Chekhov's Mistress
Cigarettes are Sublime
Cigarettes are sublime, or so Richard Klein has concluded. After hearing so much about how cigarettes can harm you, Klein decided to write about how they can help you. After all, one commentator considers them the only pleasure discovered by the modern world that Rome didn’t figure out first.
Make no mistake, Klein isn’t a cigarette advocate—part of his goal in writing this book was to kick his own habit (which he says he did). However, as he points out, 26 states had banned public smoking by 1890, so Klein figures it may be early to proclaim the death of the cigarette, despite the tobacco lawsuits, surgeon general, etc.
I’m about 1/5 of the way through this short but dense work and two things stand out. Number one is the quality of Klein’s prose: This is truly literary non-fiction. For instance, describing a photograph of the photographer Brassai:
He is hunched against the rawness of one of those cold Paris nights, when the wet wind, sweeping in from the Atlantic uninterrupted by the plains to the west, blows down into the city streets, banishing cobwebs. Half his face is illuminated by the oblique ray of a street lamp that is the apparent but invisible source of the pool of light at his feet. The light, coming from above at an angle, lends a theatrical air to the prominence of his face in the photograph, a face that features a large aquiline nose and, jutting out and down, a cigarette—long, inordinately thick, and very white against the darkness.
The other thing that stands out is the extreme closeness of Klein’s close readings. Microscopic, even. These readings are like arabesques—you follow Klein’s thought through innumerable twists and turns that sometimes become so extreme that you are forced to just hold on for the ride. You read them for the simple enjoyment of following a challenging argument. It’s been immensely entertaining thus far to simply see Klein in action.
One last note. Chapter 3 is a close reading of The Confessions of Zeno, a book which is centered around one man’s attempt to abandon smoking. I’ve heard it’s one of the best available readings of that book, which is, of course, a classic of the 20th century.
comments
I found the descriptive passages of photographs to be gripping as well. I’m glad you like the book Scott. It was one of my favorite non-fiction books from my college years. It also helped me quit smoking, by the way, because it helped me understand where my urges came from. Truly, it inspired me to understand the desire for the sublime in life, for the feeling of tempting death and fate and escaping from the rushing forward of life for an ephemeral breath of timelessness.
– SisterRye (01/21 at 07:11 PM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: January 20, 2005
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:1
- Links to this Post: Technorati
