An Uncertain Poetics of the Intoxicated Narrative: Drugs, Detection, Denouement
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AN UNCERTAIN POETICS OF THE INTOXICATED NARRATIVE: DRUGS, DETECTION, DENOUEMENT Sudipto Sanyal A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2013 Committee: Ellen Berry, Advisor Philip Andrew Dickinson Graduate Faculty Representative Supriya Chaudhuri Donald Callen © 2013 Sudipto Sanyal All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Ellen Berry, Advisor This dissertation attempts to examine how certain modes of intoxication touch, affect, transform and underlie the movement of narrative, which has been for the longest time our primary mode of ordering reality. Operating somewhat speculatively, this study contends that that most, if not all, narratives either function in an intoxicated manner, or desire the operations of intoxication. The articulation and untangling of the “intoxicated narrative,” as I have termed it, is the central impulse of this dissertation, which aims at unravelling the constant need for and presence of intoxication that narratives carry in their very grain. To do this, I have examined what I tentatively call narratives of detection, i.e., narratives that unfold roughly in the manner of detective fiction, which I have posited as the dominant genre of modernity. These narratives – dating from the early 19th century to the early 21st – usually (though not always) include the figure of a detective or detective- substitute, operate causally and teleologically, and are apparently set within a framework of strict logic and rationality. At the same time, though, these narratives frequently destabilize, derail and subvert their own logical operations. I connect this derailment to the obscure presence of intoxication (in various forms) that inflects them constantly, because from its very inception, detective fiction appears to have had a subtext of intoxication coursing through its veins. To this end, I have explored the different ways in which intoxication appears in these otherwise reason-dominated narratives, be it as a thematic element in the story, or as a reader’s intoxication with text, or the critic’s iv intoxication with the act of analysis. Most importantly, this project attempts to liberate the glimmerings of intoxication that the narrative process itself is subject to, and to trace a connection between the intoxicated narrative and the increasingly databasal (i.e., non- narratival) logic of the internet. Is the internet the extreme logical conclusion these intoxicated narratives of detection have been wending their way towards? And is this indeed the reason these narratives have become the underlying structural obsession of postmodernity? These are some of the questions this project hesitantly seeks to locate answers to. v Enivrez-Vous (Get High) You must always be high. Everything depends on it: it is the only question. So as not to feel the horrible burden of Time wrecking your back and bending you to the ground, you must get high without respite. But on what? On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, whatever you like. But get high. And if sometimes you wake up, on palace steps, on the green grass of the ditch, in your room’s gloomy solitude, your intoxication already waning or gone, ask everything that flees, everything that moans, everything that moves, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is. And the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, clocks, will answer, “It is time to get high! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get high; get high constantly! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue as you wish.” — Charles Baudelaire vi For Jerry Garcia, who started it all. May the Candyman always come ’round again. And for Father Ted, who got me through it. And, of course, for the Dude. May he ever abide. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, of course, my parents, Supriti and Surajit Sanyal, for having me, and without whose constant encouragement and unwavering support this dissertation would have been written in half the time. Thanks, Ma and Pop, for absolutely everything and more. Many many expressions of gratitude go out to my fabulous committee – Phil Dickinson, for expanding my horizons and plunging me into the jangling corridors of psychedelic music; Supriya Chaudhuri, for keeping me on my theoretical toes while I’ve been in India; Don Callen, for gallons of wine, reels of celluloid, and the carte blanche to plunder his mind; and most especially Ellen Berry, advisor extraordinaire, mentor, object of awe, purveyor of cookies and other delights, and provider of solace in times of deep uncertainty. More intelligent and understanding overlords may well be impossible to find. Thanks go also to Don McQuarie, for making me so welcome in the program and for knowing where all the corpses are buried. As I’ve said before, fuck it, Don, let’s go bowling. Speaking of which, Bowling