Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> 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? 

Knowing what side he is on does not make the point, Doug.
Not really, just because he is on one side or the other
doesn't mean he agrees or endorses everything that side
does. Obviously Pynchon is on the side of those that smoke
pot and not those that would plant it in a mans house, toss
him in jail, beat him up, threaten to take his only child,
but does he endorse the smoking of pot, portray its use in
VL as a positive thing? Is Washington's smoking different
from the indians? What of Zoyd's pot smoking? It also
threatens his relationship with his daughter, doesn't it?
And I simply don't here any real textual support for reading
LSD as a positive life affirming substance in GR, it is
white, a chemical, man-made, and it is directly contrasted
with other natural substances used for ceremonial purposes.
I am not arguing this point to say that Pynchon endorses or
doesn't endorse. 


The whiteness is what I am interested in. If in fact, LSD is
consistently associated with the white, elite, the chemical
cartels, and control, and if I can demonstrate that this 500
years is indeed a reference to metaphysics, and if what
Eddins says makes sense, it seems the white chemical LSD has
much in common with other whitenesses in America--first
William Blake's America, and next Melville's white whale.
Blake, remember, as many did, but none expressed it so
profoundly and so beautifully, looked to  America as the
initial historical epiphany of a new heaven upon earth, a
M&D theme for sure, and as you have argued, and I agree, GR
is a novel about America, so I will try to show that Pynchon
while inheriting Melville's whiteness, is more like Blake in
his treatment of whiteness. 

I'll pick this up next week.  

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.
>