Drugs in IV vs. GR

[Mark Woollams]

Per the mighty Wikipedia, for over a thousand years South American indigenous peoples have chewed the coca leaf (Erythroxylon coca), a plant that contains vital nutrients as well as numerous alkaloids, including cocaine...

And...When the Spaniards conquered South America,
they at first ignored aboriginal claims that the leaf gave them
strength and energy, and declared the practice of chewing it the work
of the Devil

Funnily enough the Wikipedia page not only has an image of a person smoking crack cocaine, but has a feature on fruit flavored cocaine. 



----- Original Message ----
From: Victor Lazzarini <Victor.Lazzarini at nuim.ie>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tue, November 10, 2009 5:23:03 AM
Subject: Re: Drugs in IV vs. GR

Also in relation to drugs in GR, I often wondered how 'popular' and available was cocaine in the depicted era and location. I always had this impression that the modern form of the drug (powder to be 'snorted') was a late sixties phenomenon. But since I have never read a history of recreational drugs, I don't know. The only thing I know about it are the references to it in Sherlock-Holmes-derived material (I have not read many Conan Doyle originals either, only a couple and they don't go into the subject). So in other words, I'm pretty ignorant in this subject and would love to be enlightened.

Victor


On 10 Nov 2009, at 09:42, John Carvill wrote:

> One small, fairly obvious point: GR could have been written without
> any drug use being depicted, given its ostensible WWII setting. On the
> other hand, the setting of IV pretty much demands that habitual drug
> use be depicted.
> 
> When Wood picks up on Jones's line about IV being "probably as close
> to getting stoned as reading a novel can be", and then sneeringly
> adds, "(which he takes as high praise)", the critic who comes off
> looking bad is Wood, not Jones. I don't think there's a need to
> explain why that is.