Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Requiem for a Dream

by Hubert Selby Jr., Darren Aronofsky (Foreword), Richard Price (Foreword)

4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 · rating details · 18,025 ratings · 430 reviews

In this searing novel, two young hoods, Harry and Tyrone, and a girlfriend fantasize about scoring a pound of uncut heroin and getting rich. But their habit gets the better of them, consumes them and destroys their dreams. "Selby's place is in the front rank of American novelists. His work has the power, the intimacy with suffering and morality, the honesty and moral urgen...more

Trade Paperback, 279 pages

Published October 12th 1999 by Da Capo Press (first published 1978)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Most Disturbing Book Ever Written

56th out of 936 books — 3,337 voters

Some Are Sicker Than Others by Andrew Seaward

Substance Abuse & Addiction

11th out of 358 books — 727 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Sep 25, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, drama

We all want to have better lives. When I was young, I wanted to be a teacher my father said no money in teaching. So, I wanted to be an agriculturist he said you will be digging dirt till the day you die. So, I wanted to be a priest priests die with their ass dirty as no one takes care of them. So, what? Why not be a doctor? Okay. After becoming a medtech, what? But he did not have money to send me to a medical school. Ha ha ha ha

In my iPod, I have this song by The Pussycat Dolls. One morning,...more

34 likes · like · see review

May 09, 2007 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, psychosis, stream-of-consciousness, beat

Wow wow wow wow wow. Requiem for a Dream manages to be so painful and beautiful at the same time. Although I'd seen the film before I read this book and knew the fate of the characters, I was still following their paths with such anxiety and hope. It's an account of people who dream big but lose much bigger.

It follows four characters in the Bronx. There's Sarah, a widow who spends her days living vicariously through her television while eating boxed chocolates. On the warm days, she joins her li...more Wow wow wow wow wow. Requiem for a Dream manages to be so painful and beautiful at the same time. Although I'd seen the film before I read this book and knew the fate of the characters, I was still following their paths with such anxiety and hope. It's an account of people who dream big but lose much bigger.

It follows four characters in the Bronx. There's Sarah, a widow who spends her days living vicariously through her television while eating boxed chocolates. On the warm days, she joins her lifelong neighbors for chatting and sunbathing outdoors. When she receives a phone call informing her that she's been specially selected to participate in a new game show, her heart swells with anticipation. She recovers her red dress from her glory years, gets her hair colored a matching blaze, and begins obsessively dieting in order to fit into the dress once again, imagining herself being admired on TV and being the envy of the block. Sarah's son Harry, along with his best friend Tyrone and girlfriend Marion, are meanwhile doing some serious summer partying. Harry and Tyrone begin dealing heroin (plotting to score the pure stuff), and bringing in big bucks at first until the supply and demand of the streets catches up with them in the following winter months. Harry and Marion, who were once planning on taking the drug money and opening an artsy coffee shop, soon see their aspirations fade away. As their addictions worsen they become more and more desperate for a fix, going to extreme lengths they would have never stooped to in their purer days. Sarah remains on a parallel downward spiral, going back and forth between uppers and downers, practically oblivious to the devastating effects the pills are having on her health.

Selby's depictions of the 80s south Bronx are nightmarish--corpses in abandoned buildings, addicts faking each other out just so their lives can be spared. The writing style itself lends to atypical punctuation, marathon sentences, and street dialect, yet the style doesn't detract from the book's readability. The descriptions and the careful layering of the book's events will leave readers cringing as their hearts break for these characters.

The characters experience little warmth from the outside world of hospitals, medical clinics, and jails. While their need to be saved is so obvious, Selby paints a system that methodically grinds their faces in the dirt, whether it be to prejudice, profit, or just general apathy.

In the preface Selby states that "the book is about four individuals who pursued the American Dream, and the results of their pursuit." He ends the preface with: "Unfortunately, I suspect there never will be a requiem for the Dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn its passing. Perhaps time will prove me wrong. As Mr. Hemingway said, 'Isn't it pretty to think so?'"
(less)

16 likes · like · see review

Jan 07, 2009 Lavinia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, fiction

I'm quite surprised that many readers regard it as a book about drug addiction and junkies of different types. I (as the title clearly states) mainly see it as an attempt of pursuing the American Dream, the one that grants all American citizens total and pure freedom. And so, since nobody really knows if the Dream is dead or not, anybody is free to try it out.

