Requiem for a Dream (Hubert Selby Jr)

First things first, I bought the newest Carina Round EP this morning on iTunes. It is called "Things You Should Know" and is fantastic. I love it. All the tracks are fantastic and her voice just shines. Her last album, Slow Motion Addict, was half fantastic, half bad, so this gives me lots of hope. It reminds me a bit of a less experimental version of First Blood Mystery/Disconnection Carina, which I adore. I am eagerly anticipating word of the release of her next album.

Now, to the real reason I'm finally updating my blog again. I have seen the film Requiem for a Dream (directed by Darren Aronofsky) twice, and both times it has stunned me into speechlessness. It's so blunt and affecting. But I have now finally read the book (it took me just two days, which is about 1/10, at least, of the time it takes me to read books for class) and I can honestly say I have never felt so drained and dirty after reading a book.

If you are unfamiliar with the premise if Requiem, let me debrief you: It is about the steady downward spiral of four lives, as their dreams of happiness are replaced with despair, chaos and hopelessness.

First, I have to bring up the way the book is written. There are no quotation marks. There are paragraphs that literally run on for pages. No breaks in the dialogue. Fantasies and dreams that are often written as realities. But do not be intimidated by the first page (or the first few, even). It is an incredibly effective way of getting the reader into the heads of the characters. You begin to identify the characters by the way they speak and what they are saying, getting into their minds a little and coming to know them as people, instead of figments on a page. It draws you into the book more thoroughly than you can imagine.

The first, roughly, half of the book is about the hopes and dreams of the characters. Tyrone just wants to live without any hassles. He wants to have enough money that he can get away from the places he's lived for 25 years and just live happily without worries. Marion and Harry want to travel the world and open artsy, bohemian coffee shops in New York and San Francisco. Sara, Harry's mother, wants to fit into her red dress, be on television, see her son happy and married, and have grandchildren. They have simple goals, but unhealthy ways of acheiving them.

(BEWARE: SPOILERS LIE BEYOND THIS POINT)

Tyrone, Harry and Marion involve themselves in drug trade to try to "score a pound of pure" to sell and get enough money to live comfortably off of (for the rest of their lives, we imagine?). This, eventually, backfires when the supply of heroin in the city dries up and they are reduced to sick junkies, always looking for their next fix, braving the Northeast winter all night long to try to find a source. You can sort of see it coming: the desperation, the anxiety, the falling out of love, the anguish. You feel horrible for where they end up (in a jail with Southern racists, without an arm because of needle-caused infection, selling her body for a score), but they deserve it a little more than Sara does. They chose to be this way, even if circumstance guided their hand.

Sara, however, is a lonely widow who just wants to have a happy son and be popular with the ladies in the apartment and have people see her on television. She is obsessed with the television; her life revolves around it. Early in the novel, we see that she thinks TV is reality: if a television show can end happily, so can her life. She also overeats and has a overwhelming love for food. After recieving a telephone call (perhaps a fake?) that she will be chosen to be on a TV quiz show, Sara begins to yearn to lose weight and fit into the red dress she wore to Harry's bar mitzvah. She tries a diet, but finds it took difficult. So instead, she goes to the doctor, who prescribes her, what we find out are, amphetamines. She becomes hooked on the energy (also downing a pot or more of coffee a day) but soon the pills aren't enough. She takes more of them at once, and begins to hallucinate, for which the doctor prescribes Vallium to take the edge off. Eventually, the lack of food (the pills take away her appetitie and she lives off the pill doses and pots of coffee) and the constant stream of chemicals causes her to, essentially, go crazy.

But this part of the book is what got to me the most. There is a scene in which a young doctor tells another that Sara need not be in the psych ward. She could be better in a few weeks with simple medical care. But he is overridden and she instead suffers, unable to talk and too weak to move, and subjected to force feedings (eventually a tube down her throat instead) and shock therapy treatments. At one point, she is strapped in a wheelchair for (I believe) two days, unable to speak because her throat is so dry and the tube makes her gag. No one will help her to the bathroom and instead she relieves herself in the chair. The nurse, however, tells her that she is disgusting and leaves her to sit in it for the next day until her next shock treatment. The horror she had to have felt in that hospital broke my heart.

By the end of the novel, I had been on a rollercoaster ride of drug induced euphoria, the lure of hopes of happiness, promises of a satisfied dream, then downward spirialling emotions, insanity and ravenous addiction, grime, filth and horrific scenarios. There is no way to accurately describe Requiem for a Dream besides as both heartbreaking and devestating. Especially the story of Sara who had no idea what was happening to her, and is sentenced to live the rest of her life in the bubble of a mental hospital, vaguely unaware of her surroundings most of the time.

(SPOILERS END)

The story is one that is highly affecting, and haunts anyone who reads the book or watches the film. Even though I have finished the book and put it on my shelf (well, not really, since I'm borrowing it, but let's think metaphorically), I still couldn't fight the urge to take a shower an hour after reading the last pages, and write a blog entry to get the scattered thoughts about the book out of my head.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has experimented with drugs or are familar with them, with people who are not terribly squeamish, and those who are interested in stories that delve into the triumph and defeat the human spirit, for this is not only a story about drugs and their effects, but what happens when outside forces cause the human spirit to surrender and cower in the shadows.