James Wood On Pynchon's Characters

[Mark Woollams]

 I agree with John on this one. . I interpret Doc's use of narcotics as yet another example of the inherent vice in IV. In a way, because he is under the influence we have yet another reason to question the accuracy of his thinking. Pynchon seems to include a wealth of details to confuse the reader and eliminate the possibility of a clean plot line. The drug use is just another wave of confusion we have to mull over.


 I've always felt that Pynchon's genius is the depth to which he extends his themes. Reading Pynchon makes me confused and paranoid that I'm too dumb to understand his message- a perfect connection with his themes of paranoia and confusion in life.




> ----- Original Message ----
> From: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
> To: kelber at mindspring.com; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Mon, November 9, 2009 10:36:47 AM
> Subject: Re: James Wood On Pynchon's Characters
>
> 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.
>
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