295.36: ' "Micro" Graham '

[Tim Thomas]

Doug:
> And you will look in vain throughout nearly 3 years of posts on Pynchon-L
> to find one in which I attribute TRP's inspiration to psychedelic drugs.

Yeah, I know. But its just that when you say stuff like the following I get
confused:

"I also would be shocked to learn that TRP hadn't taken LSD in the 60s and
that the drug hadn't had much the same positive effect that it did for so
many of his contemporaries -- GR, especially, drips with psychedelic
insight..." (Doug Oct 23)

The stuff in front of those two dashes (--) is fine by itself, its just a
personal speculation of the kind many of us make (and one I mainly agree
with - not really sure what you mean by 'positive effect' though). But the
phrase on the other side of the two dashes is problematic - especially in
conjunction with what is said before. I can only agree if you are using the
term "psychedelic" metaphorically - as a description of a kind of 'insight'
that is not necessarily derived from an experience with psychedelic drugs,
but does reference a particular era and its zeitgeist.  Which from what you
write below seems to be exactly how you are using it - so I guess we agree.
Good then. I'll shut up now. Amen and all that.

cheers
Tim

> But, the fact is, many passages in GR bear comparison to descriptions of
> hallucinations produced by LSD and related substances -- passages in Tim
> Leary's _High Priest_, to name one book that comes to mind. And no I am
not
> naming Tim Leary as an "influence" on TRP. This is not to say that TRP
> wrote like this because he was on acid or anything of that sort. Whether
> it's from direct personal experience or not (and I would be surprised to
> learn he hasn't taken LSD), TRP does incorporate a huge sample of 50s and
> 60s experience into his novels, including drugs (re the "microgram"
> reference here, for example, and the direct mention of LSD -- how many
> serious authors were writing about LSD in the '60s, in their great
American
> novels?), along with the obvious historical research. Psychedelics or not,
> TRP's literary imagination is awesome and that's no Valley Girl-speak.
>
> d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n
> http://www.dougmillison.com
> http://www.online-journalist.com
>