VL to SL: Pynchon's Self-Characterization

[jbor]

> Perhaps we have substantially different editions of
> Slow Learner--my edition was published in 1984 but Vineland was published at
> the very end of 1989. (I'm not even sure that "contemporaneous" is the most
> accurate word to use in describing the relationship of the intro and the
> novel.)

Pynchon describes marijuana as a "useful substance" -- there's no time
limitation applied to that observation as is being insisted to quibble over
this point. He admits that he was "tickled by all forms of marijuana
humour": and I think you'll find that that circumstance has prevailed right
up into his most recent novel (_Mason & Dixon_, 1997, published near enough
to his 60the birthday). And, in fact, in commenting on the disparity between
"talk" and "availability" of marijuana "back then" it is implied that he has
witnessed that situation to have changed in the meantime. The suggestion
that he wrote _Vineland_ in 1989 only is absurd.

Another sentiment which recurs in each of his novels and might be attributed
as Pynchon's own is an outright contempt for lawyers:

    Zoyd had come to consider the "legal system" a swamp, where a
    man had to be high-flotation indeed not to be sucked down
    forever into its snake-infested stench. (359)

best