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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
What a RIDE – like watching cars crashing in slow motion, except you're inside one of those cars.
It took me approximately half of the book to stop/ Getting. yanked out of the story by the authors approach towards Capitalisation of words an/ disregard for, Most apostrophes. It was worth sticking around, although I'm not sure whether that's a good phrase to use towards a book that's essentially a head-hopping, painfully realistic mental and physical decomposition of four people while they're still alive. Ish.
I've always been fascinated by the mechanism of addiction and it is addiction that really is both the protagonist and antagonist of this book. From Sara, a TV-addicted, sugar-addicted, then pill-addicted lonely woman whose only dream is to actually appear inside her television set, through Harry and Tyrone and their conviction that they would never hit the bottom the way everybody else did, to Marion, who sacrificed all her boundaries including ones she never even knew she had. From promises of love to the relief that the others are not around to demand their share, from the non-committal promise to put Sara on TV to her trip to the TV station in order to demand her show.
None of those journeys begin with the person in question deciding "come to think of it, being an addict sounds great, I'm going to become one". All of them are aware of the substances they consume, even Sara, who simply refuses to listen to Harry. None of them expect to find the bottom, then dig further, it's something that happens to "other people". The idea of "other people" is presented best when Harry and Marion are busy shooting up, busy convincing each other that the "old man" they met was the real addict, that they will never become anything like him.
As for Sara, she simply desires to lose weight, goes to a doctor, gets a prescription, then follows the medical advice. What could possibly go wrong? As far as she is concerned, she's doing the right thing, simply working on making her life better, to be prepared for the future that will never come. When Harry tries to talk some sense into her Sara simply doesn't listen. Drugs? Speed? O never, she just takes medication, it's fine, it's not like she's going to become some junkie, ha ha. Marion and Harry do the same, even though the substance is different and doesn't come from a doctor.
While Harry, Tyrone, and Marion represent the more obvious side of addiction – a bit of hash, then a "taste" of heroin, then more and more until nothing is ever enough and their punishment is duly doled out both by themselves and others, it was Sara's story that struck me the hardest. It was because of Sara that the book became, ugh, unputdownable. I couldn't stop turning the pages, both dreading and anticipating what was going to happen to her. I hoped for a happy ending, knowing it wouldn't come, yet deluding myself that maybe somehow... perhaps... oh. That's exactly what all four main characters were doing, working as hard as possible to stick to the denial, expecting some sort of miracle. "I can quit any time," Harry tells himself a moment after he got his fix. I suppose I could have stopped reading this book any time as well, except I didn't. Bloody Selby. I blame him, I blame his publisher, his – uh – editor, just not myself, I had nothing to do with it, I didn't even want to read this book, it was supposed to have a happy ending...
Selby compares "addiction" with "dependence"; the drug dealers and the drug prescribers. Both provide pills or injectables that are going to solve all the problems, except the doctors do so with the full approval of the law. Yet Sara's and Tyrone's stories are not that different at all. Both have their lives yanked away from under their feet by others who make decisions for them, the easiest decisions based on the idea that neither Tyrone nor Sara are human beings anymore. They're just...containers for drugs. Who cares about containers?
Once Sara breaks, her abused and lost instant gratification becomes her doctor's instant gratification – here's thorazine, here are electroshocks, I don't care what's actually going on with her, send her to "psycho" and get her out of my way. I felt physically sick as I read about the medical professionals who simply disposed of Sara, sending her further away, looking only for "harmony" among themselves. "What's the worst that can happen?" asks one. "A few unnecessary electroshocks?" It's not like she's a person anyway, why would she mind a few unnecessary electroshocks? Yet as I was reading, witnessing the gradual removal of Sara's chances to return to her old life, I realised – I was actually shaking with anxiety at that point – that her old life and the new one weren't so different at all. She went from numbing herself with food and TV, then adding pills that were prescribed by doctors, to being forcefully numbed with food, TV, and pills. At first Sara couldn't sleep knowing there was one chocolate left in the box. Towards the end, when she is physically unable to swallow, she's being force-fed, constantly reminded that she's a disgrace, a "princess". If she were able to return to her old life, without access to the amphetamines and valium her doctor gave her, it...wouldn't have been so different. She'd have moved from sitting in front of one TV, numbed with a substance that made her doctor's life easier, to sitting in front of a different TV numbed with a different one, which would also have made her doctor's life easier. But since the substance was thorazine rather than sugar, the doctor was helping.
