Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

One more point here, in SL intro, Pynchon is talking about
1955, in 1959, in his Ford Application, recounting his
literary influence he notes that he 'dabbled at but became
fully disaffected with the Byronic romanticism of the Beats
(Kerouac, Ginsberg), and began a set of Voltarian,
"Candide-like" stories.' So at the time of the Proposal he
saw himself 'entrenched on the T.S. Eliot side of no man's
land.' In SL intro he notes the "negative side" of the Beat
prophet resurrections, and the hippie movement, that "placed
too much emphasis on youth, including the eternal verity." 

LSD and the Cartels
We began with:

Weisenburger notes that LSD is linked
in GR with the North, the color White (death), IG Farben.

"Strength, Stability and Whiteness"

"Plasticity's central cannon: the chemists were no longer to
be at the mercy of Nature."

Faustian impudence achieves a new plasticity that includes
chemicals for war, for the 60s it
will be Dow's Napalm and Agent Orange, and for WWII,
polymerized substances that here connect Nazism, to the IG
Farben cartel, Shell, IG Chemie, ICI (icy eye), Imperial
Chemicals, Grossli, and of course Pynchon's own,
Psychochemie, where Jamf came up with Inipolex G,
Psychochemie was a spinoff of Sandoz where Hoffman discovers
LSD. 

After associating LSD and Imipolex G and the cartels, we
find Slothrop with Mario Schweiter, "You interested in some
L.S.D.?" Slothrop sez, "I'd sure like anything they got on
L. Jamf, a-and on that Imipolex G." Schweiter is with
Psychochemie and he links LSD to Imipolex G again. 






"Terrance F. Flaherty" wrote:
> 
> In SL intro is speaking of the preview to the college
> dropouts of the 60s, he writes, "I was hugely tickled by all
> forms of marijuana humor, though the talk back then was in
> inverse relation to the availability of that useful
> substance."
> 
> How is this a clear endorsement? In any event, I made it
> clear, in his Fiction, I don't find Pot to be a positive.
> 
> rj wrote:
> >
> > > How about Pot? I don't think Pot is portrayed in a positive
> > > light either?
> >
> > In the *Slow Learner* intro Pynchon describes it as a "useful
> > substance". This is about as clear an endorsement as I can imagine.
> 
> >
> > However, I don't think *GR* or any of the novels are intended as pro- or
> > anti-drug polemics.
> 
> Agreed
> 
>  What Pynchon seems to be interested by in *GR* is
> > this cartelization of drug manufacture and supply beyond the putative
> > political divisions of the wars (II and Cold), in the same ways as
> > Imipolex and the whole Shell and IG Farben thing.
> 
> Yes, and LSD and Imipolex G, come from the same place.
> 
>  He also portrays the
> > black market as a sort of underside reflection of this cartel process;
> > like the Trystero, it is a Counterforce operating beyond the legal
> > boundaries as well as being in opposition to the covert political
> > hierarchy pulling the strings (the "They").
> 
> Yes, and as Slothrop discovers, the underside, black market
> is set up just like the white one.
> 
>  But I doubt that you can
> > arrive at so simplistic a formula as saying that Pynchon presents the
> > one (the Cartel) as evil and the other (the black market) as positive
> > and potentially liberating, even so. Saure and der Springer aren't
> > heroes or saviours in my book either.
> 
> Right.
> 
> >
> > The references to transcendentalism and magic rituals involving natural
> > psychedelics seem to be nostalgic and idealised, but are affirmational
> > nonetheless. I get the sense that Pynchon is presenting the
> > transformation of social relations and of Nature brought about under
> > industrial capitalism, and how these individual and local enclaves where
> > naturally-occurring pharmaceuticals were used are gradually being
> > stamped out, in various ways.
> >
> > best
> 
> Right, I agree.
> 
> Tf