drugs in Vineland---and drug laws

Robin Landseadel robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Tue Mar 31 13:40:35 CDT 2009


>> Mark Kohut:
>>
>> Contentious perspective for discussion:  drug use, despite our  
>> freedom to,  is "part of the problem" in Vineland????

> Laura:

> Drug use is a form of social protest in a society where it's  
> outlawed.  But it's an easy, ineffectual, and basically self-serving  
> substitute for real protest (strikes, demonstrations, civil  
> disobedience, riots, organizing, alternative media, education  
> campaigns, etc).

And it turns a sandwich into a banquet.

Far as I can tell, TRP is one of the all-time-greats of stoner humor.  
Far as I can tell, he quacks, walks and talks like a duck. There's an  
elephant in the room and he just took a toke off the bong.

There's no red-blooded, all-American evil fascist stoner in OBA's  
stuff. In fact, going from front to back of the dude's oeuvre you find  
some good stoners, some value-neutral stoners but no bad-guy stoners.  
And while Pynchon has said a lot of favorable things about weed in his  
work, I don't recall him saying anything negative about weed.

If you are looking for a post-modern writer that delves into negative  
aspects of marijuana allow me to recommend the late, lamented David  
Foster Wallace. "Infinite Jest" goes there.



More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list