Television plays a major role in the book. I feel that if the book were published today, it would have been a smartphone that the characters gawked at, at once completely aware that there was nothing to look at and unable to stop. Sara admired the ads, because they gave her a feeling of comfort – they never changed, they always had happy endings, everyone was happy and cheerful. All she wanted was some of that happiness – like Harry, Marion, Tyrone. Marion would stare at the ads, busy convincing herself that only idiots watched them – while her own gaze was glued to the screen. Harry and Tyrone would end up spending hours watching TV or going to the movies simply to pass time between one "tase" and another. The difference between them and Sara became nominal.
I live with chronic pain and I'm aware of how easy it could be for me to simply pop more and more pills that my doctor happily prescribes... until he changes his mind and stops giving me any. It's taken me years to realise that no matter what multiple doctors told me the medication was addictive, it was harmful for my mental state, and that an attempt to quit it cold turkey or only take it as needed brings me down in a way not dissimilar to that Harry and Tyrone experience, only at much smaller scale. I was able to lower the dose to half of what I am prescribed, take the pill in the morning, then just go on through the evening with the pain present. At the same time I am, frankly, terrified that one day the doctor will say "nah, no more, surely it's not that bad". I tell myself that I could never become like Sara or any of the others. It's just that they told themselves exactly the same thing...
I'd like to make it clear that I am not a Big Pharma conspiracist. If we define drugs as substances that alter our emotional states to our satisfaction, I am addicted to three drugs, all of which are prescribed, come from a pharmacy, and I am unlikely to stop using them – ever. But without them I can't function. (Coincidentally, Harry, Tyrone, and Marion can't function without theirs either.) What marks the difference? Heroin, LSD, opium, cocaine were originally conceived as medicines, then withdrawn from the market because people either got addicted to them or because hard-to-say-why when it comes to LSD. Yet at the end the main difference between medication, substances like tobacco and alcohol that are deemed socially accepted in most countries, marijuana which is a "light" drug, then heroin which is as hard as it gets is really a social construct. When recreational use of marijuana is penalised in one state, but not in the others, does that make it a non-drug depending on geographical location? Was opium not a drug when it was being prescribed to make teething babies sleep quietly? Why was it declared bad when people got addicted to their medicinal heroin, but perfectly fine when they got addicted, oops! dependent on their medical anti-anxiety drugs, oops! medication?
A few months ago the supply of one of my meds seemed to dry out for some reason. My doctor asked me shyly whether I would be willing to give her one pill for another patient. I was glad to spare five, simultaneously hoping that I wouldn't run out. The other patient cried on the phone when she found out she was getting the drug after all. But it's fine, right? Because neither her nor I are addicted, we're just dependent on completely legal medication, one that was prescribed to help us?
Just like Sara.
It took me approximately half of the book to stop/ Getting. yanked out of the story by the authors approach towards Capitalisation of words an/ disregard for, Most apostrophes. It was worth sticking around, although I'm not sure whether that's a good phrase to use towards a book that's essentially a head-hopping, painfully realistic mental and physical decomposition of four people while they're still alive. Ish.
I've always been fascinated by the mechanism of addiction and it is addiction that really is both the protagonist and antagonist of this book. From Sara, a TV-addicted, sugar-addicted, then pill-addicted lonely woman whose only dream is to actually appear inside her television set, through Harry and Tyrone and their conviction that they would never hit the bottom the way everybody else did, to Marion, who sacrificed all her boundaries including ones she never even knew she had. From promises of love to the relief that the others are not around to demand their share, from the non-committal promise to put Sara on TV to her trip to the TV station in order to demand her show.
None of those journeys begin with the person in question deciding "come to think of it, being an addict sounds great, I'm going to become one". All of them are aware of the substances they consume, even Sara, who simply refuses to listen to Harry. None of them expect to find the bottom, then dig further, it's something that happens to "other people". The idea of "other people" is presented best when Harry and Marion are busy shooting up, busy convincing each other that the "old man" they met was the real addict, that they will never become anything like him.
