Like a symphony without instruments or a movie with no actors: that is the sort of feeling one gets after reading The Alcoholics of Jim Thompson (1953). The inexorable truth behind any alcoholic lies in a small bundle of pages, but will remain veiled and ignored for being too crude, raw and brutal. The characters crawl their way out day after day with no more hope that the fate awaiting irretrievable men (and, to a less extend, women). It is true that Thompson does not sound that hopeless. The end, with Love and Friendship and Care showing timidly up, is tender and uplifting. However, the fate of Thompson's characters is just a peregrination in a vale of tears. The diagnosis is too real. No music is allowed: even sad songs will sweeten up the drama.
If I read The Alcoholics is because I heard a valuable critic that claimed that Thomson had the key to explain the curse: alcoholic addition is based on fear. I longed to explore that. In an age of confusion and polymorphism, it sounds relivable to hold the key of something. What kind, what sort of fear?, I wondered. Now I know that is the Fear with capital letters Thompson talks about, the supreme Fear that makes any other fear small and unaccountable... The fear to the things alcohol can do to yourself included. "It is impossible to scare the shit out of an alcoholic", it is said abundantly clear throughout the pages.
The door opened to alcoholism is that of Fear: the Fear to yourself. The Fear that lies within yourself. The Fear that the Batman of Christopher Nolan fights against while being utterly transform by it. The ways this terrible evil operates are described at some point in the novel and the most scary part of all is that, as far as I can see, this Fear is way too common and extended and can drive anyone to any other kind of addition or hell, anytime. Listen to this:
"There's only one reason any alcoholic ever drinks" -says the Doc to Jeff Sloan. "Because he's afraid (...). Whatever you're considered_ iron-nerved, a pinch-hitter, a guy who knocks'em cold and wraps 'em up_ it isn't enough for you. You're afraid. You've got to keep showing people. The more you show 'em the more you have to. And when you can't...". This is in my view a too familiar experience: people with something to prove or, better, with nothing to prove but condemned to do it. Even more frightening is the following recognizable experience: "The alcoholic's depressed mood pulls him two ways. While it insists that great deeds must be done by way of proving himself, it insidiously resists his doing them. It tells him simultaneously that he must -and can't. That he is certain to fail -but must succeed".
**
Thompson keeps telling us the ways of Jeff Sloan. The following paragraph is quite explicit and allows us hypothesize and explore more: "He sipped at the whiskey until the glass was approximately two-thirds full. Then, he dripped water into it until the level reached the top again. He took another sip, held it in his mouth a moment, savoring it judiciously. He nodded with satisfaction... Very shrewd, he though, congratulating himself on the 'discovery'; unaware that the trick was the older in the alcoholic's repertoire".
First, notice that the alcoholic is by no means a scatterbrain; it is probably a being holding a somewhat high recognition for himself, which, in turn, tears him apart. For such phenomenon to happen, a certain intellectual activity is due. The alcoholic does not seem a man full of himself or holding an err or deceitful opinion of himself with no regard for "higher" values. As a matter of fact, it looks the opposite: the alcoholic does care, sees beyond, seeks truth. There is something that push him to expect more of himself. It is an obligation turned into a moral urgency. Later on, while in the grip of alcohol, he knows himself trapped. And, most important, he suffers. Hopelessness keeps biting and the taste is bitter and painful. Any small battle won counts and satisfies.
I tried to reproduce Sloan's trick by doing a simple calculation. Below it is the plot of how much liquid he drinks for a given number of times that he performs the re-fill with water, n. Further below, it is the plot of the actual amount of alcohol he gulps down each time. Notice that it takes now 3 operations to drink the volume of a whole glass, whereas the alcohol swallowed is only about 70 %. After 9 or 10 repetitions, there is virtually no more alcohol left in the glass. (If we take whiskey as 40% v/v and ethanol as the alcohol, there is about 89 mg of alcohol per quarter-of-liter glass).
