IVIV (1) Shasta

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 24, 2009, at 12:43 PM, Dave Monroe wrote:

>   "'That you, Shasta?'" (IV, Ch. 1, p. 1)

For what it's worth, and it might not be worth all that much, I see  
Shasta as symbolic of Hippie aspiration. Hippie being a particularly  
California sorta thing, and the physical locale & destination of  
Shasta being the sort of California myth particularly attractive to  
hippies and their ilk.

So here we have this symbolic repository of Hippie essence, and then  
1969 rolls along and whoa—look at what happened, man, like a  
trainwreck. It was that fast, it was all over that fast. Shasta in  
many ways is the representation of the Hippie Dream [leastaways for us  
boys] as of 1967, and now it's 1970 and yes, she did change,  
everything changed, the whole Manson thing really did go that deep.  
You know, historical fiction & sexual politics and all that? 1970?

Shasta is also a creation right out of Raymond Chandler—the young  
debutant aiming to be a star and settling for something less. That  
something less that she marries into is in it but deep with & the  
wrong kinds of folks to rumble with. Turns out the folks who have  
clout usually hire gorillas who specializing in clouting. So it turns  
out in Inherent Vice as it does in Farewell My Lovely and The Long  
Goodbye. It always out starts with this dame . . .