The Last Opium Den (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "YOU SEE, I needed to go to hell..." (more)
Key Phrases: opium den, Hong Kong, New York, Golden Triangle (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In classic Tosches (Where Dead Voices Gather) fashion, the author offers an amazing recital of his around-the-world jaunt in search of the world's last opium den. His ostensible purpose is sound: a diabetic, he learns the drug was historically used as a salve for victims of the disease. But his truer, more urgent search is for those elusive, perhaps liminal, "brocade-curtained, velvet-cushioned places of luxurious decadence" and the smoky, ambrosiac paradise to be experienced there. The result of his investigation is the most comprehensive book on the drug since De Quincy's The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. (Though Tosches does tell readers how to procure a book, not yet available in the West, that he claims handles the same subject matter to a greater, grander degree.) Recounting the drug's millennial history, and somewhat surprised to find that it's scarce nowadays, Tosches, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, shuffles through the streets and overblown neon of Communist Hong Kong, escapes from Cambodian authorities under machine-gun fire, trips through a fellow epicurean's manse and private stash and, finally, wanders into a ratty Indochinese bungalow that contains, perhaps, the world's last opium den. Rich with political and historical digressions, the book also succeeds in pulling back the green curtain on connoisseurship, distinguishing between desire and need via the alternating lenses of discriminating taste and economic demand. Appropriately, once inside this narrative, readers will never notice how quickly the time has passed. Originally an article in Vanity Fair (where it purportedly received the biggest reader response of editor-in-chief Graydon Carter's tenure), the book's brevity will leave readers itching for another hit of Tosches's finely turned prose.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Nick Tosches trades civilization and its discontents for the possibility of one moment of pure bliss.
Driven by romantic, spiritual, and medicinal imperatives, Nick Tosches goes in search of something everyone tells him no longer exists: an opium den. From Europe to Hong Kong to Thailand to Cambodia, he hunts the Big Smoke, bewildered by its elusiveness and, despite the meaning it continues to evoke as a cultural touchstone, its alleged extinction. Weaving his spiritual and hallucinogenic quests together with inimitable, razor-sharp prose, Tosches's trip becomes a deeper meditation on what true fulfillment is and why no one bothers to look for it any more.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 72 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (January 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158234227X
• ISBN-13: 978-1582342276
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #306,153 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literary Electroluminescense, November 27, 2002

By	Tome Raider (California, United States) - See all my reviews

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I read this when it was published in Vanity Fair a few years ago. Just a few paragraphs into it I realized I was reading a writer of incredible talent and importance. I've since bought a couple of his other books which I'm looking forward to reading, but I can't imagine that they maintain the same intensity and intelligence which this work has. I hope I'm wrong as this guy delivers a high which you don't find just anywhere, and I want to experience it again.

His style has a cat-like present-tense to it throughout. Edgy. Dangerous and in danger. You find yourself as curious about the author as you are about the journey he describes. I see some Hunter S. Thompson similarities, not because of the opium theme of this work, but because of the non-stop riskiness of the entire proposition. This is a new level of erudite gonzo journalism; focused, disciplined, researched, no-holds-barred. Toshes' mind is in some extreme place, at times beautiful, at times ugly, always interesting.

When I read this I actually felt a sense of sadness as Tosches personifies in my view the absolutely perfect writer. If I were a writer, this is the way I would want to write. Envy reared its ugly head in my benevolent heart!

I'm currently reading "Following the Equator" by Mark Twain and it is filled with charming informal anecdotes and vast discoursive rambling by that great master. I keep saying to myself that Twain would find his equal in Tosches, both being intellectual virtuosos of the highest order. They digress similarly: verbal jam sessions to the outer edge of the collective experience.

Read this book if you are interested in opium, or the history thereof. More importantly, read this book if you want to read a great writer weave a spell. A writer of this magnitude doesn't come along very often, and unless you are on the prudish side you will be totally and royally blown away. If you are on the prudish side, push past it and absorb this writer who perfectly conveys in-the-moment perspective. It was a new literary experience for me and it might be for you as well.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Emperor Wears No Clothes, July 23, 2006

By	Big Mama Shakes (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

Warning: Contains Spoiler

I was hooked from the first sentence: "You see, I needed to go to hell." I felt like some people when they see a bad car wreck; you know you're going to see something ugly, but you look anyway. Could anything be worse than "You see, I needed to go to hell?" YES! And it was the very next sentence: "I was, you might say, homesick." It gushed with pretense. I cringed with embarrassment for the writer, yet I kept reading.

