Inherent Vice: Adherent Meaning

[John Bailey]

I think Alice was comparing comparing House to Doc (although I love
your Dostoevsky quip - and actually have turned to novelists at times
of medical crisis, though more of the psychological variety).

So: House takes painkillers (apparently, have never really watched the
show) and Doc enjoys the results of regular marijuana consumption.
Both practices, presumably, have some effect on their work life and
both are also inherent to their characters. This is because they're
fictional characters - to me, trying to diagnose whether they'd be
better or worse without these vices (?) is sort of pointless, since
their confinement to fictional circumstances means that they can never
be more than they are. They're not real, they're just words, so they
can't change unless further words are added (or new interpretations of
existing words are offered).

Except Pynchon's always been keen on those forks in the road, those
possible alternative universes and histories and Iceland Sparring
perspectives, so maybe it's not such a fallacy to bounce around
questions of 'what ifs' when it comes to fictional characters.

I'd be hesitant to pathologise a character if the author wasn't
particularly supportive of pathological discursive systems, however,
and I don't think TRP is big on that kind of institutionalised,
objective diagnostics. His 'characters' aren't just clusters of
symptoms.

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 5:23 PM, umberto rossi
<umbertorossi_000 at fastwebnet.it> wrote:
> On 11 Sep 2009 at 22:17, alice wellintown wrote:
>
>> Do you hire doctor House to diagnose your
>> health issues even though he pops pain killers like tic tacks? Is he a
>> better doctor because he takes the pain killers? Would he be better if
>> he didn't take them. If he quit the drugs would he be almost as great
>> and live a lot longer and perhaps save more lives?  Or would he die
>> sooner, perhaps take his own life?
>
> What's the point of this? A doctor is not a writer. What do you do
> when you have toothache, read Dostoevsky?
> _____________
> umberto rossi
>
>