Comments on: 5 Classics Written Under the Influence

By: DAVE ID

DAVE ID — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:21:56 +0000

Its existence is more important than its actual worth as literature

Well said.

Fantastic article by the way.

By: dele

dele — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:35:07 +0000

HST will never have anything on Burroughs.

By: Alexis

Alexis — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:04:55 +0000

Hemingway made a point not to EVER drink while he wrote. This was a cardinal rule for him. Although he did have quite a problem. Perhaps Hunter S. Thompson would have been a better pick for this article, as Hemingway doesn’t fit the criteria.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:29:21 +0000

Hemingway had an alcohol problem, yet I don’t think he drank at all while writing.

By: Ali S.

Ali S. — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:52:51 +0000

I don’t know why but I love the poem “Kubla Khan” the images it evokes are so vivid yet understandable to those of us who don’t partake in hallucinogens. I even have it printed out and stuck to my door because I just love the wording and imagery.

By: Fritz

Fritz — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:25:21 +0000

Exactly HST he had more chemicals in his system then all those jokers combined

By: Bento

Bento — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:28:05 +0000

I’m with MoonCake, why no reference to the Great Raul Duke?

By: Namowal

Namowal — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:29:57 +0000

Wow. The only talent I get under the influence poor concentration. Not so with these guys.

By: L

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:25:27 +0000

LOL @ Gérard de Nerval and his pet lobster. I was instantly reminded of Homer and Pinchy!

By: anon

anon — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:28:48 +0000

What’s with the apostrophe in T’ang? He was Chinese, not Klingon.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:24:51 +0000

I think the list is missing one classic crazy, drug-abusing writer: Hunter S. Thompson. Need I say more?

By: Adam Stanhope

Adam Stanhope — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:42:32 +0000

re: Burroughs…

Heroin has nothing to do whatsoever with “psychedelics.”

By: Scott Wetterschneider

Scott Wetterschneider — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:26:35 +0000

I wonder if the feeling of “it all being there” regarding Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem wasn’t itself a drug induced fantasy. An untestable hypothesis, sure, but during dreams, I know I generate false memories, beliefs, and the strong sense of awesome ideas, when really, none of them are actual more than emotional impulses.

By: Jade

Jade — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:57:57 +0000

What about Syd Barrett?
Some of his songs were written while he was under the influence.

By: Gwen

Gwen — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:50:58 +0000

Well, this explains a lot…

By: Kieleth

Kieleth — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:48:22 +0000

I miss Aldous Huxley and P.K.Dick here but…

Damm interesting post, thanks!

By: Grey

Grey — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:26:16 +0000

What about the Hitchhiker’s Guide? Isn’t it obvious?

By: MoonCake

MoonCake — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:36:58 +0000

and what about the great hunter s. thompson? he was inebriated his entire life… i think his entire existance was a figment of his own imagination.

By: Robert Seddon

Robert Seddon — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:01:09 +0000

Oh, Being and Nothingness isn’t that bad. It just has stretches where Sartre tries too hard to emulate Heidegger. Now Heidegger: there was a tricky writer, the kind of philosopher who tries to redesign his entire language (leading to some deeply weird-sounding translations about being-in-the-world and ready-to-handness). Like Kant: supposedly one German university advises its undergraduates to read the Critique of Pure Reason in its English translation, because the original German is so difficult.

Sartre? Positively lucid. It’s best to study Heidegger first, though, because B&N is really a piece of technical phenomenology with roots in Sartre’s early interest in psychology (he previously wrote a Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions), rather than a manifesto for Existentialism. I get the impression it’s been mis-sold to you in that respect.

By: Badjuk

Badjuk — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:34:20 +0000

Jerzy Andrzejewski was a homo, who had two wives.