Time Frame I.V.

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

When DL and Frenesi first met in Berkeley around 1967, the "jukebox played
the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish."
(VL, 117) Maybe Shasta was hanging around Berkeley too (familiar with DL
and Frenesi, even?). Or maybe she was an Angeleno all along.

Anyway, my wild guess is 1969. In an essay on TCoL49, Kate Hayles writes
something to the effect that GR is most intensely about 1969, a year of
external expansion (Apollo 11) and internal collapse in the U.S. at the
same time.

Not that there is much peace and love to be found in The Instant Enemy
(kinda resonates with IV, doesn't it?), Ross Macdonald's sombre Lew Archer
novel of 1968. Masterly book - in the genre of hardboiled crime fiction,
it is hard to surpass Macdonald.


Heikki

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, rich wrote:

> i ask again--the new book states end of the 60s--some would mark 1966
> as the end of the 60s, some 1968
> in any case, if Doc's girlfriend Shasta is wearing a faded Country Joe
> and the Fish T-shirt could one guess that the book takes place in the
> early 1970s?
> Country Joe gained popularity at Woodstock, no? for that anti-war tune
>
> If I would guess on one character that will reappear in the new book
> it would be Flash, Frenesi's on the run, off the grid partner
>
> Rich
>