IVIV page 132

[Richard Fiero]

alice wellintown wrote:
>"Weed"  makes the smoker of "Weed" paranoid; he/she is open to the
>notion that everything is connected. Of course, it could just be the
>weed. This is a premise of all  postmodern fiction.  Pynchon was
>better than most circa 1970.
. . .
If not an increased awareness of connectedness that may be essential 
for detection, the funny weed episode may point to that elsewhere. 
Otherwise it's just foolishness that may be a feature of Doc. Doc is 
much more alert when on the natch later in the chapter chatting with 
Bigfoot.  IV looks to me like a hero's journey: Doc a container for 
increased consciousness, woman as temptress, lots of pairings with 
absent partners (Bigfoot's), atonement, a blissful fog. Could also be 
a lot of Trickster in there as in The Big Lebowski analysis I linked 
earlier. Postmodern? I don't see it along the lines of P's jackets as 
identified(?) elsewhere.  Jade/Ashley resembles Ronald Sukenick's 
Lena/Lenna in Cows. I wonder if IV is a kind of memorial to Mr. Sukenick.