Re: mild drug SPOILER Re: other stoned detectives? Re: finished IV…

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carvill John" <johncarvill at hotmail.com>
To: <brook7 at sover.net>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 4:18 PM
Subject: RE: mild drug SPOILER Re: other stoned detectives? Re: finished IV…


>
> Two more very minor thoughts on this:
>
> 1. Again without claiming careful study, just going by what I can 
> remember, it increasingly seems to me that, if I were challenged to 
> pinpoint instances of Doc exhibiting symptoms which could only be put down 
> to dope smoking, then I'd find it quite hard. Stuff like memory lapses, 
> paranoia, and not knowing if you've been thinking or talking out loud, 
> could all be ascribed to other drugs or phenomena, and in some cases more 
> likely should be.  Remember Pirate Prentice wondering if he'd whispered 
> something or said it aloud at the start of GR?
>
> 2. Comparisons with Marlowe/Chandler are many and will doubtless be 
> explored in depth, something I look forward to. Someone mentioned that, 
> although Marlowe would be as likely to be caught crying over a dame as 
> smoking a joint, he does enjoy a whiskey or three. I think the phrase used 
> was 'five sheets to the wind'. But in actual fact, again going from 
> (older) memory, although Marlowe always seemed to be accessing that 
> 'bottle of pretty good rye', he never seemed to be debilitated by drink, 
> so far as I can recall. (Cue deluge of posts quoting passages of Marlovian 
> drunkenness...)
>

I would very much concur with the above.

IV is a pastiche combining the hardboiled detective story with the doper 
genre or flick. The author has to be selective,  so that one form doesn't 
detract from the other.  The detecive has to maintain his mental acuity a 
good deal of the time or what would be the point. On the other hand, what 
would be the 70s without a lot of drug participation and talk.

Or, another way of looking at it,  the hardboiled detective is a decendent 
of the pulps.  Writers got paid by the word. so of course there is a lot of 
filler. But more importantly action packed writing has to be paced--slowed 
down in other words. The reason Marlow seems to be reaching for the rye so 
often is the same reason he keeps reaching for a lucky (or whatever he 
smokes)--that being to pace the action. Not to get him drunk, but to give 
the reader a chance to absorb the story at a manageable pace.

Come to think of it, Doc reaches for a Kool almost as often as he reaches 
for a joint.

P