James Wood On Pynchon's Characters

[John Carvill]

Sorry Laura, I really can't agree. I don't think Pynchon aims to
portray drug-taking, in a general sense, negatively at all. He
certainly seems to still regard marijuana as 'that useful substance'.
Heroin, of course, is a different matter.

I know I'm a lone voice on this, but I still reckon the 'stoner noir'
thing has been over-played. Yes, Doc smokes quite a few joints, but
despite this he seems to be very capable, relatively speaking. It's
also noteworthy that, on a number of occasions, he pointedly does not
have a smoke, eg. when he goes to meet Mickey Wolfmann's wife.

It may well be the case that dope led to dippy idealism, but it also
fed a lot of the culture of the Sixties that we still cherish today.
It was probably *the* most crucial influence on the mid-Sixties
Beatles, for instance.

In my experience, the sort of person who is likely to be open to
developing a marijuana habit is also likely to be receptive to
left-leaning political thought. I'm not claiming a 100% correlation,
but generally I think that holds true.

I don't recall too may passages in IV, by the way, where the process
of getting stoned is described in much detail. Usually Doc 'rolls a
number' and that's that. The exception is the writing a wish on a
Rizla, etc. but that's less to do with drugs than with esoteric belief
systems, I suppose.

Ultimately, whatever your views on drugs, the weed smoking depicted in
IV is surely much more realistic version of what you should expect if
you try it than becoming one with nature.

<< Good point.  GR encourages drug use.  I've never dropped acid, but
after reading GR I sure wanted to.  Slothrop stretching out on the
crossroads, disintegrating, becoming one with Nature, is the sort of
turning on, tuning in, etc. that was the purported heart of the '60s
(drug, anyway)trip.  By contrast, reading IV is as meaningful as being
the lone straight person in a roomful of stoners -- it'd make anyone
want to run out and flush their stash.  The book makes any drug use
seem damn unattractive.  It seems deliberate, but I don't think
Pynchon's merely being priggish in his old age. Pot-smoking led to the
dippy idealism (personified by Denis, in particular) that deflected
any real social/political activism on the part of those who copiously
partook.  Maybe the paving stones covering the beach, in the opening
quote, are bricks of heroin, covered by a thatch-work of marijuana.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Rob Jackson <jbor@[omitted]>


>In IV, Pynchon seems to write alot about the processes of getting
>stoned, describing it as an outsider or wannabe would, and it feels
>and sounds pretty stale and humdrum as a result, whereas some of the
>most beautiful passages and sequences in GR and M&D for example are so
>obviously trip-inspired. And there is a true and authentic sense of
>immediacy to the experiences described (the getting, having, not
>having, needing, wanting, not wanting, etc., of the illicit product of
>choice) in the earlier novels which is absent from IV.

>>