VLVL Count Drugula, or Mucho the Munificent

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL Count Drugula, or Mucho the Munificent

> >>> No talk of a drug-commune.
> >>
> >> "People came to their door at unexpected hours that could have been
> >> fantasies of the mind." (306)
> >>
> >
> > Your quote isn't correct. My text says:
> >
> > "People came to their door at unexpected hours looking for parties that
> > could easily have been fantasies of the mind." (306)
>
> Thanks for correcting my typo. It is quite clear from this sentence that
> it's a drug commune, and the chances are that's where Zoyd scores his
> "own" dope, and one of the main reasons he heads straight there in the
> first place;

I've got the impression from the text that he went there more or less by
coincidence; so it could've been any other hippie resort. Most likely he
might have been able to get some dope there, but what made me suspicious was
the "beer and tobacco headache" which isn't typical for a dope smoker. You
remember what Fat Freddy (or was it Freewheelin' Franklin?) had said about
shit and beer . . . is like pissing against the wind.

>similarly, one of the first things Zoyd looks for at Mucho's place is
> the "guest stash" so he can mooch off of it because he doesn't want to
> smoke his "own".
>

Must be a big disappointment for him. I'm sure he'd expected better stuff.

> It's not in the text that they search him at the police station and take
> away any dope he's carrying but it's reasonable to infer that that's what
> happens.

Yes, I agree. Should've been the normal procedure. But maybe they'd
forgotten it given the monolith they'd placed in his home.

> At this point in the novel drugs are as important to Zoyd as his
> child, if not moreso.

Dope and acid were important features of the 60's cultural revolution in an
environment where alcohol and tobacco were socially accepted drugs.

> It's a point of the plot that he becomes a reasonably
> responsible father, as I wrote, but at this stage it wasn't looking too
> promising.
>
> best

Well, he became a reasonably responsible father despite his habits. He'd
grown with the task.

The novel generally doesn't offer a very negative image of dope and acid,
but it shows with Mucho's example the dangers of cocaine. Zoyd points to
some truths about the anti-marijuana campaign in his conversation with
Mucho, who, by the way, fell from one extreme into the other:

"They didn't even start goin' after dope till Prohibition was repealed,
suddenly here's all these federal cops lookin' at unemployment, they got to
come up with somethin' quick, so Harry J. Anslinger invents the Marijuana
Menace, single-handed. Don't believe me ask ol' Hector, remember him? He'll
tell you some shit." (311-12)

Otto