There are more quests than answers

Through a fug of dope, Thomas Pynchon takes his cast of misfits to the end of a loose, quixotic trilogy, says Sarah Churchwell In Thomas Pynchon's 1973 book, Gravity's Rainbow, a character sings a song called "My Doper's Cadenza", which could serve as both soundtrack and subtitle for Inherent Vice. Set in the waning days of the era of free love, as Charles Manson brings a paranoid ending to quixotic dreams, Pynchon's seventh novel bridges The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Vineland (1990), forming a...