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Inherent Vice is a novel by the American author Thomas Pynchon, originally published on August 4, 2009. [1] A darkly comic detective novel set in 1970s California, the plot follows sleuth Larry "Doc" Sportello whose ex-girlfriend asks him to investigate a scheme involving a prominent land developer.
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What’s going on in Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice? Most of the action is in the following five plots. The Mickey Plot. When billionaire real estate developer Mickey Wolfmann has an affair with hippie actress Shasta Fay Hepworth, he discovers his conscience and decides to give away his fortune.
Oct 23, 2022 · Adapted from famed novelist Thomas Pynchon's book of the same name, "Inherent Vice" follows marijuana-fueled hippie private investigator Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix)...
- Why Diagram Inherent Vice?
- Learning from Other Examples
- Drawing, More Drawing…
- Display and Design Notes
- Color-Coding The Novel’S Power Dynamic
- Proofreading and Making The Index
- Feedback from Readers
- Three Unanswered Questions
While movie-goers grapple with keeping track of the film’s 50characters, readers grapple with keeping track of the novel’s 130. My first reading of Inherent Viceleft me with questions like, “Who was character x?” and “How was character yrelated to character z?” Not being able to recall or account for some characters left me feeling frustrated that ...
Diagrams helping readers of fiction are not new. Think of Tolkien’s Map of the Middle Earththat accompanies The Lord of the Rings: it helps you keep track of the places as characters journey through these imaginary lands. Kurt Vonnegut’s Shapes of Storiesdiagrams are deservedly well-known. Others visualizations are less successful. Sam Potts’ diagr...
Reading the book while simultaneously drawing the preliminary diagrams was easy. Every time Pynchon referred to a character, I’d write their name in a notebook and draw labelled lines showing their connections to other characters. Preliminary diagrams looked like this (this is Chapter 13 in its earliest form): The hard part was disentangling those ...
Desktop versus mobile
Inherent Vice Diagrammedoffers micro and macro readings simultaneously but only when viewed on a desktop computer. When viewed on a mobile device, details are legible only if you pinch-and-zoom, but then you lose sight of the vast network of connections. The small window on your mobile device, therefore, concealsthe big picture rather than revealsit, and this works against the purpose of the diagrams and, indeed, of the site itself. Plot and chapter summaries can be comfortably read on mobile.
Getting the right line weight
The weight (thickness) of the relationship lines and the frames around the names match the thickness of the weight of the font used for characters’ names. This may seem a minor detail, but the overall effect contributes to the tidiness of the images.
Rounding corners
Hard, sharp, right angles and corners are visually stronger than their rounded counterparts. In my diagrams, the corners of the nodes and the joints of arrows aren’t features that require attention, so I rounded them to soften and de-emphasize them.
It was also essential that the diagrams should offer important commentary on the principle power dynamic in the novel: the incessant interplay between the counterculture and the anti-counterculture—and enigmatic cases where characters are affiliated with both. Discovering this dynamic was one of my many aha!moments in this project. In my diagrams, ...
Once the artwork was complete, I ensured all names, relationships, and affiliations had been recorded consistently across all 21 diagrams. Discrepancies such as this one had to be resolved: Bigfoot Bjornsen detective withLAPD (chapter 1 diagram) Bigfoot Bjornsen member ofLAPD (chapter 5 diagram) The only way to do this was to copy every relationshi...
Readers consistently point to the site’s usefulness and its beauty. One of the most common questions I get in response to Inherent Vice Diagrammed is, “Which Pynchon novel will you diagram next?” I take this as a sign that my initial foray into diagramming fiction has been a success. It’s been gratifying to hear that readers are finding Inherent Vi...
Although my project is done, and my dog-eared copy of Inherent Vicerecedes on my bookshelf behind more recent reads, three questions nag me that have nagged me since I began Inherent Vice Diagrammed: how did Pynchon keep all of these characters and their relationships straight in his head as he wrote the novel? Did he make diagrams? If so, what do ...
Nov 4, 2014 · Inherent Vice features a main character, a traceable and somewhat clearly defined linear plot and, by Pynchon’s standards, a relatively neat conclusion. To outline its plot puts one rather in mind of some madcap union of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiassen, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and The Big Lebowski .
Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice begins when Shasta Fay Hepworth arrives at the Gordito Beach residence of her former boyfriend, private investigator Doc Sportello. She persuades Sportello to...
Feb 25, 2020 · Lots of great commentary. Check out Inherent Vice Diagrammed, a visual guide to Pynchon’s 2009 detective novel. This free resource helps readers keep track of the Inherent Vice’s 130 characters, the plots, and the action. It offers a unique approach to visualizing complexity in fiction.
