Religion is the opiate of the masses.
– Karl Marx
I love how Rick Moody’s Albertine Notes mentions in passing the bombing of half of a large portion of the city and the corruption of its water supply, weighing them against one another, but instead focus’ primarily on the dangers of mass drug use and the impact of that on the city.
People’s preoccupation with the narcotics’ leads to several characters’ blind searching for something greater in the past, knowledge of the future and the omnipotence to control and their neglect of the present responsibilities and old values like work and family. Even when they/it get what they are searching for, it wrecks the quality of life for the community as a whole, whether members know it or not.
Although drug use in fiction seems is seems often to be representative of media/govenments attempts to sedate the masses, when it does not represent these systems it often represents religion. Albertine is a fantastic metaphor for religion because it allows for people’s perspectives to affect how their realities are changed. It’s origins confuse evens its makers. It’s accesable. People devote their lives to it. It isolates a community because it isn’t trusted by the world as a whole. Perhaps the decaying mark it makes amongst junkies deserves more focus on what they do to the world.
I write about Cassandra and Cortez and Serena/her boyfriend in vague terms because I’m not sure if I buy the argument that some people because of their relationship to their drug-church are more important than others in the fate of the world. They are made important to the story through their relationship of Kevin the narrator. I feel that any person capable of relating to ideas and to other people can be actively engaged in a movement that changes society. I imagine most of the nameless people Kevin mentions nodding off were surrounded by others shrouded in red.
The decision to focus on personal apocalypses in the midst of large scale destruction seems somewhat common in more recently created apocalyptic fiction. It is most likely post-modern commentary about how people want to bring around their own destruction in order to keep the world relevent to them and bring about their own salvation. One individual’s expectations and perspective impact those around them. (For those with a fundamentalist midset or those ambitious trying to attain a position of power, it is important to have others to share their views.) In this class, I believe we’ve also seen this in “The Rapture” and “The Watchman.” What do you think?
