Published in 2013, “Inherent Vice” immediately became a bestseller: many complimentary reviews in the press, enthusiastic responses from fans. Pynchon stays true to himself—he virtuously juggles words and images, building a plot that readers prone to self-deception have already classified as “lightened.”
At the core of the novel is one of the most tragic events in the history of the United States and the entire world: the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
In critics’ opinion—those who even hoped Pynchon would receive the Nobel Prize in Literature—everything fell into place: “The biggest prose writer in America wrote the greatest novel about the most significant event of the 21st century in his country.”