The trick would certainly prevent his death by shock or episodes of coma, but the trouble is that it would sink him down in a world of drowsiness. Senses would become vaporous as the cognition functions of his brain. Jim Thompson knew it well: it is rare to find an alcoholic who actually die directly from alcohol. They might get into brawls, be driven over trucks or beaten by teenagers or the unmerciful cold instead.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
If I read The Alcoholics is because I heard a valuable critic that claimed that Thomson had the key to explain the curse: alcoholic addition is based on fear. I longed to explore that. In an age of confusion and polymorphism, it sounds relivable to hold the key of something. What kind, what sort of fear?, I wondered. Now I know that is the Fear with capital letters Thompson talks about, the supreme Fear that makes any other fear small and unaccountable... The fear to the things alcohol can do to yourself included. "It is impossible to scare the shit out of an alcoholic", it is said abundantly clear throughout the pages.
The door opened to alcoholism is that of Fear: the Fear to yourself. The Fear that lies within yourself. The Fear that the Batman of Christopher Nolan fights against while being utterly transform by it. The ways this terrible evil operates are described at some point in the novel and the most scary part of all is that, as far as I can see, this Fear is way too common and extended and can drive anyone to any other kind of addition or hell, anytime. Listen to this:
"There's only one reason any alcoholic ever drinks" -says the Doc to Jeff Sloan. "Because he's afraid (...). Whatever you're considered_ iron-nerved, a pinch-hitter, a guy who knocks'em cold and wraps 'em up_ it isn't enough for you. You're afraid. You've got to keep showing people. The more you show 'em the more you have to. And when you can't...". This is in my view a too familiar experience: people with something to prove or, better, with nothing to prove but condemned to do it. Even more frightening is the following recognizable experience: "The alcoholic's depressed mood pulls him two ways. While it insists that great deeds must be done by way of proving himself, it insidiously resists his doing them. It tells him simultaneously that he must -and can't. That he is certain to fail -but must succeed".
**
Thompson keeps telling us the ways of Jeff Sloan. The following paragraph is quite explicit and allows us hypothesize and explore more: "He sipped at the whiskey until the glass was approximately two-thirds full. Then, he dripped water into it until the level reached the top again. He took another sip, held it in his mouth a moment, savoring it judiciously. He nodded with satisfaction... Very shrewd, he though, congratulating himself on the 'discovery'; unaware that the trick was the older in the alcoholic's repertoire".
First, notice that the alcoholic is by no means a scatterbrain; it is probably a being holding a somewhat high recognition for himself, which, in turn, tears him apart. For such phenomenon to happen, a certain intellectual activity is due. The alcoholic does not seem a man full of himself or holding an err or deceitful opinion of himself with no regard for "higher" values. As a matter of fact, it looks the opposite: the alcoholic does care, sees beyond, seeks truth. There is something that push him to expect more of himself. It is an obligation turned into a moral urgency. Later on, while in the grip of alcohol, he knows himself trapped. And, most important, he suffers. Hopelessness keeps biting and the taste is bitter and painful. Any small battle won counts and satisfies.
I tried to reproduce Sloan's trick by doing a simple calculation. Below it is the plot of how much liquid he drinks for a given number of times that he performs the re-fill with water, n. Further below, it is the plot of the actual amount of alcohol he gulps down each time. Notice that it takes now 3 operations to drink the volume of a whole glass, whereas the alcohol swallowed is only about 70 %. After 9 or 10 repetitions, there is virtually no more alcohol left in the glass. (If we take whiskey as 40% v/v and ethanol as the alcohol, there is about 89 mg of alcohol per quarter-of-liter glass).
The trick would certainly prevent his death by shock or episodes of coma, but the trouble is that it would sink him down in a world of drowsiness. Senses would become vaporous as the cognition functions of his brain. Jim Thompson knew it well: it is rare to find an alcoholic who actually die directly from alcohol. They might get into brawls, be driven over trucks or beaten by teenagers or the unmerciful cold instead.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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