The works of Hubert Selby Jr. speak, in unconventional prose, for the part of society which has been ostracized by the majority. To the majority of readers who are familiar with proper English grammar, Selby’s writing style requires some effort to comprehend as he uses little punctuation: lack of quotation marks confuses the flow of conversation yet the run-on sentences, sometimes lasting for an entire length of a page, serve as fast-paced suspense-builders. Often categorized with the more modernist movement, the writing tends to follow a “stream of consciousness” which follows the thought process of the character’s inner-monologue.
Born July 23 1928 in Brooklyn’s Red Hook District, Selby grew up around the same places where his books were stationed. At the young age of fifteen, he dropped out of school to work on the waterfront and in 1944 joined the merchant marine. On his first voyage about two years later, he was introduced to a theme which would play a central role throughout his life: death. Selby was diagnosed with tuberculosis and predicted to die shortly thereafter. Miraculously Selby was gifted by another theme: survival.
After a surgery where eleven ribs were removed and a lung collapsed, a decade followed which consisted of bed-ridden reading and drugs. These events accumulated as the roots to his writing. Selby admits in his article ”Why I Started to Write” that his main motivation was conceived by a fear of wasting his life which resulted in self-discovery: "I had already been given up for dead three times, but again I refused to die." He continues, ”Nobody tells me what to do! But I did have a spiritual experience: I'd either die and regret my entire life or live my life over and then die. I had to do something with my life, so I bought a typewriter.” (Selby, Why…)
In the 1960's, Last Exit to Brooklyn was prosecuted in court for obscenity and banned in Italy. Naturally, people fear what they don’t understand. Drug addicts, violent gangs, transsexuals, and other controversial peoples are given voices and empathy by Selby. The hard-core events which occur in his loosely-tied collection of inter-related stories are proportionate to the amount of stress endured by the characters and nearly inevitable to those who live in our American slums. Extreme, graphic tragedies pair with raw human emotions resulting in opening the readers’ minds to question what life is about - where their values lie. Later Selby introduces us to four individuals pursuing the American dream in Requiem for a Dream. The capitalistic desire for material possessions and nonexistent money are proven to not only be manipulative in nature, but degrading to one’s true Self. This work is excellent evidence of how the pursuit of wealth must be rejected in order to achieve our purpose of life: self-actualization. Those who are constantly stuck at the level of survival never have the opportunity for self-discovery.
When speaking of such controversial subject-matter as those of Selby’s embrace, nothing goes without attacks from the critics. Labeled as an obscene, shock-seeking, sexist nihilist on the contrary, he is truly a loving, forgiving individual who wishes to portray genuine characters with authentic emotion. Selby exposes, using unorthodox methods, the beauty (and anguish) which exists in American society’s most taboo places and exploited souls to remind us of who we are and our place in the world; the humanity found in all people cannot be denied.
Darren Aronofsky’s film “Requiem for a Dream,” although made in collaboration with the original novelist, distract from the 1978 book’s more political, social, and spiritual messages in a way which romanticizes and glorifies the deteriorating spiral of the drug culture. In Hubert Selby, Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream drug addiction is used as a metaphor for the deceit and exploitation of American capitalism while the core of humanity is examined through its vain and deluded characters.
The novel follows the deterioration of four individuals. The main character, Harry Goldfarb, like his friends, is a heroin junkie who wishes to make something out of his life. Harry’s girlfriend Marian is an artistic and cultured young woman who denounces her upscale upbringing in search of inspiration for her artwork. His best friend Tyrone assists him in developing a scheme to make money which would allow them to invest in their futures. Upon discovering the availability of pure product (uncut heroin), the friends decide to purchase a large quantity, dilute it, and break it up into smaller portions which results in profit when sold. Harry’s mother Sara has the most complex story of the characters. She develops an obsession to the media and its influences of fame and images of perfection. A phone call from a man claiming to be from a television recruiting station convinced her that she would soon be a star that would be viewed on TV sets all over the nation. Naively believing the gimmick, Sara indulges in her new sense of celebrity and commits herself to improving her appearance through diets and cosmetics. As time passes and no character experiences any lifestyle enhancements, they become more and more desperate and willing to go to further lengths, all in the name of achieving their own perceptions of happiness.
At the core of every human being is the basic need for happiness. America’s capitalistic system promises its citizens that it is available for anyone with the desire and drive to obtain it. Those who become lost in the pursuit of wealth-not happiness-are the true victims of capitalism’s advanced ability to dehumanize society by stripping us of our positive morals and beliefs and devalue our prized possessions and resources through the act of commoditization. The price of imitating the American mainstream concept of beauty, Sara Goldfarb loses her sanity. For her spotlight performance she wished to wear a specific red dress with special connotations, but was too large to fit it. This was the spark which sent her on a journey through unhealthy fasting, delusions where kitchen appliances held normal conversations, a complete dependence on questionable diet pills which had effects similar to speed and culminated in her new home in the psyche ward.
Marian’s degradation is a prime example of the extreme consequences which emerge from the quest for the impossible dream: she morphs from a spirited artist into an irretrievable prostitute, who sells her own body for drugs, her illusion of bliss.