What makes it better than the film (if this was ever debatable), is the story-line and the stories behind the characters. Due to my bad me...more

9 likes · like · see review

Feb 11, 2013 Julian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century, in-depth-reviews, reviewed, favorites, american

I came to Selby because I realized that I was interested in a genre called transgressive fiction, which I had not, until recently, even heard of. When I checked out the genre, in addition to many of my favorite books, I discovered that Selby was a leading writer. I then read Last Exit To Brooklyn and loved it, so I followed up with this book. It never occurred to me it would be as good. It turns out that Requiem For A Dream is the best book I have read written since the 1950's.

The book is about...more I came to Selby because I realized that I was interested in a genre called transgressive fiction, which I had not, until recently, even heard of. When I checked out the genre, in addition to many of my favorite books, I discovered that Selby was a leading writer. I then read Last Exit To Brooklyn and loved it, so I followed up with this book. It never occurred to me it would be as good. It turns out that Requiem For A Dream is the best book I have read written since the 1950's.

The book is about addicts. Three of the main characters are heroin addicts and one is addicted to diet pills. But really it is through the vehicle of addiction that Selby rips apart the whole American Dream (the dream of the title) and tears up the illusions on which modern western society is based. He does it in a book of incredible power and honesty and it is a crime that this man never won a Nobel prize or Pulitzer. The book is simply too challenging, I think, to people's basic beliefs and its critique is too accurate and true.

Selby is a writer who never ever turns away from his subject matter and who never ever lies. I think that a lot of people will think that he is exaggerating, but he isn't and that is the way it is. By focusing on lowlifes and the very dregs of society Selby exposes both the unattainability and worthlessness of modern American Values. His point is to show that the materialistic values of suburbia and of television rest on the shattered lives of an underclass, that those values and goods are antithetical to real human relations and that the lifestyle is not really achievable.

It is a world where someone's whole life including their sanity and identity can be destroyed for the chance of appearing on a quiz show.

Selby is a deeply Christian writer. His works begin with a biblical quote and in some sense his message is a message of Christian love. It is not his characters who achieve this love. His characters are inevitably consumed and destroyed by buying into the values of post-western civilization. They are turned into isolated monads with no windows and they are destroyed.

It is Selby himself who achieves this love. He loves, loves, loves his characters. He loves them even though he does not sentimentalize them at all, and even though they are the very dregs of society fed on self-destructive delusions. He makes you love them, and feel with them, and as I have said he does not lie and he does not turn away.

His prose is a sort of mutant step child of Falkner and Hemingway, born in the gutter. The pages of Requiem are on fire as you read them and the words writhe in your brain. He spares nothing, but he teaches you to love the downtrodden in a society that is inherently evil.

Selby's writing is truly great writing. The closest thing to it is Dostoevsky. Like him he challenges the very moral foundations of our society by looking at those at the very bottom.

At once a book of love through understanding and also a book full of rage against a society that is seen as evil, and destructive, it is one of the greatest books ever written.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 06, 2008 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: adventurous readers, those who like books that challenge them, fans of realism and/or naturalism

This book isn't for everyone, the imagery is graphic and at times, terrifying and the characters are heartbreakingly misguided and flawed. Selby's writing style allows the reader to experience the tragic lives of Sara Goldfarb and her son Harry and their pathetic attempts at achieving the American Dream at any price. What's most startling and painful to read is how unflinchingly these characters cling to their naive aspirations even as their world crumbles around them. I read this for my Natural...more

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 26, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, merkins

Selby’s novels are transgressive masterpieces with a bigness of heart and a strange, spiritual tenderness. The epigraph to this book alludes to Selby’s faith (in God) and I can see him writing about these doomed dope fiends with the compassion of a pastor tending to his flock. This heartbreaking novel follows the decline of four distinct Americans—young working-class white male Jew, young middle-class white female Jew, young working-class black non-Jew, and elderly widow. All four are addicts th...more

