authors under the influence

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Just got through the Grandmother's death in "The Guermantes Way". There's such an unflinching devotion to the details—both social and physical, medical and emotional—of this woman's undoing. And at the very same time, it's the deepest and most rhapsodic sort of poetry.

I'd love to have a full phamacological inventory of the great author's stash.
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dunno if it's been mentioned but one of  the most medicated of  
> authors on record was Marcel Proust. His great (if not too-fucked-up)  
> desire was to live long enough to finish "A la recherche du temps  
> perdu."  (now there's an addiction) He tried everything in the way of  
> drugs available to him to keep a failing body going long enough to  
> complete the task. Prominent were shots of pure adrenaline obtained  
> from Swiss manufacturers. And to tie this thread to the Starbucks one  
> he also ingested plenty of good old reliable caffeine. He had  
> virtually stopped eating to the point of starvation but managed to  
> keep some nutrition coming into his body from his favorite beverage,  
> cafe au lait, sent in from the Ritz no doubt.
> 
> I've been reading a new book about the last days  of Proust called  
> "Proust at the Majestic" by Richard Davenport-Hines.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 19, 2006, at 10:02 AM, Otto wrote:
> 
> > That's been the part I liked too, but I never went past page 120 I
> > admit! I didn't get it!
> >
> > 2006/10/17, Will Layman <WillLayman at comcast.net>:
> >> I do think that the passage about the
> >> guy waiting for his (dealer?) and wondering if he should call his
> >> dealer, being torn about it, is real a brilliant -- not necessarily
> >> just a portrait of drug feeling but a portrait of fucked up desire of
> >> any kind at all.
> >>
> >
> > Is this the major pattern of the book? I was wondering what the
> > literary function of this part might be when I read it first.
> >
> > And did I only miss to apply the "message" of this to all the other
> > stories in the book? That nearly everything in the post-postmodern era
> > is done out of "fucked up desire"?
> >
> > Not that bad, this observation! But is there anything new in the  
> > message?
>