The sentences kept coming like ammunition from an assault weapon: "I was born to smoke opium." Tosches must have liked that sentence himself because he repeated three times on one page. And it was a small page because, you see, this isn't really a book, it's a short story with a hard cover. And Tosches isn't just born to smoke opium. He explains he was born to smoke it in "dark, brocade-curtained, velvet cushioned places of luxurious decadence...(among) lovely loosening limbs draped from the high-slit cheongsams of recumbent exotic concubines of sweet intoxication." Such flowery prose. It flows as if it's direct from the pen of a teenage dandy writing down his fantasy for a wet dream.

Midway through the book Tosches arrives in Bangkok. In his search for opium he finds himself surrounded by three young (perhaps, underage) sex workers. One of the girls is stroking his crotch, another masturbates while wagging her tongue and the third is having her nipple squeezed between the old writer's thumb and forefinger. Eventually he becomes "bored with Nana" (I have to assume he is referring the prostitute in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series.) It seems important (and quite distracting) for Tosches to let his reader know that he is aware of many things. He makes sure to mention Jean Cocteau, Milton Freidman and Emanuel Kant all in one tiny story. Nonetheless, I keep reading. I feel the guilty pleasure of a teenage girl reading a Jacqueline Suzanne novel. It's so bad, it's good. It's so very bad.

But let me be kind, if you like Hunter S. Thompson, you might like Tosches, just as if you like Faulkner you might enjoy reading writings from the Faux Faulkner contests. Dr. Thompson is an excellent journalist and takes you on the ride with him. You're there among the Hell's Angels or in the Las Vegas heat with a crazy lawyer. Tosches is more like tour guide who sits a little too close to you and constantly taps you on the shoulder with a Hey-did-I-mention-I'm-one-jaded-bastard? Hey, did you know I'm a smart guy? Listen, listen, I can analyze a subject like it's under a Bunsen burner and I heat it up until it becomes a vapor and all but evaporates.

Anyway, here's the spoiler: Tosches never finds the opium den of his dreams, but he does find the dark sticky ball and the proper pipe to smoke it with. Perhaps he was born to smoke opium for medicinal reasons. He tells us in the beginning of the story that he's diabetic and it was brought to his attention opium was once considered to be effective in the treatment of diabetes.

Tosches is not a brave man. He covers his bases. He must have learned something from Jim Hogshire. He made sure his experimentation wasn't done on U.S. soil and he names no names, no roads.

Tosches ends his story with "The lamp is lit, the pipe is tilted. I am home." My last thought was, why didn't he stay there?

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing, but slight, March 13, 2002

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Before proceeding, I must note that this "book" is in fact a reprint of an article originally published in the September 2000 issue of Vanity Fair. So, while is a cute and well-designed wee book (it takes a little under an hour to read), those looking to save themselves the cost of a movie ticket and large drink are advised to consult their local library. That said, it is an amusing and exotic travelogue recounting Tosches' quest to locate a real-life operational opium den and sample its wares. While he makes a modest attempt to justify his journey on medical grounds (it is reputed to aid diabetics), he freely admits his enchantment with the orientalist vision of sumptuous opium dens with loose-limbed ladies. Thus, he travels from New York, to San Francisco, to Hong Kong, to Bangkok, to Phnom Penh, to Paris, and finally to a secret location in "Indochina" where he fulfills his quest. (It should be noted that he could have written an equally interesting essay by going to places like Afghanistan and Iran, where opium has a rich historical tradition.)

From the very beginning-a witty dissection of a ... onion dish at a trendy New York restaurant-Tosches' writing is sharp and engaging. His descriptive talents are topnotch, whether describing the various foods he encounters (and there's a lot), the Thai sex shows he's watching, or the actual smell and texture of opium. He's also good at explaining the economics that led to opium's demise (opium derivatives such as heroin and morphine are easier and cheaper to make, and thus deliver higher profit margins to drug dealers). It's an engaging little essay, but it's hard to imagine why anyone would purchase it in book form.

One curious note is that while he mentions earlier writers on opium, such as Thomas de Quincy's 19th-century memoir Confessions of an English Opium Eater , Mark Merlin's On the Trail of the Ancient Opium Poppy, Edward Brecher's monumental 1972 study, Licit and Illicit Drugs, and even extolls The Big Smoke: The Chinese Art and Craft of Opium, which is unavailable in America, he fails to mention Barbara Hodgson's recent coffee-table book, Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon. It's also odd that he fails to mention fiction's most famous opium addict, Sherlock Holmes.