09/27/2005 11:1 AM
Posted by VeggieSteph

Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.

In Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby, Jr. writes about the life and the death of the American Dream, but instead of making it a rough sketch, a hypothetical, he brings it home in the lives of four people. Even though he wrote the book back in 1978, it is still heavily poignant today. The lives of Sara Goldfarb, her junkie son Harry, and his junkie friends Tyrone and Marion are not easy to read about. However, theirs is a story worth reading, if you can make it thorough the darkness their lives become.


Harry and Tyrone have a dream. They dream about making one easy big score, the perfect pound of uncut heroin, where after they sell it, they will be living on easy street. Marion loves Harry and dreams of opening a coffee shop and rekindling her painting. Sara has dreams of being on television and losing enough weight to fit into her one prized red dress. All seems to be going well with their plans, but habits keep getting in the way. Addictions to food, diet pills, and illicit drugs sweep them deeper into oblivion, while those same addictions keep them from seeing the truth of what their lives have become.

I had a hard time reading this book. I kept asking Pandabob, “Are you sure this is the happy part?” You start off seeing that there is very little to like in the characters. You first meet Harry and Tyrone stealing Sara’s television so they can get money to buy drugs. Sara is screaming for her T.V. and choking down on chocolates by the boxful. Marion meets up with Harry at a regular drug party in the morgue. The whole time you see them grasp for their dreams, you know that there is little hope of them succeeding. When it becomes apparent that they are heading even more towards rock bottom, you feel at a loss of what to do. You want to shake them up and make them realize what is really going on in their lives before they fall into the worst nightmares you couldn’t even imagine they would see. It takes an excellent author to create characters that you dislike when you start a book, but by the time you finish a book, you are devastated by what their lives have become. So many things glamorize the world of drugs; this book does nothing of the kind. It is harshly truthful and not for the squeamish.

Requiem for a Dream is an excellent book, but not one you should read in a week when you are depressed. It’s certainly not a happy story, but the characters are very memorable, if disturbing. Next up for me is watching the movie version, directed by Darren Aronofsky. I understand it’s just as disturbing as the book. I guess I’d better not watch it on a bad week.