The Seattle Weekly
April 26, 1989
Letters
Where There’s Smoke
In Mary Brennan’s review of the film Paperhouse (3/9), she describes the young British director Bernard Rose as a “prodigious” smoker. I made a wild dash for the dictionary!
In my mind’s eye, “prodigious” connotes majesty and strength, hardly the effects reached from smoking tobacco.Smoking drains energy, robs concentration, inspires such lovely conditions as morning throwup-in-your-sink, disgusting odors, yellow pall, rotting gums, and premature death. Perhaps Rose’s addiction influences his directorial interest?
Were he shooting up junk for a daily fix, it is doubtful Brennan would have used prodigious as an adjective of choice (“Rose, a prodigious mainliner…”), but she is correct in her usage. We find in a crowd of definitions which includes the words wonderful, enormous, amazing, and marvelous the shocking word monstrous!
Oh! How differently the readers would have felt had we read that Rose is a monstrous chain smoker (who makes monstrous movies!)…
Rose, a current addict, and myself, a former one, are both victims. Not only for shortened life spans, but of this fantasy which perpetuates the idea that smoking is a marvelous activity (for those who like to smoke) when it’s a monstrous one.
Ken Akiva Segan
Seattle