19 likes · like · see review

Dec 09, 2008 Stefani rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading Last Exit to Brooklyn, I thought that I had seen the worst of Selby's characters. As I tensely awaited the conclusion of each chapter, hoping that maybe just one of the characters would manage to get ahead or break the cycle of dependency on drugs, I would be rendered speechless by the desperation and insanity brought on by addiction. As the darkness of winter descends upon Brooklyn, Harry, Tyrone & Marion all find themselves stumbling through the night to get their next fix, ,...more

6 likes · like · see review

Feb 17, 2013 Dustin marked it as to-read

I've actually been curious about Requiem for probably 10 years now, but something always seems to pique my interest, and I've yet to get to it. But considering how much my friend, Kathryn has ranted and raved about its brilliance, I just had to add it to my ever growing "to-read" list.

I realize you didn't recommend it to me directly, but I respect your opinions.

2 likes · like · see review

Sep 16, 2012 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

A very, very good book. Selby Junior's writing style takes a few pages to get used to but once accustomed, the style adds another dimension to the story. The lack of punctuation and clear indication of speaker emphasises the chaotic, confused state of mind the characters experience and helps convey the effects the drugs has on them. Yes it's a very depressing story but it's created in such a compelling way; you feel like an outsider witnessing the characters' increasing dependency on drugs and t...more

4 likes · like · see review

Dec 16, 2012 Kathryn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction, 2012-read, favorites, i-recommend, own

Requiem for a Dream was an addiction for me.

The pun intended.

I couldn't read this fast enough. I wish I hadn't been so busy, and could have devoured this in one day. This is an easy, five star favorite for me.

Requiem was my first Selby, Jr. read, and it definitely impressed me. The writing style is his own, and every character's personality was so visual and real. The story of these four people is heartbreaking in their own ways, but, compulsively readable in their own right.

Is it weird to s...more

9 likes · like · see review

May 11, 2008 Laura Martinez rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read a review about the movie that said that the movie, Requiem, burrows under your skin and stays there for a while. This is true of the book, too. Each character speaks differently and you have to get used to their way of speaking as the author doesn't use punctuation marks and end sentences with 'Harry replied' or 'Marian said.' It is a fresh style of reading. This book IS very disturbing; so disturbing that a friend of mine threw it across the room when he finished it and asked me why anyo...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jan 30, 2013 Dylan Clausen rated it 2 of 5 stars

I can't give this a 3.5, so I'll just give it a 3.

This is one of those books that just brings you down.
Sara Goldfarb, a lonely widow, gets hooked on diet pills after a solicitor tricks her into thinking she'll be on a game show. Her life falls into despair, as does her son's. Harry Goldfarb, his girlfriend Marion, and their friend Tyrone devise a "get rich quick" scheme to get rich and follow their dreams.

As their lives spiral downwards, I was just thinking "Ok, their lives are going to get bet...more

1 like · like · see review

May 11, 2011 Andreea Irina rated it 5 of 5 stars

First of all this book amazed me by its format. It's plain writing, no dialogue marks, it just keeps going and going. And I loved it.
It's funny when it wants to be funny and it's dark when it wants to be dark. You sympathize with the characters, you feel for them ( God knows I felt sorry for the old widow all the way through the book and I still am when I'm thinking about it ) and it just gets you. It's that kind of a book. That you read and you can't possibly stay immune to all that happens. I...more

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 19, 2012 Will rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yet another Selby novel that raped me in the eye holes. Not for you if you don't want to be slightly traumatized by book's end. It's a literary kick in the teeth, and that shit hurts. Like all of Selby's books, it's rough, crude, and astonishingly affecting. I couldn't shake this one for days. The most disturbing thread of all the disturbing threads belongs to Sara Goldfarb, without a doubt. Never have I encountered such a painfully pitiable character. The repetition of the younger characters' j...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 21, 2007 Peter to the Getz rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with a backbone and metal studded underwear

Shelves: againandagain

Brooklyn true, Requiem for a Dream is a disection of Brighton Beach in particular. One part historical. One part cultural. Two parts bi-polar. Both manic.

