GRGR(34) - New Dope

[David Morris]

>From: "Otto Sell" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>:
> > (745.28) a brand new kind of dope that nobody's ever heard of.  One of 
>the most annoying characteristics of the shit is that the minute you take 
>it you are rendered incapable of ever telling anybody what it's like, or 
>worse, where to get any. [...] It's the dope that finds _you_, apparently.
> > ----------
> > "It [New Dope] sounds like death."  Nobody who's taken (been found by) 
>this drug is able to tell the tale of its trip....
> >
> > Remember the Loonies on Leave?  They were selling  New Dope:  "Lightning 
>Latch, The Door that _Opens You!_" (260.10)  The next night he's offered 
>some other "New Dope," LSD, by the same dude who later delivers the file on 
>Lazlo Jamf. --- We next encounter Slothrop "In the Zone," having read 
>Jamf's dossier.  New Dope indeed!
>
>But what about:
>"(...) Part of the reverse world (...) and the Great Irreversible is 
>actually reversed as the corpse comes to life to the accompaniment of a 
>backwards gunshot (...)."  (745)

Well, what about it?  Do you have a take on this reverse world beyond 
Fowler's, which is mindless in itself.  Do we need to be told that "dope" is 
"life-affirming"  in GR?  By themselves these two points (Fowler's & 
Weisenburger's) would imply a "way back" through the "mindless pleasures" of 
dope-fellowship, and the conclusion is tentatively supported in GR's text, 
but there are deeper implications when you include Slothrop's initiation 
into the Zone by way of the "other" New Dope(s) cited above.  Don't forget 
that "dope" is also slang for "inside information."  Slothrop's 
"enlightening disillusionment" and his test in Jamf's crypt are his 
initiation into the Zone.  It all starts with "New Dope."

The "reverse world" cited has been encountered before.  Remember Slothrop's 
Pilgrim ships being sucked back to Europe?  The implication is the "undoing" 
of past wrongs and a "return," which Terrance emphatically denies is 
impossible in GR's cosmos.  The mindless fellowship of dopers may be our 
only consolation, but then why have Slothrop's journey in the Zone ever 
leave Saure Bummer's pad?  Slothrop's whole journey has been about finding 
his way back to his infant-trauma at Jamf's (and ultimately his father's) 
hands.  Maybe Slotrop could be said to have made his way back to the womb of 
Mother Earth, into which he disappears...  a successful journey!

David Morris

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