LSD

[jbor]

Yes, I take your points, but I do believe that all those "labour-saving
devices" were just that, and that housewives and mothers in those suburban
enclaves in the 50s and the 60s began to have a lot more time and energy
(physical, and mental) on their hands, and that perhaps this was one of the
things which made it possible for the feminist movement to take hold across
the board (and not just amongst disaffected female minority groups) as it
did in the later 60s. But there were other factors and repercussions as
well, as you note. "Bored" doesn't quite capture it, I agree, something
along the lines of a burgeoning awareness that their life-choices were being
delimited for them by men, as you say. The Echo and Narcissus thing --
female subservience to male vanity, no voice of their own, reflection -- is
very important in these early chapters I think.

I agree that Dr Hilarius has probably misdiagnosed his housewife patients en
masse, and he has certainly misjudged Oedipa, who is very much a
one-of-a-kind as you and others have noted. I guess one could read
Hilarius's methods all-up in terms of an attempt to bolster the existing
phallocracy: keep the women sedated or tripping out of their skulls and thus
stem the burgeoning frustration ... disillusionment ... angst etc. which
might or will ultimately lead to civil revolt. Perhaps .... It's very ironic
too that it's Mucho who succumbs to Hilarius's suggestotherapy -- Mucho's
not particularly macho! -- but I'm not really certain *why* Hilarius is
experimenting with the LSD in the first place, what he's trying to prove or
gain. He seems to want to brainwash people, but to what end/s? (The later
siege episode with him seems very cartoonish, though there are darker
overtones there as well.)

Quite a few feminist literary critics have written on _Lot 49_, and not
unappreciatively: as well as Georgiana Colvile, Catherine R. Stimpson and
Annette Kolodny spring to mind; and I think it is very plausible to see in
Oedipa an emergent feminism, but there are ambiguities and ambivalences
there as well. Personally, I'm not sure how successful Pynchon's
narratological transvestitism with Oedipa Maas actually is, and several
female friends of mine haven't warmed to "her" (or the novel) at all.

best

(ps I think you're spot on with Tourneur's _The Revenger's Tragedy_ as the
model for Wharfinger's play.)

on 8/12/01 1:35 AM, Judith A. Panetta at judy at brandxinc.com wrote:

> Tiptoeing again...
> 
> I see the point you're making within the context of the story. It's as valid
> as any. Perhaps add to it the theory that substance use/abuse is sequential
> (You do pot it's going to lead to the harder stuff, blah, blah). However...
> 
> I take issue with the term "bored" housewives. Contrary to the popular
> belief that labor saving devices actually saved labor, these appliances and
> solutions (as in "better living through chemistry") simply raised the
> standards of a well kept house. Link that with the consumer/corporate
> competitiveness ("keeping up with the Jones") wrought by television (both in
> advertisements and programmatic examples like Leave it to Beaver) and the
> sudden demise of Rosie the Riveter (git back in the kitchen,
> dammit)well...gee, boredom doesn't seem to be the word that fits.
> 
> This scenario doesn't quite fit Oepida either. But...that said, there was
> another movement growing (albeit, slowly) that might reflect Oepida's
> reactions and subsequent actions. That is the idea that the standards (and
> we should include diagnoses/prescriptions as well) created by men were not
> necessarily appropriate for women. A wave of self reflection rolling through
> the culture, perhaps? Maybe the few scattered incidents of burning
> undergarments? It would motivate a person to experience new things, to
> question the society and their role in it.
> 
> Anxious, perhaps. Unfulfilled, maybe. Frustrated, possibly. But not bored.
> 
> Judy
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
> Behalf Of jbor
> Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 8:33 PM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: LSD
> 
> 
> on 8/10/01 9:23 PM, lorentzen-nicklaus at lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de
> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> So the picture that is built up (for me, at least) is of a psychiatrist
> who
>>> prescribes "tranquillizers" to bored housewives in order to pacify them
>>> emough so that they will participate in his government-sponsored
> experiments
>>> with hallucinogenic substances.
>> 
>> 
>> "bored housewifes" do not need to be "pacified", do they? & then
>> tranquillizers and psychedelica don't mix well; actually they use valium
> etc.
>> in clinics to get people off from trips which do not end or became
> "horror".
>> 
>> kai
> 
> Well, more often than not the boredom those housewives were feeling was
> actually caused by hyperactivity and an excess of leisure time -- all those
> electrical appliances and whitegoods in the home, and the supermarkets --
> and so the tranq's would have helped to settle them down and resign them to
> their "lot" in life. TV soapies, Tupperware parties and midday tippling
> served much the same purposes as the Valium I guess, along with whatever
> regular visits to the shrink, the tennis club, affairs with the gardener etc
> that they could afford.
> 
> But my point was not that Herr Doktor wanted Oedipa to mix the downer with
> the upper (though some hard-case users do do this, I'd add), but that the
> tranq. would have slowed her down, lessened her resistance, and made her
> more amenable to his suggestion that she join the hallucinogen program.
> 
> best