“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and Charles Dickens wrote about opium smoking in their novels. But if you read the way they describe opium smoking, without a doubt these people never saw the real thing. It’s laughable…What we see in movies, even to this day, with the obligatory London opium-smoking scene is complete fiction.” Interview with a modern-day opium addict.
Confessions of a Modern Opium Smoker
Pawnee Central
A theory of place in literature derived from Parks and Recreation? Why, Ploughshares blog, you’re too kind.
“Their judgment of themselves was remorseless.”
Recommended Reading: Matt Jakubowski’s short story, “Sharpening the Sickle to Shame the Scythe,” which I dare you to say out loud several times in a row.
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“Writers all need Vera.”
Does a writer need a devoted spouse to be prolific? At The Atlantic, Koa Beck examines the concept of having a do-it-all partner like Vera Nabokov and if this traditional gender role only harms female writers. Koa interviews various writers, from Emma Straub to Ayelet Waldman, on how their literary partnerships work. “I’d fantasized that being his Vera was a way for me to deal with being stuck as a stay-at-home mom—I’d subsume my own ambitions into something ‘greater!’ But that lasted about 48 hours,” Waldman said.
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The Vulgar and Beautiful
At Big Other, Greg Gerke reads William H. Gass’s The Tunnel and looks at language, the controversy over the book, and how the vulgar and the beautiful relate.
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We’re Dying to Know
About a year ago, Patricia Lockwood famously asked The Paris Review how they felt about their namesake. In response, the magazine assigned top people to the project, who came back with a straightforward answer.
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Opium and it’s paraphernalia has always struck me as a drug with strong literary potential. It’s mystique and exoticism seem irresistible, but the only modern mentions I’ve seen have been by squares and bores. The one and only time I smoked it was one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve ever had.
Unforgivable “its” typo. Sorry.