authors under the influence

[Paul Mackin]

On Oct 19, 2006, at 1:29 PM, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:

> 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.

Substances mentioned in "Proust at the Majestic" include both  
stimulates and calmer-downers

amytal nitrate
valerian
pure adrenaline
veronal
caffeine
anti-asthma cigarettes

"One swallows a new drug with delicious anticipation of the unknown"  
is a paraphrase of Proust's approach to drugs.

A character in the novel, the novelist Bergotte, is very Proust-like  
with respect to self-prescribed pharmacology.



>  -------------- 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?
>>
>
>