IVIV Larry smoking dope

[dougmillison at comcast.net]

Plenty of stuff to agree with here, thanks rj! Like other daily potheads I know, Larry seems to be able  to adjust his dose, to stay relatively clear (don't have that 2nd or 3rd joint) when necessary and how to fuzz out (go ahead and smoke another one) when possible.  The one thing Larry doesn't do in IV is to stop smoking dope.

rj says it well:  given the presence and importance of marijuana in Pynchon's books, and the way he name checks it in his Slow Learner into, it's been significant in his life, imo.  I'd be super-surprised to learn that Pynchon hasn't been a regular and probably daily pot smoker for his adult writing career; I doubt he got started with the pot quite as early as he did with writing.

The notion that an artist can't create successfully -- even a major work -- while on pot or LSD is misinformed at best. Then there's the recent revival of the story --  in some kind of Web video out there --  the wonderful story of the Major League Baseball pitcher who threw a perfect game while tripping his brains out on LSD. 

A whole generation of artists in the 60s worked under the influence of pot and who knows what else, just as their Surrealist forerunners used drugs,  not to mention the artists who used opium in the 19th century. Some of the art that emerged is powerful stuff.

Agreed as well on the increasing importance of family in Pynchon's novels. I think the presence of heroin may be more complex than suggested here, as a multi-layered metaphor in this novel it touches quite a bit more than Coy and family.

-Doug


PS Enjoying your posts, alice, as well as Robin's, good insights from Tore, Mark the K, and several others.  The posts I could do without are the ones that tell other p-listers how and what to write or what to stop writing.  Since Pynchon-L remains an unmoderated discussion, I suggest that we just ignore those voices until they stop barking or change to another Internet channel. 

quoth rj:
The impression I was left with after reading IV was that smoking dope =20= 

for Larry is like drinking coffee or chewing gum. It's no big deal. =20 
The distinction between 'stoned' and 'not stoned' is irrevelant; =20 
notions of addiction or psychological, intellectual or physiological =20 
ill effects don't factor into it. The buzz he gets from smoking dope =20 
is just Larry's natural state of mind. Live and let be. 

But it's heroin that gets the really bad rap in IV. Pynchon's later =20 
works (from VL on) have had a strong emphasis on family: in fact, I =20 
would suggest that, if nothing else, the bond of family is immune from =20= 

satire. There is irony and tragedy in spades, but family persists in =20 
these texts as a legitimate value I think. And so, in IV, it's the =20 
quest to restore Coy with his family which drives Larry onwards, not =20 
the Shasta/Micky job or Bigfoot or Penny or the Golden Fang cabal. But =20= 

the Coy story depends upon a really conservative and ultimately =20 
moralising take on heroin addiction which even the mainstream American =20= 

cop shows of  the 1990s and 2000s have revealed as shallow and short-=20 
sighted. 

... and Doc just doesn't have the charisma or lasting appeal of a =20 
Marlowe ... or even a Kojak or Columbo, a Banacek or Baretta ... I =20 
can't see IV being a success on the screen ...