CoL49 (5)

[Robin Landseadel]

On Jun 22, 2009, at 11:00 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> One thing I disagree with is the notion that Oedipa is going  
> insane( cracking up....), though that may not be exactly what Robin  
> means..

Robin is seeing LSD as more important than JFK in this story.

The JFK assassination subtext for this story—CIA involvement, the  
ascent of the military-industrial complex, the "Manchurian Candidate"  
paranoia of the mid-sixties—passes through the LSD thread first. The  
insanity Oedipa is  suffering from may be temporary, but her pursuit  
of the Trystero during her dark night of the soul in San Francisco  
reaches a point where lack of sleep and disorientation leads to an  
inability to sort out that which is dreamed from the real. Oedipa's  
concern that she might be projecting this world does display self- 
awareness of her deteriorating mental state, her increasing isolation.  
While Oedipa's self-concern indicates awareness of her mental  
condition, the manner in which her human contacts disappear or change  
beyond recognition gives the reader reason to be concerned for her  
mental health. When Oedipa leaves "The Greek Way" she finds herself  
wandering [yo-yo-ing?] into a mental state reminiscent of LSD, if only  
metaphorically. At a certain point, the sheer repetition of the image  
of the muted posthorn becomes oppressive. The author [at this point]  
points to the noir convention of the private eye being beaten up:

	But the private eye sooner or later has to get beat up on. This
	night's profusion of post horns, this malignant, deliberate
	replication, was their way of beating up. They knew her
	pressure points, and the ganglia of her optimism, and one by
	one, pinch by precision pinch, they were immobilizing her.

In Raymond Chandler's stories [and private eye movies influenced by  
Chandler]* it often happens at this point that the PI is slipped a  
mickey—drugged into a more pliable state.

And CIA's interest in LSD in the fifties and early sixties had  
everything to do with the psychomimetic potential of this  colorless &  
odorless substance. Oedipa's self-concern for her own mental health  
reaches a peak in chapter five, where Oedipa's first move after her  
trip through nighttown in San Francisco is to see Dr. Hilarius—who  
turns out to have gone insane himself. Mucho Mass, after having taken  
LSD [from Dr. Hilarius] appears to have been cured of his neurotic  
fears—something that appears to terrify Oedipa. Of course, having a  
"shrink" who uses LSD in a thereputic context take up as much space as  
he does in a story rife with references to a psychomimetic compound  
puts issues of consensus reality & personal insanity directly on the  
table.

*including "The Big Lebowski"