Everybody Must Get Stoned

[Carvill, John]

<< That Pynchon's 'writing' - whatever the weasel-wording around that  
term - is often and uninhibitedly driven by drug-induced altered  
consciousness is impossible to deny. >>

Who's denying it?

Who's using 'weasel words' in connection with what constitutes 'writing'?

<< The prevalence of drugs, drug  
paraphernalia, drug marketing and distribution, the effects of drug- 
taking, et al., as subject matter in all of Pynchon's novels is one  
thing; the two-three eyewitness testimonies another; and Pynchon's own  
endorsement of marijuana as 'that useful substance' in the only memoir  
he has vouchsafed us his readers, an autobiographical recount of his  
development as a writer (!), should be the clincher. >>

All of this falls squarely into the 'yes, yes' category. Nobody is arguing that Pynchon's works do not exhinit the influence of drugs. I'm just saying he wasn't tripping and/or stoned the whole time he was writing them.

<< But it's the  
evidence of the texts themselves: the byzantine plotting; the extended  
riffs on anything and everything at hand which do, somehow, and as if  
by magic, come together eventually; the ontological shape-shifting of  
the narrative agency; the relish for giggly and sophomoric excesses;  
the lyricism, the love of words and of story-telling, the willingness  
to descend unabashedly into sentimentalism and bathos; it's all of  
this that seals the deal. >>


Not all the elements listed here are of equal status. Giggling is more easily achieved when stoned than byzantine plotting, for example.

<< The impression I was left with after reading IV was that smoking dope  
for Larry is like drinking coffee or chewing gum. It's no big deal.  
The distinction between 'stoned' and 'not stoned' is irrevelant; >>

The impression I get from reading jbor's posts is that he has never been stoned in his life.
  
<< notions of addiction or psychological, intellectual or physiological  
ill effects don't factor into it. The buzz he gets from smoking dope  
is just Larry's natural state of mind. Live and let be. >>

Indeed they don't. There's no such thing as marijuana addiction.