The Requiem is for the dream three twenty-something's have to sell heroin and live a trouble free life. We will also put to rest the dream of an elderly widow who before her television appearence wants to fit into the red dress her husband once admired her in.

This is a true-to-life portrayal. Relentless in it's search of a healthy vein to injec...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 12, 2009 Charles rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one

Shelves: literary

Am I the only person in the world who thought this book was terrible? From the Amazon reviews, apparently so. The book is all narrative and dialouge. In other words, all telling with virtually no "showing."

And what's up with cramming everyone's dialogue into the same paragraph so you can't always tell who is speaking? Why not just break it normally so it's clear? Or for goodness sake, use quotation marks. And can you get any more pretentious than being too good to use an apostraphe when you wri...more

21 likes · like · see review

Mar 05, 2013 Anushka Panday rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was a downward spiral of dispar. Sturk with me so much becasue it retold a portion of my life. Not about drug addiction but about human nature. How people seem to be so deluded in what they want ratheir then what they have. This book had no moral, no bad guy. It just it out to bear. This is what I enjoyed. This is real life.

1 like · like · see review

Apr 11, 2013 Damaris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing.. one of the books that MIGHT and most likely will scar your view of pretty much every human being's desire to fulfill, their own "needs".

1 like · like · see review

Jan 25, 2013 Betty Jo Pritchett rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wish I could give reviews with half stars. I would give this one three and a half stars instead of 4. It was a really good book. I won't say I 'enjoyed' it because the subject matter was pretty disturbing. The book follows four individuals, Sara (mother of Harry), Harry, Marion (Harry's girlfriend) and Tyrone. Harry and Tyrone go into business together selling heroin and it soon gets out of control. Sara, after receiving a phone call from some sort of scam telemarketer, believes that she will...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 19, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This could well be the winner of my book of the year.

Starts on very dodgy territory and you think that this will be similar to the hellish last exit to brooklyn.

Two junkies, Harry and Tyrone C Love are stealing Harry's mothers television to pawn and feed their habit. You think, here we go again, a bunch of dole scum fucking each other over. However, you would be wrong.

First off, the TV is no accident - Sara Goldfarb is as addicted to television as her son is to smack. she dreams of appearing on...more This could well be the winner of my book of the year.

Starts on very dodgy territory and you think that this will be similar to the hellish last exit to brooklyn.

Two junkies, Harry and Tyrone C Love are stealing Harry's mothers television to pawn and feed their habit. You think, here we go again, a bunch of dole scum fucking each other over. However, you would be wrong.

First off, the TV is no accident - Sara Goldfarb is as addicted to television as her son is to smack. she dreams of appearing on tv and comes across as a rupert pupking type character.

Secondly, once Tyrone and Harry have the money - very much like trainspotting - you see that they have a real lust for life and the onsueing party (at a morgue) makes you want to be amongst them, They have a great time and lots of humour (very black) is abundent.

The two lifes are then chronicled. Sarah gets worse and worse.... thinking she will appear on TV she tries to get into a dress that she last wore years ago. This starts with a diet and ends with diet pills that change her mood and ultimately, end up getting her committed when she starts talking a tv studio. She ends up in a home as a vegetable.

Tyrone and Harrys luck improves as they start to get hold of good gear, which they can dilute and pass on. Things go well until this runs out and effectively, Marion ends up on the game to score increasingly poor drugs. Wheras previously, they shared amongst each other, they start to look out for number one - with harry and marion holding out on tyrone and then marion holding out on harry.

Things get so desperate that they eventually have to track down the source and tyrone and harry end up on a road trip. Harry is ill and he is injecting into the same hole, eventually turning his arm gangrenous. This leads to a request for medical help, a spat with racist thug southern policemen and jail on a work gang. Eventually, Harry ends up losing an arm.

So its bleak stuff and the writing style (written in native tongue, in long passages) is difficult to follow. However, its a great story on addiction, written in a non judgemental way. The decent into total degradation is rapid but it serves the purpose of the book which couldnt have carried on for too long.

