James Wood On Pynchon's Characters

[Mark Kohut]

As another matter of fact, you are not--- (alone) in that.

Annoys a bit of hell out of me....imagine if the reviewers and readers of Chandler (or others) so concentrated on the booze............

Analogy holds, I think. 

--- On Mon, 11/9/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: James Wood On Pynchon's Characters
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Monday, November 9, 2009, 11:08 AM
> 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.
> 
>