I have been pretty quiet here at the Authwhore, to date. Only becasue I have been in the throws of making my way through the published letters of one Hunter Thompson. That is about 1200 pages of rambling thoughts from one of the great wordsmiths of our time.

I had really planned on a rap about a couple of books before I started that sidebar, which stand on their own merit; Acid House by Irvine Welsh and The Toy Collector by James Gunn.

            

I had this whole line of thought worked out, regarding these two books. I was going to go into a whole bit about how comtemprary fiction was in it’s own recession. I was going to write about how literature is a vehicle for escapist moments. You know, those moments of down time when the right book takes you out of your own experience. But my own experiences rival the depravity exhibited what is detailed in the two books I had planned on deconstructing.

Christ, even Oprah has gone on about how great similar stories of epic abuse are fantastic narratives. (Then cried when the line is less than true drug addled whoring.)
The book about some young guy getting sideways on whatever random thing hits his button, treating the folks around him poorly and in the best scenario turning back around seems to have become it’s own genre.
Write about drug boys and get a book published.

Do we even care? Really?
Fiction or Non, does it really matter?
We are talking about straight up escapism right?
I can’t say my motive for reading these books had anything to do with my identification with “using” to escape my present reality. They The Toy Collector and Acid House had neat covers and good lines from random reviewers on thier covers. I was sure they would fill some hours on the train.

Once I had read them I was left marvelling in the similar story lines. And that was the launching point of my attack.
I mean really, they are the some story: with wild drug abuse and shallow love. It is the program for publishing, when considering current fiction. We could all do it.
Slap some smack with some funky love and you have a book.

We all have spent some hours working our way out of our minds. Right? I have, at least. Be honest with yourself, and I will lay one that you have too. Maybe not to the degree of ralphing on your “pals” or selling out your dealers. You have sought escape. I have, too.
So how does that pass for good writing, a story worth publishing?

Acid House does it with some immersion technics with linguistics. The Toy Collector does it, but with less success. They both are good stories, don’t misconstrue my intent here. They both will sink you deep into another minute of a life that is likely worse off than the shit you are dealing with. They will give you escape.

Their form is what is hassling my head, right now, though. General stories of mean drug use and sad relationships are the bit of shit that sells books these days.

It still seems to lack some twinge of reality I know, though. They are both close to a truth and that pulls us in, with the promise of escape from our own banality.

And that is what we’re all hoping for in a book, right?

We want to get out.
Out of our skin. Out of our heads.
Into some sexy shit that makes our own lives look pale.
Along with a little more.

I am still trying to reconcile the drug boy books with earlier books, which feature narcotics as a character, though.
When I put The Toy Collector and Acid House in context with the likes of On the Road, or those stories of Burroughs or especially the work of HST – I am left wanting. Could it be that these contemporary junkies are somehow more empty, more vapid that those of the past? Have we evolved into a society with the depth of dry puddle? In comparison, there is less meaning, in my mind, with these new generation of junkie books, less firmament.

The central figures lack the subtext of actual living in their lives. There is less motivation to identify with characters who are as deep in , as out of it as my worst associations. I am left considering my own bad decisions, after plowing through these stories. The escape delivered is no better than the ones I was able to pull off for myself some twenty years ago. And I did a better job.

Perhaps I exhibited a greater commitment to escapism in my own actions, in my youth. I want something more from those tales today. HST was able to pull that shit off, but he was one to bring the subtext of some larger event to his narratives.

Welsh and Gunn give me a parachute to jump with, but not the ground to land on when things are done. I am left to float in the clouds, and there are no heavens.

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