An unforgettable classic.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jun 13, 2012 Lily Rhoads rated it 2 of 5 stars

The story of requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four people living in the Bronx. Sara is a widow and the mother of Harry, a drug addict. Sara lives vicariously through her TV, getting so involved in what she is watching that she feels the emotion of the characters. She uses the TV to reassure her that her own life will be okay, just like the TV shows all end with everything working out and wrapped up in a pretty little bow, so to speak. When she gets a call telling her that she has been ch...more The story of requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four people living in the Bronx. Sara is a widow and the mother of Harry, a drug addict. Sara lives vicariously through her TV, getting so involved in what she is watching that she feels the emotion of the characters. She uses the TV to reassure her that her own life will be okay, just like the TV shows all end with everything working out and wrapped up in a pretty little bow, so to speak. When she gets a call telling her that she has been chosen to participate in a TV game show she becomes overjoyed with the chance to be on one of the shows that she watched so religiously. She breaks out her red dress from when she was younger, gets her hair dyed to match, and begins dieting obsessively in order to fit into the dress. Throughout the book she continues on a downward spiral switching between uppers and downers, not caring about the effects that the drugs are having on her.

Meanwhile, Sara's son Harry along with his girlfriend Marion and his best friend Tyrone spend all of their time partying. They begin selling heroin and dream of getting pure, uncut heroin to sell for even more money. Harry and Marion plan on taking the drug money and opening an artsy coffee shop, but when the demand for more drugs is greater that the supply they can actually get, they soon see their dreams start to fade away. They become more and more desperate for a fix and start going to extremes to get some drugs.

This book is written differently than any other book I have ever read simply because of the lack of punctuation. Selby wrote this book in the dialect of the characters who are from the Bronx. Everything is spelled as it would be spoken and there are no quotation marks or even any line separation to indicate when a person is talking or when the speaker changes.

Overall this is a really interesting book, though it is definitely not a happy one. If you are able to get past the idea of not knowing who is saying what then this is a really good book. However, because I get so frustrated with spelling and grammar mistakes that I spent my whole time while reading this book correcting everything in my head and getting really annoyed.(less)

like · see review

Feb 05, 2012 Kimberly Steele rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hubert Selby Jr. books usually aren't my cup of tea. Requiem is the story of three people for whom drug addiction gradually replaces the best part of themselves, their dreams, as is referred in the title. Selby's style of writing is stream-of-consciousness beatnik, liberally peppered with slang. The book, like others by Selby, is not actually punctuated. Selby skips the rules of grammar and usage, avoiding even the semblance of quotation marks when a character is talking. In doing so, he jettiso...more Hubert Selby Jr. books usually aren't my cup of tea. Requiem is the story of three people for whom drug addiction gradually replaces the best part of themselves, their dreams, as is referred in the title. Selby's style of writing is stream-of-consciousness beatnik, liberally peppered with slang. The book, like others by Selby, is not actually punctuated. Selby skips the rules of grammar and usage, avoiding even the semblance of quotation marks when a character is talking. In doing so, he jettisons clarity. The style in which the book is written is why I gave it four stars and not five. The style of the prose is off-putting and begins to wear immediately. Requiem is set in 1970's New York, so we get plenty of people referring to each other as cat. Shooting heroin is known as getting off, taking a tase, or alternately, a taste. Even sex has its own peculiar jargon that becomes rather annoying. Hang in there, readers. The potency and realism of the characters of Requiem quickly overtake boredom.

Harry Goldfarb is one of three protagonists. He's a young guy of the lower-middle class from the Bronx. He is best friends with Tyrone C. Love, a black man of similar age who is also his heroin-shooting buddy. We meet Harry as he's re-abducting his mother's television to take to the pawn shop. In this way we come to understand that Harry's mom, Sara Goldfarb, is the ultimate enabler. They have routine: Harry needs money for drugs, so he goes into his mother's apartment to lug her TV down to the pawn shop. The pawn shop's owner, obviously in on the "arrangement", gives Harry money for the television. Harry's mother comes in, pays a small deposit, and retrieves her television. Meanwhile, Harry shoots the money up his arm. The cycle repeats over and over again. Why can't Harry's mother just give him money, you ask? Sara is a poor widow living in a small apartment. The pawn shop owner feels sorry for her, which is why he continues the farce with when the television repeatedly shows up at his pawn shop.

