DRUGS

The regular usage of drugs in the book has made me think of the reasoning behind why Lethem is so upfront with the usage of drugs and why he seems it necessary that all characters need to be using some sort of drugs to explain their persona. Before I indulge into my point, the fact that these drugs can be acquired from a store is ludicrous but at the same time explains why so many of the characters are affluent users.
In the instance of Testafer, we find out that he is a regular user of Avoidol that accelerates repression. Lethem may have assigned Testafer with this drug maybe because he wants the reader to think that he is hiding something to the audience and it is on his conscience, so to counter this he takes this drug to forget about a traumatic event in his life, which in the case of the book could be Stanhunt’s death. Secondly, we learn that Stanhunt was a regular user of a modified Forgettol. A number of reasoning could be behind this the simple answer could be that he wants to forgot what’s happening in recent past, which in his case is the divorce of his wife, but then would he not just take regular Forgettol. This leads me to believe that the modification of this drug and his usage of it back up Metcalf’s point that something happened in the past between him, his wife and Pansy and he wants to eradicate this memory. Another thought might be that with this regular consumption of drugs could it not be as simple as Stanhunt overdosed a thought to consider. Finally, Pansy Greenleaf’s persona is interesting the maker seems to believe that she is taking a very high-end drug, which that has been banned. The drugs in his perspective leads a person to complete eradicate their mind and not remind you of anything, not even yourself. This has to mean that she knows something about the whole mystery otherwise why would she try to kill her mind of this thought. To conclude I believe that there is a subplot to this story and it is not just about Stanhunt death. I mean if all three of these characters are taking drugs to repress some sort of thought they must be hiding something and Lethem rendition of all them taking similar drugs is brilliant as it emphasis the mystery of the past of all three characters.

Pranav Shankla