Thomas Pynchon's schlmiels

[Don Antenen]

The more I think about it, the more the formulation of Sportello as schlemiel goes from 'just wrong' to 'gross misreading'.  The schlemiel in the novel, if there is one, is his neighbor who accidentally sets his apartment on fire while taking a shower.
 
>
>The shared term is not so much schlemiel/schlimazl as it is stoner— 
>Slothrop, Zoyd and Doc are all dope smokers. Pynchon [from Gravity's  
>Rainbow onward] can be read as a marijuana advocate. Pynchon's intent  
>is to show how obviously bankrupt the drug war is, how it is a total  
>scam.
>

Pynchon may be a marijuana advocate (and I don't doubt that he, like everyone who is intelligent and not working for the DEA, is against the drug war), but I'm not sure how Sportello and his cohorts portray dope smokers well.  They're all forgetful idiots for the most part.  Sportello is smart enough that he can function despite all the reefer, but it at some points in the novel the drugs make him useless.  His brain is more fried than the junkies.

all the best,
Don