Sara Goldfarb is the strongest depiction in the book. In her, we see the descent of a simple woman into madness brought on by various addictions, including an addiction to the television itself, and the lonely aftermath of a youth spent without any real purpose save bearing and raising a child. Sara gets her television back from the kind pawn broker. Like so many older people, she watches the small screen from dawn to dusk, mesmerized and obsessed with its one-dimensional characters and oblivious to its insidious messages. One day, a mysterious phone call comes in from the Dick Corporation. They want Sara to be on an unspecific game show; the caller claims she's been chosen in a sort of lottery. Upon hanging up, Sara's listless existence has newfound meaning and purpose. Her obsession with watching television is replaced with the grander notion of being on television. Her whole life begins to revolve around losing enough weight to fit into a red dress she wore to her son's bar mitzvah while her husband, Seymour, was still alive.

Meanwhile, Harry is not exactly staying out of trouble. He's shooting heroin with his friends and he feels on top of the world. He and Tyrone start hanging out with Marion, an upper-middle class girl recently returned from Italy where she went to art school. I loved the portrayal of Marion. Though in my imagination she did not look like the lovely Jennifer Connelly, Selby (despite all his slang) painted a vivid picture of her. Naive in the way only pampered upper-middle class girls can be, Marion is a bit of a snob and takes for granted all the things Harry and Tyrone will never come close to having: an apartment that is paid for by her parents, a free college education, and a weekly allowance she's supposed to use to pay her psychiatrist. Of course, she uses her allowance for drugs.

With Marion now falling in love with him, Harry hatches a plan. He and Tyrone will do enough "square" normal people work to buy a big chunk of heroin. Then they'll sell it and live like kings. Marion wants to open a coffeehouse/art gallery with their future fortune and dreams of the place becoming a chain. She dreams of taking Harry to Europe.

Harry and Tyrone work day and night with the help of various uppers. Little do they know that Sara is also experimenting with uppers in the form of diet pills. Sara, desperate to lose weight for her upcoming game show appearance, resorts to going to the doctor to battle her appetite for fatty food. The doctor, without a shred of concern for Sara's health or well-being, quickly prescribes a powerful diet pill. Sara takes the pills and is joyful. She no longer has the urge to eat. At all.

Harry and Tyrone score the money and buy their chunk of heroin. Contrary to the original plan, they start getting high every day rather than the tiny amount they were going to use in order to maximize profits. They're still feeling good though and Marion and Harry are deeply in love. Harry does make a bit of profit, however, in the initial run, so he kindly buys his mother a new TV, showing off his newfound wealth. Sara has no idea her son's "independent business" is actually dealing heroin. She's overjoyed at her son's seeming success, his new Jewish girlfriend, and she seems happier than ever because after all, she's going to be on TV. While visiting his mother, Harry realizes she's on diet pills and calls her out in a moment of genius irony.

The character's various addictions begin to pick up momentum at this point. As the Bronx winter sets in, each one of them slips deeper into the bad physical and mental effects of depending on a substance. The characters become more depraved and helpless, each in his or her own unique way. I don't want to give it away as this is where the book gets really good.

Requiem is a book that helped me understand addiction, which can be difficult for me at times as a non-drinking, non-smoking, straightedge vegan. One of the most powerful aspects of Requiem is Selby detailing of characters who aren't just addicted to drugs (food and television are huge addictions in Sara Goldfarb's case, later we get a jocular sex-addicted pimp) and I especially enjoyed how Selby described the laziness that naturally accompanies addiction. The characters of Requiem dream big, yet they are never able to get past the planning stage.

If anything, Requiem for a Dream brings to light thoughts that most people scrupulously avoid. Life is very short and easily misspent. In our culture, almost everyone is addicted to something and few realize how profoundly they are addicted.