As for Sara, she simply desires to lose weight, goes to a doctor, gets a prescription, then follows the medical advice. What could possibly go wrong? As far as she is concerned, she's doing the right thing, simply working on making her life better, to be prepared for the future that will never come. When Harry tries to talk some sense into her Sara simply doesn't listen. Drugs? Speed? O never, she just takes medication, it's fine, it's not like she's going to become some junkie, ha ha. Marion and Harry do the same, even though the substance is different and doesn't come from a doctor.
While Harry, Tyrone, and Marion represent the more obvious side of addiction – a bit of hash, then a "taste" of heroin, then more and more until nothing is ever enough and their punishment is duly doled out both by themselves and others, it was Sara's story that struck me the hardest. It was because of Sara that the book became, ugh, unputdownable. I couldn't stop turning the pages, both dreading and anticipating what was going to happen to her. I hoped for a happy ending, knowing it wouldn't come, yet deluding myself that maybe somehow... perhaps... oh. That's exactly what all four main characters were doing, working as hard as possible to stick to the denial, expecting some sort of miracle. "I can quit any time," Harry tells himself a moment after he got his fix. I suppose I could have stopped reading this book any time as well, except I didn't. Bloody Selby. I blame him, I blame his publisher, his – uh – editor, just not myself, I had nothing to do with it, I didn't even want to read this book, it was supposed to have a happy ending...
Selby compares "addiction" with "dependence"; the drug dealers and the drug prescribers. Both provide pills or injectables that are going to solve all the problems, except the doctors do so with the full approval of the law. Yet Sara's and Tyrone's stories are not that different at all. Both have their lives yanked away from under their feet by others who make decisions for them, the easiest decisions based on the idea that neither Tyrone nor Sara are human beings anymore. They're just...containers for drugs. Who cares about containers?
Once Sara breaks, her abused and lost instant gratification becomes her doctor's instant gratification – here's thorazine, here are electroshocks, I don't care what's actually going on with her, send her to "psycho" and get her out of my way. I felt physically sick as I read about the medical professionals who simply disposed of Sara, sending her further away, looking only for "harmony" among themselves. "What's the worst that can happen?" asks one. "A few unnecessary electroshocks?" It's not like she's a person anyway, why would she mind a few unnecessary electroshocks? Yet as I was reading, witnessing the gradual removal of Sara's chances to return to her old life, I realised – I was actually shaking with anxiety at that point – that her old life and the new one weren't so different at all. She went from numbing herself with food and TV, then adding pills that were prescribed by doctors, to being forcefully numbed with food, TV, and pills. At first Sara couldn't sleep knowing there was one chocolate left in the box. Towards the end, when she is physically unable to swallow, she's being force-fed, constantly reminded that she's a disgrace, a "princess". If she were able to return to her old life, without access to the amphetamines and valium her doctor gave her, it...wouldn't have been so different. She'd have moved from sitting in front of one TV, numbed with a substance that made her doctor's life easier, to sitting in front of a different TV numbed with a different one, which would also have made her doctor's life easier. But since the substance was thorazine rather than sugar, the doctor was helping.
Television plays a major role in the book. I feel that if the book were published today, it would have been a smartphone that the characters gawked at, at once completely aware that there was nothing to look at and unable to stop. Sara admired the ads, because they gave her a feeling of comfort – they never changed, they always had happy endings, everyone was happy and cheerful. All she wanted was some of that happiness – like Harry, Marion, Tyrone. Marion would stare at the ads, busy convincing herself that only idiots watched them – while her own gaze was glued to the screen. Harry and Tyrone would end up spending hours watching TV or going to the movies simply to pass time between one "tase" and another. The difference between them and Sara became nominal.
I live with chronic pain and I'm aware of how easy it could be for me to simply pop more and more pills that my doctor happily prescribes... until he changes his mind and stops giving me any. It's taken me years to realise that no matter what multiple doctors told me the medication was addictive, it was harmful for my mental state, and that an attempt to quit it cold turkey or only take it as needed brings me down in a way not dissimilar to that Harry and Tyrone experience, only at much smaller scale. I was able to lower the dose to half of what I am prescribed, take the pill in the morning, then just go on through the evening with the pain present. At the same time I am, frankly, terrified that one day the doctor will say "nah, no more, surely it's not that bad". I tell myself that I could never become like Sara or any of the others. It's just that they told themselves exactly the same thing...
