Nostalgic Ambivalence & Lucy in the Sky with Denial

[Terrance]

Ambivalence: the coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings, such as
love and hate, toward a person, an object, or an idea. Uncertainty or
indecisiveness as to which course to follow.

Are the Pynchon texts ambivalent about LSD? 

Again, I have no idea what the author thinks about or ever thought about
LSD, but reading his books, I don't find that LSD is ever a positive or
ambivalent substance.


 I think many are assuming that P experimented with the drug. However,
I'm not sure this is a very good assumption to make. Sure, P
experimented with Pot and everyone knows Pot leads to other drugs. Ha!
Ha! He! He! Ho! Ho! (see Poe). Sure P was hanging with some hip dudes in
the Village (where I know LSD was available) and many hip people were
experimenting with LSD. P read up on the drug. It or other hallucinogens
are present in all of his novels.  There are a  lot of other reasons to
assume that P experimented with LSD (the hip insider quips, the dripping
passages, etc.), but these are all assumptions. There are no facts to
support these assumptions. 

Moreover, many are assuming that he had positive experiences with it.
Again, there are no facts to support this claim. And,  while I agree
with David Morris, LSD functions symbolically, metaphorically, even
thematically in the texts (GR's Mindless Pleasures), the textual
evidence is not positive or even ambivalent, but decidedly negative. I'm
not inclined to attribute the beautiful passages in V. GR (not many in
CL as far as I'm concerned) VL or M&D to LSD or any substance (although
P does note in the SL Intro. that Pot was a very useful substance and we
have the claim by Jules that P was so messed up (on what?) when he wrote
GR
.). When we attribute these "dripping" passages to LSD or some other
substance we may overlook what is actually influencing the passages
(i.e., American Literature, Surreal Paintings, Expressionistic film, the
Wizard of Oz, Jazz, etc.). 

In any event, from the start, LSD functions as a negative in TRP's texts
and this does not change. The reason I'm making this point is, first, as
I mentioned I think it is a mistake to attribute the powerful and
beautiful prose to the influence of drugs, particularly if the claim
that passages are dripping with trippy insights and brilliance omits or
somehow diminishes what are obviously more traditional influences such
as American literature, surreal and expressionistic film and painting,
cartoons, music,  (this is not to say that the influence of
hallucinogens is not also traditional), second, LSD is always associated
with negative forces in Pynchon's texts. 


"Face up to your social responsibilities," she suggested. "Face up to
the reality principle." 

--CL49

This passage is worth looking into because it is from the CL49, a text
in which LSD is a very important substance and because we have a female
protagonist (Oedipa is much like Rachel in V.-politically right of
center, but she's confronted by social--reality principle--situations
that challenge the foundations of her politics, i.e., the abortion fund
raising party in V.) and because the allusions around this statement are
to Freud, Jung, Brown. The irony is wonderful and the humor black
(although this term doesn't quite describe P's humor, I think his humor
often mixes the confrontational and irritating "ha ha he he ho ho"  of
Poe and the philosophical and  lamenting repose of Melville) but it is
not ambivalent. We have an ex-Nazi doctor who has decided to follow
Freud, he says, as a form of penance for his crimes. He has chosen Freud
(a Jew) over Jung. In doing so, among other things, he has chosen a
world where god is dead, religion is repression, and the lot is NADA.
Much chooses an opposite extreme (LSD is most often associated with
extremes in P's texts and extremes are bad shit. 

David Morris says that nostalgia is all over P's texts. No doubt about
it. But is nostalgia of the sort expressed by Mucho and Zoyd in the
LSD/Xray vision passage (what I termed ga ga peter pan 1960s nostalgia)
the same as lamentation? No, I think not. 

Critic have attempted to get at what appears to be an ambivalent
nostalgia or longing or lamentation for something lost or better said,
some possibility that might have been, some road not taken, some
subjunctive space or time closed off and so on. There are several very
good essays that one could read on this. To stick with  the Mucho/Zoyd
passage for a minute, I would read Berger, who claims that "Pynchon's
nostalgia is a nostalgia for the future" and Edward Mendelson's essay on
VL (an essay, I recommend to all those that think P is a radical Lefty
in the 1960s sense). Another essay, actually I recommend the entire book
(The American Tragedy) is the late great Tony Tanner's essay on
Subjunctive Hopes in M&D. Also, since we seem to have a few new faces so
I can be forgiven for repeating myself here, Tanner books are all worth
reading. Of course, McHale on dozens of others have addressed the
subjunctive lamentation/nostalgia of M&D. 

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-&month=0111&msg=62720&keywords=subjunctive