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.
This is an essay disguised as a little book and a very finely written essay at that, a meditation on the quest for opium. Tosches' conceit is that he suffers from diabetes and that the opium is his… Excellent essay! Tosches is verbally endowed and puts his skills to work with this tale of finding the elusive pure form that countless drugs are now derivitives of. The original magazine article is…
