Inherant Vice and The Awakening

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

This book is nothing but groovy vibes. Follow ‘Doc’ Sportello on his crazy trip through 1970s L.A. Mystery after mystery unfolds, like a Russian doll that just keeps on going. Everything is shrouded in marijuana smoke, and that’s ok. This is the kind of book that as soon as I finished I wanted to read again, knowing that I would gain just as much pleasure as the first time. Thomas Pynchon is such a word maestro and he creates such a dense, hip universe with characters that have the most hilarious names I’ve ever heard. ‘Jason Velveeta’, ‘Bigfoot Bjornsen’, ‘Japonica Fenway’, just to name a few.

As its set in the 70s, and peopled mostly with hippy stoners, there’s a fair amount of food and music discussion (guaranteed awesome soundtrack to the film). The book is also rife with U.S paranoia of the Charles Manson and Nixon variety, which still makes it pretty relevant considering the world hasn’t changed much.

Inherent Vice is a really really funny and clever book and a perfect summer read.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Awakening was published in 1899. That’s twenty years before Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own and sixty-four years before Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. It is regarded as one of the earliest examples of feminist literature and is therefore pretty damn important. It’s also a beautifully sensuous and evocative story of one woman’s sexual and political awakening. By political I mean the realisation that she is in control of her destiny, not her husband and not the repressive society that she lives in. The personal is political. This book created huge controversy when it was first published. Not only does Edna Pontellier disobey her husband, neglect her household duties and dare to discover her own sexuality, she does it all without feeling any remorse or shame.  I say, right on Edna, you go sister.