Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

rj wrote:

> 
> (I recall a coda to one of your posts which said something to the effect
> that you had "watched the best minds of the generation destroyed by
> drugs", and I wonder if this heartfelt personal bias is colouring your
> interpretation of Pynchon's text.)

Yes I changed Ginsbergs "generation" to my neighborhood and
his "madness" to drugs. No I don't think my personal bias is
the issue here. I think that some people read Pynchon as
advocating the use of drugs, I don't. I think that he
suggests that the use of various substances for ritual and
artistic purposes has value. This I agree with, so I don't
find myself disagreeing with Pynchon as I read him. Pynchon
shows us the destruction of the addictive or abusive use of
drugs in CL. Growing up in the NYC area, living there, in
NYC, having a young son, I can not imagine that Pynchon is
advocating the use of drugs as he sees them being used in
his neighborhood by addicts and pushers. I think the LSD in
the formula a black joke, but I think Pynchon suggests that
young people then, and young people today, often know more
about the benefits of taking a substance to reach Nirvana
and little of the risks. If you grow up in a culture that
uses natural substances for ritual purposes, I think you are
less likely to abuse them. In our culture, here in the U.S.
where very little is sacred, abuse is often a way of life. 

TF