Green is a strange and empty place for a boy from Calcutta, and it would have been unbearable without so many friends, all of whom I want to thank profoundly. Ana Grujic, for being a great roommate, a sparkling drinking buddy, and an even better friend. Cristian Pralea, for debating fine theoretical points till the wee hours of the morning, for giving me valuable advice on my very first chapter, and for being the only real-life Transylvanian I know. Charlotte Tidy, who may yet turn out to be a spy, for baking the best cakes I have ever had the good fortune of eating. Colin Helb, for being the first to help me banish the doldrums of Bowling Green from my consciousness. Dana Acee, for sausage bread, Utica riggies, warm comfort and general loveliness. Bryan McGeary, for his hand in my downfall (I allude, of course, to all those dollars spent on concert tickets). JR – John Calvin Rawlins III – for being the only person I know with a number in their name, and for late-night drives through the viii heart of the country. Thanks for helping me discover America, and irie, mon. Good friends we have, and good friends we lost. Galactically proportioned thanks will not do justice to Arundhati Ghosh, for being just the best friend anyone could ever hope for, on top of being a prodigious Eater of Eggs. And for printing, scanning, courier and other nerve-wracking dogsbody services. Much is owed. A similar debt is owed to my partner-in-crime, Dr. Christian Remse, for far too many troubles to enumerate, and for making my American life one to cherish always. Next year in Munich, my friend! And to Mo Büdinger, for being calm and wise in the face of much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair. What swell parties we had! Calcutta has been kind enough to make the writing at the end (or the end of the writing) a quiet pleasure, and there are many to whom I am grateful, especially my friends and teachers from Jadavpur University. They include, but by no means are limited to, Abhijit Gupta, for things Sherlockian; Rimi B. Chatterjee, for healthy doses of skepticism about my project; Parichay Patra, for Crack Wars from Down Under; and Somnath Basu, for agreeing to proofread my manuscript (even though he didn’t do it, did he?). For enlivening the writing process with antics galore, my affection and gratitude to many quadrupeds loved and lost. Some perhaps more than others, but a great big hug to all of them. My late paternal grandmother and my late maternal grandfather would both have undoubtedly been thrilled right now. Love to them, wherever they are (probably hitch hiking across the galaxy). I’d like to thank the police department and the fire department and the guys selling loose joints who’re giving the city half their incomes tonight. It’s been a long strange trip. Remember to hydrate. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page THE OBSERVATION OF TRIFLES, IN LIEU OF AN INTRODUCTION ...................... 1 CHAPTER I. PIPE DREAMS AND PUNCTURE MARKS: HOLMESIAN HIGHS AND LOWS ……………… ........................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER II. SHADOWS, SMOKES AND VAPOURS: HARDBOILED DETOURS .... 66 CHAPTER III. TEXTUAL TRIPS AND PSYCHEDELIC REACTIONS: HALLUCINATIONS OF POSTMODERNITY AND THE METAPHYSICAL DETECTIVE …………......................................................................................................... 140 OUTRO: UNFINISHED BUSINESS .................................................................................... 180 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 190 1 THE OBSERVATION OF TRIFLES, IN LIEU OF AN INTRODUCTION “Yeah, PIs should really stay away from drugs, all ’em alternate universes just make the job that much more complicated.” “But what about Sherlock Holmes, he did coke all the time, man, it helped him solve cases.” “Yeah, but he... was not real?” “What, Sherlock Holmes was–” “He’s a made-up character in a bunch of stories, Doc.” “Wh – Naw. No, he’s real. He lives at this real address in London. Well, maybe not anymore, it was years ago, he has to be dead by now.” – Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. – Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ She is watching the detectives. – Elvis Costello On a fateful Sunday in May, 1975, Michel Foucault, “militant and professor at the Collège de France,” found himself at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, California. With a tape of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte playing from the car parked nearby, the famous French philosopher sat gazing out into the desert. He was tripping on LSD, for the first time in his life.1 By most accounts, this was a life-altering event; Foucault would later call it “the greatest experience in his life.”2 Coming as it did in the wake of his discovery of and headlong immersion in the intense gay culture of San Francisco in the seventies, it marked a profound change in the way he would approach his work for the rest of his life.