<<The>> existential drinker

Drinking to excess has been a striking problem for industrial and post-industrial societies – who is responsible when an individual opts for a slow suicide? The causes of such drinking have often been blamed on genes, moral weakness, ‘disease’ (addiction), hedonism, and Romantic illusion. Yet there is another reason: the drinker may act with sincere philosophical intent, exploring the edges of self, consciousness, will, ethics, authenticity and finitude. Beginning with Jack London’s John Barleycorn: alcoholic memoirs the book goes on to cover novels such as Jean Rhys’s Good morning, midnight, Malcolm Lowry’s Under the volcano, Charles Jackson’s The lost weekend and John O’Brien’s Leaving Las Vegas, and less familiar works such as Frederick Exley’s A fan’s notes, Venedikt Yerofeev’s Moscow-Petushki, and A. L. Kennedy’s Paradise. Front matter Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Figures Preface Acknowledgements Introduction I Whiffs and gleams Habitual drunkards and metaphysics: case studies from the Victorian period Jack London, John Barleycorn (1913): truth II The Existential drinkers Jean Rhys and drunken consciousness (1929–1939) Charles Jackson, The Lost Weekend (1944): life projects Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947): singular experiences Hans Fallada, The Drinker (1950): absurdity Brian Moore, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955): abandonment Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes (1968): authenticity Venedikt Yerofeev, Moscow–Petushki (1970): self and others III Enough: attic, Vegas, paradise William Kennedy, Ironweed (1983): fugitive souls and free spirits John O’Brien, Leaving Las Vegas (1990): suicide A. L. Kennedy, Paradise (2004): love Conclusion Bibliography Index Looks at the nineteenth-century convergence of a new kind of excessive, habitual drinking, and a new way of thinking about the self, which we came to label ‘existential'.