GRGR Re: Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[rj]

Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>:

> For the record, I didn't originate the Nazi label.  "Karl Bopp, former Nazi
> Luftwaffe officer and subsequently userful American citizen" (VL 221) and
> "Kommandant Bopp all over the local news [...] often in Nazi drag" (VL 222)
> is how TRP describes this marijuana fighter.

Yes, yes, *Bopp* is a "former" Nazi, however, "CAMP Nazis" is what you
wrote. There is no textual evidence in *VL* to say that the "infamous
federal-state" (49) CAMP organisation, or that "private vigilante squad
of student antidrug activists, retired military pilots, government
advisers in civvies, off-duty deputies and troopers" (221) who are
contracted to do the fieldwork, are Nazis. (A simple case of mistaken
attribution here.)

> a
> tough time finding instances in TRP's fiction where he associates fascists
> and particularly Nazis with anything recognizable as "good", Blicero
> included.

Rilke? 

> For my money, TRP illustrates very well the 60s doper mentality -- mindful
> of the dangers of excess and the way that drugs have been bent to unsavory
> goals, yet understanding and even encouraging their positive benefits of
> subversion, insight, and liberation.

Yes, I agree with the last part here, but I don't think moderation, or
even awareness of the dangers of excess, are ever a part of the 60s
doper mentality as Pynchon represents it. Neither Zoyd nor Slothrop are
fully "good"; and their drug excesses are one point where this
equivocality of characterisation is manifest (imo).

best