GRGR Re: Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

It's complicated, but not indeterminate,  I think we can
determine the targets of Pynchon's satire. His targets are
not the individuals, those we find are addicted and
suffering or enjoying the traditional trip. In the bowl
scene we meet a faro dealer addicted to laudanum, in M&D we
meet Ben Franklin and the use of laudanum is again
discussed, Dixon and Mason's employees know all about
laudanum and its uses. Later in GR, Tchitcherine and Chu
Piang--with mop, will bring these opium matters into
unfocused focus, and the targets of Pynchon's satire are
named, though we must be careful to fill in the missing
phrase, answer the questions, understand the ironies. The
cartels, the governments, the institutions of death, 
European and American, the West and those that are complicit
in their dealings--- those that deal in pain and death will
be the target of satire. Tchitcherine brings the
pipe--"being from the West he's in charge of the technology
of things." Again I think, it is Western bastardization,
imitations pornographic sadism, commercialization, chemical
production, manufacturing, marketing, capitalization of
traditional and natural substances that Pynchon targets.