CoL49 (5)

[kelber at mindspring.com]

OK, Pynchon and LSD:  anti in COL49?  Possibly influenced by while writing GR?  What's so bad about LSD?  

The real issue is whether drugs are supplied by one's friends or by them (doctors, CIA, etc.).  I had occasion to ponder this recently when I was having a painful dental procedure.  My politically progressive dentist had reluctantly agreed to use laughing gas.  He's no sadist, but he's an earnest type who believes that depriving you of pain is akin to robbing you of some sort of important life experience. I experienced that moment of fear right before you go under, which was followed by indignation when I realized my dentist just couldn't bring himself to turn up the spigot enough to create even moderate oblivion.(By the way, I've given birth three times without so much as an aspirin -- not out of any ideological or feminist leanings, but because the pain simply wasn't that bad.  But I'm desperate for painkiller the moment I even think about scheduling a dentist appt.) 

Would Pynchon approve of my dentist?  Is pain worth the need to stay conscious, ergo, out of THEIR control?  Why are prescription or medically-administered drugs so suspect, so un-hip?  Mick Jagger sneering about "mother's little helper," for example.  If Rush Limbaugh were caught smoking weed or popping Ecstasy, would we jeer at his hypocrisy in the same way?  How about medical marijuana?  Does it become an establishment drug if administered by THEM?  For TRP, it seems to be about control, not about the drug experience per se.  Oedipa's pretty pissed off when she sees Mucho's drug addled/enlightened state.  Is she mad because he's given in to Hilarius, Nazi doctor, or because he's gone somewhere she can't follow?  I suspect the latter.  She doesn't think that she'll find the answers she's looking for there.  lSD gets you to ask the wrong questions.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>

>
>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"