(less)

1 like · like · see review

Oct 07, 2011 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 3 of 5 stars

This didn't "get" me. Not the author's fault. His characters are real: the widow, hooked on tv, obsessed with getting thin, becomes addicted to diet pills which were her vehicle towards a descent to madness (with a little help from an incompetent and corrupt physician); her only son, a junkie, his girlfriend, his buddy and his own girlfriend--all with their heroin-addled brains; their delusions that they are in control of their lives; the demonic power the drug has on them. These made me wonder...more This didn't "get" me. Not the author's fault. His characters are real: the widow, hooked on tv, obsessed with getting thin, becomes addicted to diet pills which were her vehicle towards a descent to madness (with a little help from an incompetent and corrupt physician); her only son, a junkie, his girlfriend, his buddy and his own girlfriend--all with their heroin-addled brains; their delusions that they are in control of their lives; the demonic power the drug has on them. These made me wonder if the compelling, often gripping, narrative here was merely a product of research or based on the author's personal experience or a combination of both.

I, however, had never been addicted except to love and spicy food and these types of addiction are not those which can make you sell yourself or your girlfriends just to get a fix. I can get by without love and I also like bland, unexciting, and repetitious dishes so I eat at home once in a while.

To make this review longer may I add, from the book's blurb, that the New York Times Book Review was supposed to have said that to understand this author's work "is to understand the anguish of America." Anguish, my ass. This is very depressing for one like me who lives in a poor country. The first scene here is the son and his buddy pawning his mother's TV to get money for drugs. I go: hey, they have a TV! The mother is supposed to be "poor" but she gets fat on chocolates, bagels and creams. Uuhm, yummy. The son's girlfriend has travelled abroad for leisure, and has her own pad. Wow. The drug of choice: heroin with weed for dessert. Another wow. Here, our addicts, those having their local anguish, are the homeless who live in the streets, under bridges, flyovers and overpasses. They sniff cheap, industrial glue to get high. They eat nothing. Their travels are only as far as their feet can take them. In Hubert Selby Jr.'s America the addicts' happiness is getting high and having sex all day. Here, happiness is like what I saw early one morning while driving along a busy city street. A dirty, completely naked woman in front of a still-closed office on the ground floor of a commercial building in the act of taking a bath without water, holding one arm up after the other, scrubbing her hairy armpits with her imaginary soap, smiling as if she's in a real shower. She probably was even humming a tune.

So it is like this: the book says behold the anguish of America. And I imagine my countrymen addicts looking at these anguishing Americans and saying we want to go to America too and have some of that anguish there!(less)

9 likes · like · see review

Aug 04, 2011 Amy Melheim rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who have not seen the movie yet

Recommended to Amy by: My professor, Patrick

Having seen Requiem For a Dream the movie directed by Darren Aronofsky years ago, when I had the opportunity to read the book for a class assignment I jumped on it. I have my reservations with movies that are adapted from novels but I liked the movie enough that it peaked an interest to go back and read the book. I would much rather read a novel and then see the movie that is based on it. Having said this, I really wish I would have approached Requiem with this tactic. Unfortunately since I saw...more Having seen Requiem For a Dream the movie directed by Darren Aronofsky years ago, when I had the opportunity to read the book for a class assignment I jumped on it. I have my reservations with movies that are adapted from novels but I liked the movie enough that it peaked an interest to go back and read the book. I would much rather read a novel and then see the movie that is based on it. Having said this, I really wish I would have approached Requiem with this tactic. Unfortunately since I saw the movie before I even picked up the novel I was very distracted and impatient with the book. It was written in a way that makes it anything but an "easy read". The combined dialogue with little or no punctuation made the book a little hard to understand. Since there was no paragraph breaks and Selby failed to say who was speaking it was hard to tell who was talking and right when you figure out who is talking you realize that that character is no longer talking. I think that was my least favorite part of the novel. Although the dialogue was a little difficult to interpret it also did a great job painting a picture of the characters and the relationships between them. For example the main character, Harry, spoke completely differently towards his mother and Marion than he did toward Tyrone. I think the best characterization in the book in the entire book is of Tyrone, Harry's friend and partner. The dialect that he uses in the book really made this character come alive to me. I definitely would not suggest you read this book if you if have a weak stomach or are easily offended. He holds back nothing from sex and drugs to language and violence he goes everywhere and back. This is not in anyway an uplifting story but shows a unique side to dangers of drug addiction and what a slippery slope it almost always is. Harry with street heroin to his mother with doctor prescribed diet pills this book covers a large spectrum of drug problems. If you are open to a racey novel I think this is a fantastic book. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea but it was fantastically written and overall was a great read if your patient.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Mar 19, 2011 H. Anne Stoj rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

It's been a rather long time since I've read something so intense. A novel where I felt a bit sick inside. Not because of gore or such other things, but just to read the spiral of addiction that consumes everyone. There is no winner. No one comes out on top. No one rises above their choices to make better ones. Depressing? Sure, but I'm not sure how it couldn't be.

