Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[rj]

"Terrance F. Flaherty" <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>:

> One more point here, in SL intro, Pynchon is talking about
> 1955, in 1959, in his Ford Application,

He might be talking about 1955, but he is writing in 1984. The phrase
"useful substance" is an endorsement from the perspective of 1984, one
not affected by the context of the anecdote. I take it that he means
that marijuana has been and is a useful substance for the
imagination/his writing. On the basis of this I find it very difficult
to accept that his Fiction would reflect a diametrically-opposed view.

I haven't read the Ford Application (and would love a link to it if
there is one), but I think that the *SL* intro would be a more candid
and reliable source than any overtures young Pynchon made to a corporate
organisation for funding.

> began a set of Voltarian,
> "Candide-like" stories.

Which became what? 'The Secret Integration'? *V.*? *Lot 49*? Not the
best way of classifying any of these, I'd say.

> 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."

Yes, but he also writes of the positives, at greater length, and is
positively laudatory of *On the Road*. He writes: Kerouac's book "I
*still* believe is one of the great American novels." (my emph.)

Thanks for the Eddins citations on Control and Conditioning. The thing
he misses out on is the characters' Denials that such processes are
possible, that they in fact operate on a daily basis and apply to each
individual, and that in most cases each character her/himself is
complicit in Their exercise and dominion. This additional theme is
achieved stylistically, by the appropriation of (jumpcuts to and from)
different characters' points of view throughout the text.

best