Inherent Vice
 First edition cover | |
| Written by: | Thomas Pynchon |
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| Synopsis: | |
| Genre(s): | Detective novel |
| First published: | 2009 |
Inherent Vice is a 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon. Ostensibly it follows Doc Sportello, a private investigator in California trying to find a missing real estate developer on the behest of his ex-girlfriend but really the work explores a much wider set of themes including the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle of the '60s and its clashes with forces of law and order with a neo-noir sensibility.
The novel was adapted into a film in 2014 by Paul Thomas Anderson.
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Tropes used in Inherent Vice include:
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- Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The Golden Fang. The Viggies. The Boards. Mickey Wolfmann. Wherever you look, a new conspiracy pops up.
- Femme Fatale: Shasta starts off as one, but Pynchon once again subverts the trope by the end of the book.
- Mushroom Samba: Notably with the vision quest Doc goes on.
- Private Detective: Doc Sportello is a deconstruction of the usual noir archetype. Typically stoned, doesn't really shake anybody down, so on.
- Properly Paranoid: Denis and Doc himself at various points in the book.
- The Stoner: Doc and a lot of his friends and neighbours. Even his parents. Basically everyone in the book.