meta [part the second]

[Robin Landseadel]

On Dec 15, 2009, at 7:50 AM, Carvill, John wrote:

> . . . although I got tired of your Chandler obsession . . .

Can't say as I'm obsessed with Chandler. perhaps this will help  
clarify things. Chandler is sui generis and a voice particular and  
specific to L.A.

Downstream from Chandler's writing we get Ross MacDonald, Elmore  
Leonard, a lot of scripts that came out of Hollywood in the 40's &  
50's, many of the clichés found in P.I. TV shows—a particular and  
different style of writing crime fiction that persists to this day.  
Then, somewhere around the time of the Manson murders, there was a  
mini-revival of that style. Pynchon touches on a number of the sources  
of that mini-revival in Inherent Vice. MGM unloading their costumes,  
resulting in a lot of antique fashions re-appearing on the streets of  
L.A. around the time of Inherent Vice and usually being picked up by  
self-styled "freaks" around the time of "Inherent Vice." The Firesign  
Theater "Nick Danger" parody is another, based in part on the former.  
I'd say this all culminated in Roman Polanski's "Chinatown." All these  
things are relevant to Inherent Vice. I read most of Chandler's novels  
in the mid-seventies, re-read "The Big Sleep" a number of times after  
that and am plowing through all his novels [still] right now. I'm not  
finding all that much in "Lady in the Lake" that applies, unexpectedly  
found a lot in "Farewell My Lovely" that does apply.

I'm not obsessed with Chandler. I'm obsessed with "The Crying of Lot  
49."

> . . . we seem to disagree about whether Pynchon may or may not have  
> written some passages of GR whilst tripping. . .

I'm not saying that the final, finished product was produced in a  
Lysergic haze. Like the author himself sez, self-criticism's an  
amazing thing, it shouldn't work but it does. I'd take a guess that  
the author would take bits and pieces written under a number of  
different circumstances and assemble them later. My example of  
"Strawberry Fields" just might clarify things. The single we all know  
and love is a collaborative effort. George Martin had a big hand in  
the final product. A lot of what we think of as Lennon's song is  
Martin's score, the work of a very clear-headed man with considerable  
knowledge of orchestration. I hear the song as self-therapy—Lennon  
accesses his younger self, dredges up old internal dialogs from his  
childhood. If the song ended up like the home work tapes that Lennon  
recorded it would simply be a mournful bit of folk-tinged singer/ 
songwriter material. It's Lennon's initial vision that created the  
song, it's George Martin's orchestration that makes it "psychedelic."  
If I gave the impression that Lennon landed in Abbey Road tripping  
then proceeded to cook up SFF I apologize.

There are many sequences in Pynchon's books that are concerned with  
Visions and Revelations. I would say that LSD prima causa for his  
writing about visions. I'm not saying that Pynchon sat at his  
typewriter tripping to produce GR, but I am saying that many passages  
of the book simply would not have happened in the absence of LSD.

I contradict myself, I contain multitudes . . .