BlogCritics Review of Inherent Vice

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Not that it's THAT important, but Zombis DO perhaps exist. At least on
Haiti where you can find them as work-slaves forced by a combination of
magical spells (yes, yes, but "If men define a situation as real, it's real
in its consequences", as W.I. Thomas once put it) and psychoactive substances,
especially of the datura type.

cf. Wade Davis: The Serpent and the Rainbow. A Harvard Scientist's astonishing
Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic [1985].
New York, NY 1997: Touchstone.

"'Zombis cannot be the living dead,' he told me. 'Death is not merely the loss
of bodily function, it is material decay of the cells and tissues. One does not
wake up the dead. However, those who have been drugged may revive.'
'This zombi preperation, Dr. Douyon, do you have any idea what it contains?'
'Snakes, tarantulas, most anything that crawls.' He hesitated. 'Or leaps --
they say there's always a large toad. Human bones ... but they go into everything.'
'Do you know what species of toad?'
'No, but I don't think ... there is a plant that grows. We call it the CONCOMBRE
ZOMBI, the zombi's cucumber.'
'Oh, you mean datura.' [I'm leaving out a passage on Ewen Cameron who also worked
with datura, on mice and men, 'cause tuesday is the day of the week where --- from
blue bird to blue beam --- I don't wanna worry about MKUltra and its followers ...]
'Datura must be the pricipal ingredient of the poison,' Douyon continued. 'It is a
powder that is placed in the form of a cross on the ground or across the threshold
of a doorway ..." (pp. 58-9)

With 15 I once took a drug of the datura type (Stechapfeltee); not the heavy hallucinations
but the much too frequent blackouts made me stay away from it ever since --

Kai



John schrieb:

>
> This not been posted yet? Don't think so... IV review on BlogCritics, by
> Gordon Hauptfleisch:
>
> "In Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon forgoes some gravitas to chase - well,
> meander without necessarily cutting to the chase - a few rainbows.
> Offering us the unique experience of late sixties psychedelic noir with
> trademark oppressive paranoia and kaleidoscopic pop culture references -
> from Gummo Marx to Mike Curb, and a dopers' roundtable discussion of
> sorts of American versus English zombies - Pynchon seems to cavalierly
> create a vastly amusing, enjoyable but convoluted narrative where the
> dots are virtually impossible to follow ("And would this be multiple
> choice?" he understandingly interjects at one point), and the life
> portrayed is oftentimes absurd. And why not? After all, Pynchon once
> said, maybe his fiction is "not the world, but with a minor adjustment
> or two it's what the world might be." Zombies and all....."
>
> http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-inherent-vice-by-thomas
> /