Amazon.com: Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon: Barbara Hodgson: Books

From Publishers Weekly
A smoothly guided tour through the history of this often glamorized narcotic, Hodgson's slim volume is handsomely assembled and illustrated with woodcuts, sketches and photographs. It recounts how 19th- and 20th-century writers (among them Baudelaire, Jean Cocteau and Graham Greene) "elevated opium...to the status of a muse"; demonstrates "the box-office draw of drugs" in the era of silent film; describes the "opium clippers," sleek Victorian ships designed to transport the drug from India to China; and surveys the multifarious literature of opium-smoking, from firsthand reports of Hong Kong squalor to prurient pulp fiction. Opium was a popular ingredient in all sorts of Victorian and turn-of-the-century medicines. But since most North America opium smokers were Chinese immigrants, the drug provided an occasion for moral panic and anti-immigrant feeling. Far less ambitious and less didactic than Martin Booth's 1998 Opium: A History, Hodgson's volume excels in its plethora of quotes from Dickens, Sax Rohmer and Arthur Symons (represented by a remarkable sonnet), pictures from obscure yet revealing French painters, Chinese photographers and documentation of crusaders and journalists such as P.B. Doesticks, who visited an opium den in New York City's Chinatown and found "a cube of smoke the size of the apartment, about the consistence [sic] of blancmange." (Sept..
- of blancmange." (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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A smoothly guided tour through the history of this often glamorized narcotic, Hodgson's slim volume is handsomely assembled and illustrated with woodcuts, sketches and photographs. It recounts how 19th- and 20th-century writers (among them Baudelaire, Jean Cocteau and Graham Greene) "elevated opium... to the status of a muse"; demonstrates "the box-office draw of drugs" in the era of silent film; describes the "opium clippers," sleek Victorian ships designed to transport the drug from India to China; and surveys the multifarious literature of opium-smoking, from first-hand reports of Hong Kong squalor to prurient pulp fiction. Opium was a popular ingredient in all sorts of Victorian and turn-of-the-century medicines. But since most North America opium smokers were Chinese immigrants, the drug provided an occasion for moral panic and anti-immigrant feeling. Far less ambitious and less didactic than Martin Booth's 1998 Opium: A History, Hodgson's volume excels in its plethora of quotes from Dickens, Sax Rohmer and Arthur Symons (represented by a remarkable sonnet), pictures from obscure yet revealing French painters, Chinese photographers and documentation of crusaders and journalists such as P.B. Doesticks, who visited an opium den in New York City's Chinatown and found "a cube of smoke the size of the apartment, about the consistence [sic] of blancmange."

In the Wizard of Oz, when the Wicked Witch of the West wanted to knock Dorothy, the scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion out of commission, she knew exactly what to do. "Poppies," she said, holding poison over her crystal ball as she cast a spell, "poppies...poppies will put them to sleep." Sure enough, in the next scene, Dorothy and her companions encountered a lush field of the ostensibly harmless flowers, and in no time, all of themeven furry little Totowere snoozing like babies.

The subtext of this episode is not so subtle validation of the seductively soporific effects of the poppy known as papaver somniferum, and its notorious derivative, opium: one of nature's most pleasurable and addictive narcotics. In the richly illustrated Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon, Canadian born author Barbara Hodgson brings this fascinating and frightening substance vividly to life.

Long before "heroin chic" made its way into the fashion vernacular, images of smoky dens filled with inert, glazed-eyed, pipe-sucking opium addicts were the stuff of legend. Indeed, from its introduction to the West via China in the 1850s, through literary works such as Thomas De Quincey's 1821 memoir Confessions of an English Opium Eater, to today's eponymous Yves Saint Laurent perfume, opiumwhether ingested as morphine, laudanum, heroin, or another of its many incarnationshas never gone out of style.

Hodgson's magnificently illustrated history of the granddaddy of illicit drugs is masterfully done, very informative. Entertaining, too, which figures, since it is mostly about getting highthe hows, whys, and whose-fault-is-it-anyways. Alternately glorifies and condemned for its psychoactive applications, the opium poppy is now the focus of eradication research, lately looking into genetic warfare against it. What inspires such animus from the minions of overweening decency? Opium is "one of the most addictive and debilitating substances on earth," Hodgson writes, and its introduction in the West ushered in a taste for psychic adventure that still irritates prurient prudes. "The focus here," she continues, "is on the wealth of images and literature celebrating or condemning the fables drug, and on the writers, artists and photographers who have tried to capture the essence of opium's allure." That focus pays off with a delightful little book that may not fit in a D.A.R.E. collection but will be welcome in most others.

"Farewell to smiles and laughter, farewell to peace of mind! Farewell to hope and to tranquil dreams, and the blessed consolations of sleep!" So Thomas De Quincey wrote in "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" in 1822. He was among the first of many writers, artists and musicians who found themselves addicted to opium. In Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon, Barbara Hodgson chronicles the effects the narcotic had, both positive and negative, on many of the artistic lights of the 19th century. She also analyzes the drug's effect on the general populations of China, India, Britain, France and the United States. In fact, the economies of both Britain and France were so dependent on the opium trade that when China tried to stop it, the European powers made war in 1839 and again in 1856. Hodgson, the author and designer of two illustrated novels, The Tattooed Map, intersperses photographs and woodcuts of addicts in opium dens throughout the book. She also includes movie stills an reproductions of the covers from magazines and books to highlight the strange fascination opium has exerted on our culture.

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Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon (Hardcover)

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