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Under the beach, the paving stones! The fate of Fordism in Pynchon's 'Inherent vice'

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 12:32 authored by Doug HaynesDoug Haynes
Inherent Vice is Pynchon's latest novel (2009) and seems to complete his 'California trilogy' of The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Vineland (1990). Where those novels present the emergence of the counterculture, and the Reaganite backlash of the 80s, respectively, Inherent Vice, I argue, narrates the transition between the Fordist consensus of the post-war era and the regime of flexible accumulation that characterizes American and Western economy after about 1971. My reading of the new novel finds behind its familiar "Pynchonian" conspiracy and detective plot an account of what Marx called "the destruction of capital" in moments of crisis. The Nixon "gold shock", the war in Vietnam and the emergence of global competition are all signaled in the novel's interstices. Hence, I suggest, Pynchon provides an account not only of why the "parenthesis of light" of the 60s ended, but the conditions of the emergence of the so-called postmodern moment (from which he has himself benefited) as well. In this respect, my reading of the novel detects a substantially more leftist Pynchon than currently is considered to exist.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction

ISSN

1939-9138

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Issue

1

Volume

55

Page range

1-16

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Notes

Online first edition

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-03-06

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