The Narco-Imaginary: Essays Under the Influence

by Scott Ramsey

Literary Nonfiction. Written according to its own dictum, "language is the universal inebriant," these epistolary essays, personal narratives, meditations on avant- garde writers, and unorthodox forays into the "narco-imaginary" the habits and conventions surrounding literary and cultural representations of drug use attend to the residue of transient impressions that remain, long after the delirium of creative activity subsides."

Genres: Essays

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2016

Reviews

[Michael Belano · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Curiosity is only vanity... We usually only want to know something so we can talk about it."

"In boredom, the knowledge that effortful questing leads to disappointment cancels the impulse to embark."

"Drugs are not so much about seeking an exterior, transcendental dimension - a fourth or fifth dimension - rather, they explore fractal interiorities."

"Consider the premise that each of us has, as days pass, flashes of recognition - moments when what surrounds us is seen for what it is, when 'what is' shines forth into language, or plunges, as if dropped from some great height, deep into the river of perception, bobbing to the surface and diving under again, propelled against the rushing current of sensation, however briefly, by some unknown force - and then acquiescing at last to the icy waters, swiftly carried to sea, sinking somewhere in the Mariana Trench of the mind."

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great language but the second half of the book felt a little tacked together. I enjoyed the book up to the Delaney essay and then the tone just changed. The letters disappeared and it began to feel more like essays were being added on for a personal reason I didn't understand.

[Anthony Crupi · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are typos and human errors and good old-fashioned fuckups, but nothing quite undermines the authority of the narco-imaginary voice quite like encountering "Jimmy Hendrix" on p. 15 and "Neal Cassidy" on p. 23, only to see both names rendered correctly later in the text. I don't care how much peyote you've gagged down while listening to the version of "Dark Star" that was recorded at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds on August 27, 1972—even Albert Hoffmann took proper notes, maaaaan.

[Jenni B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ramsey Scott knows how to write a good sentence. He writes the kind of sentences that inspire inky underlines, stars and other marginalia -- the kind that inspired me to read them out loud to my boyfriend periodically as I made my way through the text. Some stand as aphorisms that are both universally true and particular relevant to our contemporary mood: "Sometimes it takes a long time not to say too much about anything....On the other hand, it's easy to say lots about nothing."

And Scott does say lots -- not about nothing, but about a lot of different things united by the narco-imaginary, an influence which he says "supplies the haze from which these texts emerge and into which they fade." The influence and connections are, indeed, hazy at points; the strongest parts of the book work equally well for me without this framing.

Scott is at his best when he's writing in the first person, whether in diary-style musings or in epistolary form to figures that loom large but aren't real people (Franklin W. Dixon, Sergeant Pepper). It's natural when reading first-person accounts to question whether you, the reader, feel the same -- whether you can imagine the author's "I" statements being issued by your own brain or from your own mouth. I said "yes" many times; other readers will say "yes" many times. Consequently, what's contained in The Narco-Imaginary are not the musings of a substance-user, but the writings of someone whose associations with these substances enables him to access the personal and societal truths that many of us struggle to recognize or speak.

So why three stars? There's a lot packed into this book -- epistolary addresses juxtaposed with a history of cemeteries in California, personal musings mixed in with a discourse on Samuel Delaney. While the pairing of the personal with the cultural makes sense in theory, it falls short in execution here and ends up feeling disjointed and disconnected at times.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As theory, this book is erratic and refreshingly personal/idiosyncratic: from difficult passages concerning the phenomenology of narcotics to letters to Sargent Pepper, Ramsey Scott has given us a beautiful book that investigates the human element so often ignored (or else repressed) in the academic.