Selby Jr.'s style took a bit for me to get into. Probably for the same reason Walsh's Trainspotting as been sitting so long on my she...more

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 05, 2011 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

Although this is an extremely graphic novel, Requiem for a Dream has many meanings to it other than the drug addicts it displays. The story follows four different drug addicts and their dark futures they each have. Three of the four are drug addicts trying to live what they feel is the American Dream, and the other is a widowed mother that has her dreams crushed and turns to diet pills until her mind degenerates.
Although the book isn't bright and happy, it really can bring you to grasp how some...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 23, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-the-shadow-side

I know that this novel is much older than its movie version. And of course it predates David Carr's much-acclaimed Night of the Gun (which is a more autobiographical, journalistic account of its author's drug-addled years as an addict). Selby also sounds like an inspiration for current urban writers like Richard Price (mostly about NYC?) or Dennis Lehane (who writes mostly about Boston).

I still haven't made it thru' viewing the whole movie (although I think I've tried and started it at least a c...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 07, 2012 Gabby Parker added it

Requiem For A Dream is fiction book written by Hubert Selby Jr. This book is about a white man trying to make it as a black man. His name is Harry Goldfarb and his best friend is Tyrone C. Love. They both are drug addicts and feed into each others addiction.
This book is a hard read. You have to be able to look past everything. Such as how it is written. There are no typical quotations. As you read a 'normal' book there are quotation marks around when people are talking. Requiem does not have th...more

like · see review

Mar 21, 2010 Rita Meade rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Remember that slow horrible realization you had when you were a kid, when you became conscious of the fact that your parents wouldn't always be there to take care of you and that there are bad things in the world and that we all eventually die alone? This book unearths that feeling from its hiding place in your soul, magnifies it, and plunks it right into the pit of your stomach for 280 pages. There's not a dishonest word in this book - just raw emotion, fear, and hopelessness seeping from every...more

3 likes · like · see review

Feb 04, 2013 Ben Dummitt rated it 2 of 5 stars

This was a very challenging book to read. It is written with zero regard to the normal rules of punctuation and is littered with run on sentences and other grammatical issues. This is clearly intentional in order to convery the disordered and often frenzied minds of the addicts the book portrays, but it's initially very jarring and takes some getting used to. I almost stopped reading it after the first section, but I stuck with it and overall, it was ok enough that I didn't regret it. The short...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Lost Hope	9	86	Apr 14, 2013 10:22am

combine
Other Editions (1)

More editions...

Genres

Thriller

78 users

Literature

54 users

Mystery

52 users

Mystery > Crime

48 users

Contemporary

41 users

Psychology

38 users

Novels

34 users

Dark

31 users

Modern

31 users

Literary Fiction

29 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby, Jr. was born in Brooklyn and went to sea as a merchant marine while still in his teens. Laid low by lung disease, he was, after a decade of hospitalizations, written off as a goner and sent home to die. Deciding instead to live, but having no way to make a living, he came to a realization that would change the course of literature: "I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer." Dr...more

More about Hubert Selby Jr....

Books by Hubert Selby Jr.

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Requiem for a Dream

3 trivia questions
3 quizzes

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from Requiem for a Dream

“Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done. ” — 128 people liked it

“But you cant shut everyone out. I mean you have to have someone to love. . .someone to hold on to. . . someone--” — 127 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Requiem for a Dream
avg rating	preview: Requiem for a Dream Goodreads rating: 4.05 (18025 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46945.Requiem_for_a_Dream?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1353949849l/46945.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46945.Requiem_for_a_Dream?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.[/url]

Requiem for a Dream

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website