Dragons On The Cover

I haven’t read Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, but I’ve read a lot about it, most written by people who’ve never before stooped to write a word about a private eye novel.

Once stooped, they figure, why not add some heavy lifting to the enterprise, and cut loose on the meanings of genre fiction?

This is all fine and well. I enjoy highbrow mucking-about in popular culture as much as any middlebrow does -- maybe more.

However, at the risk of sounding like a teenaged hard-SF fan whose aunt buys him books with dragons on the cover…I say, friends, please: I wouldn’t come to your party and throw around “allusion” and “metaphor” as if they were one and the same.

You’ve guessed it. I’m on about this again.