I'd like to make it clear that I am not a Big Pharma conspiracist. If we define drugs as substances that alter our emotional states to our satisfaction, I am addicted to three drugs, all of which are prescribed, come from a pharmacy, and I am unlikely to stop using them – ever. But without them I can't function. (Coincidentally, Harry, Tyrone, and Marion can't function without theirs either.) What marks the difference? Heroin, LSD, opium, cocaine were originally conceived as medicines, then withdrawn from the market because people either got addicted to them or because hard-to-say-why when it comes to LSD. Yet at the end the main difference between medication, substances like tobacco and alcohol that are deemed socially accepted in most countries, marijuana which is a "light" drug, then heroin which is as hard as it gets is really a social construct. When recreational use of marijuana is penalised in one state, but not in the others, does that make it a non-drug depending on geographical location? Was opium not a drug when it was being prescribed to make teething babies sleep quietly? Why was it declared bad when people got addicted to their medicinal heroin, but perfectly fine when they got addicted, oops! dependent on their medical anti-anxiety drugs, oops! medication?
A few months ago the supply of one of my meds seemed to dry out for some reason. My doctor asked me shyly whether I would be willing to give her one pill for another patient. I was glad to spare five, simultaneously hoping that I wouldn't run out. The other patient cried on the phone when she found out she was getting the drug after all. But it's fine, right? Because neither her nor I are addicted, we're just dependent on completely legal medication, one that was prescribed to help us?
Just like Sara.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
About as riveting as a tragic downward descent into drug/psychotic despair can get I should think.
In the preface, Selby describes the American Dream as a futile endeavor, framing it as an egocentric ideology that precipitates un/intended violence. “Life is about giving, not getting,” he goes on to say (or something along those lines), and insinuates many Americans focus on the latter.
Requiem for a Dream is Selby’s attempt at depicting this notion, through the gradual, tragic decline of four characters’ lives from addiction, as dealers themselves; addiction to heroine, amphetamines, and fundamentally, addiction to misdirected hope.
I don’t disagree with what Selby’s trying to get at, but RFAD felt rather shallow, merely illustrating the slow demise that comes from substance dependence. There’s little said on the conditions that foster drug abuse, and on the system that neglects to address this crisis. Characters fell rather flat for me, as they were primarily defined by their cyclical, addiction-driven behavior — which makes sense towards the end of the book, but there was opportunity to introduce other aspects to them in the beginning.
Also, was not a fan of this literary device Selby uses that calls for grammar anarchy… I assume his intention was to impose onto readers the chaos of living with addiction. It was distracting, difficult to navigate, and thereby a challenge to better understand the characters. I’ve enjoyed the stream of consciousness prose in other books, but it was tedious to get through here.
I see Selby’s intended message; I just don’t agree with his execution.
Requiem for a Dream is Selby’s attempt at depicting this notion, through the gradual, tragic decline of four characters’ lives from addiction, as dealers themselves; addiction to heroine, amphetamines, and fundamentally, addiction to misdirected hope.
I don’t disagree with what Selby’s trying to get at, but RFAD felt rather shallow, merely illustrating the slow demise that comes from substance dependence. There’s little said on the conditions that foster drug abuse, and on the system that neglects to address this crisis. Characters fell rather flat for me, as they were primarily defined by their cyclical, addiction-driven behavior — which makes sense towards the end of the book, but there was opportunity to introduce other aspects to them in the beginning.
Also, was not a fan of this literary device Selby uses that calls for grammar anarchy… I assume his intention was to impose onto readers the chaos of living with addiction. It was distracting, difficult to navigate, and thereby a challenge to better understand the characters. I’ve enjoyed the stream of consciousness prose in other books, but it was tedious to get through here.
I see Selby’s intended message; I just don’t agree with his execution.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
will come back to this at a later date but not in the headspace to read this rn
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced