, and
conversations built around little riffs of language. Does it add
up? Maybe. Do you get lost? Lured down a long linguistic dark alley
is more like it. It's always weird but always fun."
-Newsweek
"What Pynchon is after with the prodigal absurdities of Doc's
adventures is not really parody, but something larger. They are a
way to enter into a time and place of extravagant delusions,
innocent freedoms, and an intoxicated (literally) sense of
possibility. And to do it without sententiousness, to write in
psychedelic colors disciplined by a steel-on-flint intelligence
(thus the incandescent sparks)." -The Boston Globe
"Hard to know what Thomas Pynchon was smoking when he wrote this
pitch-perfect homage to the hard-boiled California crime novel, but
it did the trick. . . . Pynchon's just having a blast, and we are
lucky to join in." -Pittsburgh Post Gazette
"How pitch-perfect noir can one get?" -Chicago Tribune
"[Of the] Pynchon novels, Inherent Vice is funny, maybe even the
funniest." -The Village Voice
"Pynchon is frolicking in this psychedelic mystery, featuring
dopers, surfers, bikers, predators, and parasites, drugs and
counterfeit money, setups and switchbacks, and the Golden Fang, a
stealth ship. As Doc wiggles and smokes his way out of gnarly
predicaments, Pynchon skewers urban renewal, television, government
surveillance, and the looming computer age. A bit of a mystery
himself, master writer Pynchon has created a bawdy, hilarious, and
compassionate electric-acid-noir satire spiked with passages of
startling beauty." -Booklist
"Blessed with a sympathetic hero, suspenseful momentum and an
endlessly suggestive setting . . . [fans] will know it for the
throwaway masterwork it is: playful as a dolphin, plaintive as
whale song, unsoundly profound as the blue Pacific."
-Publishers Weekly
"The new Pynchon: a beach read and a heartstring puller. It's
almost surreal. A." -Entertainment Weekly
"Reading Thomas Pynchon again, one is reminded that fiction can
clarify the world-capturing it as it seems to be-and it can also
change the world by seeing it new ways. Pynchon is a magician in
the second category: He applies language to what we know and all
we've missed-giving new shape to both. . . . The book is exuberant,
delightfully evocative of its era, and very funny." -O
Magazine
"Thomas Pynchon, the paranoid poet of the information age, is LA's
greatest writer." -Wired
"After writing over 3,000 pages (some of the best in American
fiction) on topics ranging from paranoia to Fay Wray to the
demarcation of the Mason-Dixon Line, a towering literary giant
takes on the hardened detective genre in a mere 384 pages. And he
keeps up with the best of them."
-GQ
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