Those were the days. People spent their time smoking, doing acid, rocking out, making love, generally having a good time. Oh yeah, and solving the odd murder and conspiracy case too, if they happened to be a hippie private investigator. 1970, the summer of love is over, California still hazed in a psychedelic fog, governed by Ronald Reagan, so you never know if your paranoia is drug induced or for real.
Thomas Pynchon, who usually takes about a decade to write a book, wrote this novel down in a mere three years or so. The result is not the usual tome with a dozen, sometimes merging, sometimes almost mystically intertwining plot threads, but an almost straightforward, if sometimes confusing like a doper's dream, detective story. Knowing Pynchon, I might have been disappointed by the lack of complexity - if only this book wasn't so damn good anyway. I read it in two short days, and while Pynchon novels usually supply me with reading stuff, thinking material and encyclopedic knowledge for weeks, this book was not so much a step on the road to enlightenment for me, but rather a s**tload of fun. Makes me nostalgic for the late sixties, early seventies. Too bad I hadn't been born back then, I can relate to that time very well. Obviously Pynchon can too, this is his third novel about the era and he really knows his way around.
If you never dared to read Pynchon because he has this reputation to be just too difficult to read, but always wanted to, read this book. If you are interested in the history of early seventies subculture in the US, read this book. If you like a good yarn, intelligent entertainment and offhand, deadpan humor, read it. In fact, read it no matter what. Or wait, stay away from it if you're offended by explicit content. In other words, if you're square, "Inherent Vice" is not for you. If you're hip, get and read it, like, right now, man.