Drug Themes in Fiction/Some Thoughts for Further Research
SOME THOUGHTS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
As the reader surveys this modest bibliographical foray into drug- related literature, he will no doubt be struck by the variety of writers represented, the myriad of possibilities revealed for further research, and perhaps some omissions, which may be added to the next effort in this line of research. I would like to make some observations about two hindrances in this research effort and make some suggestions for further exploration.
The first hindrance is the non-linear nature of the drug experience which naturally takes its forms of expression outside of literature. For the drug users of the 'fifties, heroin was a life style of its own, requiring no particular expression (although a significant argument could be made for the influence of drugs in jazz music during that period when a large percentage of musicians were addicts or were closely involved in the drug world). In the 1960's, which embraced widespread availability of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and marijuana, life style played an important part in the subcultures of Haight-Ashbury and Chelsea. But during that era of drug use, "total environments" of a temporary and artificial nature became the more significant artistic manifestations of narcotic experimentation. Little has been written, for example, about the imaginative design of light shows and freak-outs which were almost nightly occurrences during this period. The creative projections of technology—blacklight, lasers, holographs, multi-image projection, and stroboscopic spotlights—became commonplace adjuncts to the drug culture. "Trip films" such as Space Odyssey: 2001, Performance, Chappaqua, A Dream Of Wild Horses, and Mad Dogs and Englishmen filled theaters with zonked-out marijuana-smoking long-haired kids. And rock and roll music, both in performance and in recordings, utilized drug-influenced distortions of sound which have had great impact upon both popular and classical music.
In the instance of this first hindrance, I feel it is clear that future studies of literature which are undertaken should not be limited to directly drug-related fiction. Much of the nonfiction writing of this era—articles from the underground newspapers, defunct youth publications such as Eye and Cheetah, or even descriptive writings from the legitimate press—reveals the substance and flavor of that drug culture more fully than traditional novels or short stories. Nonfiction writers such as Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), Carlos Castaneda (The Teachings of Don Juan, Journey to Ixtlan, and A Separate Reality), and Timothy Leary (The Politics of Ecstasy) provide insights into the drug experience that interrelate with those visions from fiction in a manner that might usefully be examined. Related fiction without drug content, such the writings of Herman Hesse, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Henry Miller, should be included in any extensive examination of the drug culture. Related phenomena in demonology, mystic philosophies, radical politics, and even such obscure fields as herbal medicine deserve notice.
Although several of these elements have been studied in isolation, I suspect that only a large, coordinated research effort examining this huge mass of information will yield the full view of drug use in the American culture of real significance. Also, since drug use has often been simplified as the confrontation between scientific materialism and mystical hallucinations, it is appropriate that this interface of reality and illusion be the focal point rather than the line of demarcation for drug studies.
The second hindrance in this study is of a different nature, the weakness of traditional literary research sources for drug study. None of the major bibliographical sources—the Bibliographic Index, the Fiction Catalogue, or the Book Review Index—contain a subcategory for fiction pertaining to narcotics. A surprising number of the books included in my bibliography are not available through large public or college libraries. (I refer to "availability" in two senses: often the books are not included in the library catalogue, or more frequently they are catalogued but "permanently" missing from the shelves.) College course reading lists, library recommendation lists, and other non-scientific or non-technical bibliographies rarely include material outside the narrow parameters of standard data that have been sifted for over a decade. Periodicals with drug information, even those as popular as Playboy, are often unavailable and rarely indexed. The aforementioned short-lived Cheetah and Eye are not available outside of the Library of Congress and a few dirty book stores, to my knowledge.
Despite the abundance of scientific and sociological data relating to drug use, there appears to be an implicit taboo about drug data in the arts and in the mainstream culture. (I have received more helpful information about juvenile drug literature from high school teachers than from any of the sophisticated library sources.) This taboo, coupled with the diffuse nature of the influence of contemporary drug culture, demands some resourceful and imaginative exploration on the part of interested researchers. But as an explorer who has touched the merest tip of this scholarly iceberg, I can report that the investigative possibilities are fascinating, rewarding, and often chilling.
REFERENCE LIST