The Literary Case for Smoking

[continuation of article:]


I have been racking my brains to find a single non-smoker among the great English poets or novelists of the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Possibly, Keats had to lay off the pipe tobacco a bit after he developed tuberculosis.

Otherwise, from Swift and Pope to Cowper and Wordsworth, from Byron to Charles Lamb, they were all smokers.

Tennyson, who only stopped smoking in order to eat and sleep, describes in one of his letters sitting in a pub with a friend and doing very little except "staring smokey babies" at one another.

Nowadays, this harmless experience would cost the publican £1,200, and Tennyson himself £600, while appallingly self-righteous non-smokers at neighbouring tables, rather than being pleased that they had enjoyed a glimpse of the greatest Victorian poet, would be complaining about the fumes which they chose to believe were causing them some kind of damage.

I do not really care whether anyone smokes or not.

I do so myself in phases, and then give up - not for health reasons, but simply to remind myself that I can.

Summer holidays, however, seem a natural time to light the occasional cigarette, while sitting with friends in a bar, or puzzling over the crossword puzzle.

Cornwall, where I am writing this, has completely changed since the Ban.

My wife and I have found formerly much-loved pubs all but empty or, worse, filled with middle-class eight-year-olds sitting on the bar stools, slurping J2O through straws and giving their views on global warming in the high-pitched tones of Fulham or Hampstead.

The grizzled old smokers of yore are still smoking, but, rather than enjoy one another's companionship, they sit melancholily at home with their six-packs and watch telly. It is no substitute for the pleasure (albeit sometimes a boring pleasure - an oxymoron which all pub-goers will recognize as apt) of meeting real people.

Sitting with my drink in such now-empty bars, my mind has turned to the great smokers of the past - to C S Lewis, who smoked 60 cigarettes a day between pipes with his friends Charles Williams (cigarette smoker) and Tolkien (pipe-smoker); to Thomas Carlyle, whose wife made him smoke in the kitchen of their house in Cheyne Row, but who is unimaginable without tobacco, to Robert Browning, who quickly adapted to the new cigarette craze, to the great John Cowper Powys, who continued to smoke cigarettes, and to produce fascinating novels, into his nineties.

This great nicotine cloud of witnesses made me have two thoughts. One was the simple question - why did the people of England accept this draconian ban on their private pleasures?

As far as I am aware, David Hockney, among public figures, was alone in giving vociferous condemnation of the bossy and un-English law.

The so-called Opposition parties, of course, were all so anxious to appease the health-fanatics who make up a proportion of the electorate that they did not dare to say: "Halt! Let the men and women of England, and the publicans of England, be the ones who decide who should smoke, and where, not some risible Government minister".

But another, sadder thought occurs to me. This attack on basic liberty, which was allowed through without any significant protest, might mark the end not merely of smoking, but of literature.

Heroic Beryl Bainbridge keeps on smoking for England, but will there be any more writers in the years to come, following in her heroic steps?

people smoke to be creative?

are they the same people who snort cocaine to be creative?

People snort cocaine to be creative?

The best artists used heroin, LSD, smoked pot.

Nicotine is a drug that concentrates the mind.

I've never sat around with anyone shooting heroin, but I have spent time with some on acid, or stoned or on coke.

He/they thought they were unlocking the mysteries of the universe, when in fact they were boring as ****, with the extra added attraction of the cokeheads jumping out of their skin.

smoking?

that's just an excuse.

nicotine, caffeine...f*ck that.

If you want to be jittery, or smell bad, be my guest. Just don't rationalize it by saying it gives you insight.

It just makes you jittery and stinky.

It's likely the people you saw tripping, smoking, and snorting weren't Miles Davis, Sigmund Freud, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, or Bob Marley.

And ****, if I wrote like chainsmoking novelist Kurt Vonnegut I wouldn't care if I smelled bad.

the thing is, the nicotine doesn't, has noddy said "concentrate the mind"

The nicotine is just taking more of the drug you're having withdrawl symptoms from, so you feel like you're able to concentrate, and not be wishing you had a smoke, or getting irritable..

smoking doesn't do anything to make a person more creative. It's a habit, an addiction.

If miles davis or any of the others had never picked up smoking, they would have been just as creative.

If that were the case, why don't some of our most brilliant actors, writers and artists smoke?

DUNHILL RAMA
I am a chain smoker till my death.
Iwish not to be the intellectuals mentioned in that article.
I read the views/reactions of that article.
The author had exposed the hypocrisy of the society.
HITLER IS NOT A SMOKER
better be a smoker and show your civil moral courage than be a sudden ex-smoker or ...................

My name is Ramafuchs
56 Josef strass
KAöln
Germany

I think that's Chai's point. Anyone can smoke and snort, but it takes a little more to be Miles Davis. Cigarettes and drugs is what Miles had in common with other crackheads, but what made them different is that Miles had talent.

But he could afford really good ****.

ok, seriously, who's miles davis?

I assume he's someone really creative because he smokes?

Chai, I'm going to need you to focus. Miles Davis did heroin.

And actually, smoking is glamorous.

I wish to know this.
How many people around the world are non-smokers?
And what are their contributions to the global welfare?
(Both Gandhi and Hitler non-smokers.)
Are all the Doctors non-smokers like all the intellectual poliiticians around the globe?
Spread the air with smile and smoke.

Chai--

I've heard from two psychiatrists that nicotine helps mental patients concentrate--and that nicotine from a patch works as well as nicotine from a cigarette.

This came up in the course of dealing with two different mentally ill members of Mr. Noddy's family.

"Concentrate" in the sense of "tell those voices to get out of your head".

When I stopped smoking, my prose style limped for a bit, but I did a bit of personal brainwashing and convinced my Muse that a deep breath with lots of oxygen was a creative panacea.

When Im working on my novel I find myself indulging on many stimulants. I over indulge in coffee, energy drinks, cigarettes and TONS of music. When I was younger I found my poetry fueled by cocaine and sex. I feel it depends on the artist and the vise and/or situation the topic is based on. The vise perhaps reflects on the work. The more dramatic and erratic the vise reflects on the artists work depending on how new it is(vise) ...........perhaps exciting. In the long run I recommend coffee. Lots of it. That and a good break up.

Sex, yes. Music, yes. Coffee, yes.

I can't get with you on the rest. Some of the worst writing was inspired by break ups.

The bottom line is you have to have a good story or concept. You have to have the experience to know a cliche when you see one. Also, you have to feel relatively good to be a discliplined writer. You have to want to get out of bed.

Otherwise you risk writing high-school literary journal garbage.

It is a pity that Shapeless failed to mention J.M. Barrie's book My Lady Nicotine or that scene in Rider Haggard where Quatermain is deciding what necessities he needs for a back-pack for a risky mission and includes booze, tobacco and a copy of The Ingoldsby Legends.

There is also a famous requisition from an American general in WW1 which pleads for ammunition and tobacco and which puts a higher priority on the latter.

European culture exploded after tobacco was introduced.

Actually, we smokers were tricked. The devious, sneaky health fascists, who have no proof for anything they say, encouraged us to think that pubs would have certain exemptions which we could work with and which would satisfy them as well. Then, before we could be alerted they voted for the full ban which had not really been debated.

As a result English literature, conversation and company have been seriously damaged and the pubs are decimated. Divide and conquer was the strategy. It won't be long before groups of three will need permission to gather together to discuss things. They want us sat at home watching their crap television programmes.

Booze is next on the agenda. Puritans stalk the land with righteous indignation acted up to insane pitches.

reading that was almost as satisfying as smoking a joint