It's not often that a book review is more fun to read than the book, but this might be one of those rare occasions. New York magazine's Sam Anderson has written a scathing – but beautifully written – review of Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Inherent Vice.
Sample sentence: "Every time he turns around he runs into a key player with a silly name (Japonica Fenway, Trillium Fortnight, Fritz Drybeam, Sauncho Smilax), who proceeds to do a cartoonish turn, dump some helpful exposition, and pass the quirk baton to the next silly name, who repeats the cycle."
Me? I don't so much mind the silly names. When Charles Dickens did silly names, it worked... and the world would be an emptier place without the likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Oliver Twist, Samuel Pickwick, Wackford Squeers, Martin Chuzzlewit and Uriah Heep.