James Wood On Pynchon's Characters

[Robin Landseadel]

On Nov 9, 2009, at 7:36 AM, John Carvill wrote:

> I know I'm a lone voice on this,

As a matter of fact, you're not . . .

> 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.

The rules of the game are based on Philip Marlowe. Raymond Chandler is  
the obvious model for the descriptions of "altered states of  
consciousness" in Inherent Vice, and that's a major reason why the  
scenes of ingestion of psychotropic substances in IV is different than  
such scenes in the far more psychedelic Gravity's Rainbow.

> 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.

Unlike the Rutles whose explorations of tea lead to their greatest  
musical advances.

> 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.

It amazed me how many "weekend warriors" became Reagan Democrats.

> I don't recall too may passages in IV, by the way, where the process
> of getting stoned is described in much detail.

The details are there, but like a lot of Pynchon, they are presented  
in such an offhand matter as to be easily ignored. There are many  
descriptions of specific psychotropic qualities dashed off in a quick  
phrase or sentence, flowing rhythmically into the text so as to become  
background noise.

> 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.

Dig deeper and you'll find those supposedly esoteric belief systems.

> 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.

I must plead the fifth or beg for a quarter.