Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

rj wrote:
> 
> "Terrance F. Flaherty" <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>:
> 
> > Pynchon
> > shows us the destruction of the addictive or abusive use of
> > drugs in CL.
> 
> The representation of Mucho's addiction in *Lot 49* needs to be mediated
> by his (healthy) reappearance in *VL*, I think; but even so the
> *experience* he has in *Lot 49* of heightened auditory sensation is not
> represented as a destructive one.


Yes we can go to VL, but in CL, Mucho is a used car salesman
who winces at the sight of sawdust and honey. He is a
"thin-skinned unscrupulous salesman, who sells cars to the
American disinherited--"Negro, Mexican, cracker." As a DJ he
spews sex over the air to an adolescent audience and has
affairs with them off the air. He takes LSD, not to reach
Nirvana, but as a habit, disintegrates into multiple
personalities and goes groping "like a child further and
further into the rooms and endless rooms of the elaborate
candy house of himself." Solipsism is not life affirming in
Pynchon's texts. Mucho would be a sociopath, he loses his
identity, a distinctive personality, and he doesn't
care--sound familiar?--and the absence of resentment or any
real discomfort for his actions, would make him a true
sociopath if Oedipa didn't dream of Uncle Sam. 


> 
> I've never said that Pynchon is advocating drug use, only that he is
> endorsing the experience.
> 
> best

No one said YOU did. 

TF