Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Doug Millison]

At 8:06 AM +1100 10/23/99, rj wrote:
>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.

Making marijuana the target of Bopp and the CAMP Nazis in Vineland shows
pretty clearly whose side TRP is on, don't you think? He gives pot the
loving treatment in Mason & Dixon, too. Pot in M&D would also seem to
illustrate the good/evil dichotomy I spoke of re LSD in GR, as pot is
associated with the noble Native Americans (and the indigenous peoples in
their Latitudes & Departures adventures) even as it is exploited
commercially by the capitalist settlers who colonize the giant marijuana
tree.

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