LSD

[David Morris]

I agree with most of Terrance's points below, especially re. GR and LSD, but 
I think its associations there are to be taken symbolically, not literally.  
And from my reading of GR I have no doubt that he is personally 
"experienced" with the subject - the African cave paintings under the 
mountain describe an acid excursion very elaborately - which might lend one 
the impression that his take on LSD is a positive one.  I know that this 
last statement is akin to some other stating "How could you not believe that 
Pynchon is a big lefty?"   So I offer only my impression on his likelihood 
of having "experienced."

As for Zoyd's nostalgia being a "no-no," I hesitate to agree that Pynchon 
offers explicit "no-nos."  He does offer cautions and but they are more in a 
spectrum of possibilities that he explores.  Nostalgia is so closely linked 
to lamentations on lost opportunities and on our preterite present that he 
can't really condemn it much.  It's seems to permeate all his fiction.

David Morris

>From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>I have no idea what Thomas R. Pynchon may think of LSD, but again, can you 
>provide a single passage from any Pynchon text that supports the claim that 
>Pynchon or Pynchon's texts evidence an affection for LSD? I can provide 
>lots of passages from CL, GR, and VL, that have convinced me that LSD is 
>negative in Pynchon's books.  Moreover, as you note, LSD represents a peter 
>pan 1960s attitude and naiveté (Pynchon notes this explicitly in the Slow 
>Learner Introduction)  and a denial of death, an attempt to escape  Death 
>and thus a denial of life in Pynchon's texts. LSD is the drug associated 
>with a Nazi doctor in CL.  Consider what happens to Mucho, he becomes an 
>infantile sloth. In GR, LSD is THEIR synthetic drug and is explicitly 
>associated with plastic, oil, control, the sacred rituals of THEM. In VL, 
>it is what Zoyd and Mucho are ga ga nostalgic for (a big no no in all 
>Pynchon novels) and it is said to provide them with an x-ray vision, but 
>that vision is a vision of denial, projection and irresponsibility.

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