Friday, May 6, 2011

Christiane F.

What is it about this book that haunts a person decades after reading it? I first read this book in the early 90's. Since then, I have read it over 20 times from start to finish and at least another 20 or 30 times to read certain parts.

Her life was actually quite tragic if you think about it. Her parents split up when she was young. When they were still together her dad was physically abusive to her as well as to her mother and sister. She didn't really have a close relationship with her mother. Her mother met another man soon after she split with her father. This guy was a bit of an asshole, he tried to act like he was Christiane's friend, but then started to try and control her, and gave her clear hints that she was simply in the way. Her sister moved in with her father. She was kind of alone.

She lived in tower block apartment buildings filled with poor people and undesirables. She was bored and had no activities to make her life more pleasant. So she took up smoking, first cigarettes then pot. She desperately wanted to be popular with the bad kids at school. She needed to have people in her life and she liked the idea of hanging out with the most glamorous students. Or that was how she saw it. She became friends with a bunch of people who liked to get stoned and drunk every day and she adopted that lifestyle. She spent most of her time ditching class and getting high with her friends. She was frequently stoned on LSD, pills and alcohol. She had cool dance clubs to hang out in where they played her favourite music, David Bowie. She had her first boyfriend and completely fell in love with him. Then he ended up on heroin. She soon followed. Before long she was addicted and was injecting herself with heroin every day. Then to support her habit she became a prostitute. So did her boyfriend. For the rest of the story she tried to quit at least a half dozen times, went through serious withdrawal only to then return to drugs.

Her life became quite grim. She was emaciated, her skin was grey and sallow, many of her friends overdosed and died, she was selling her body for money (though for the longest time denied having sexual intercourse until near the end when she describes screwing an older man named Heinz for heroin). She dropped out school, and her mother had given up on her.

In the end her boyfriend ended up in jail, one of her best friends died and her other best friend went to jail. She hit rock bottom. In the end she got off heroin, but still used hash.

She ends the book when she is 16 or so. But she ends up in the news for the rest of her life. She was a singer and put out a few albums, none especially successful. But most importantly, she was back on heroin.

She never got away from that life. But what is weird is that her life seemed glamorous and exciting when she was a teenager. A lot of people copied her life even though it was so miserable. But if anyone was to look at her life now, there is nothing glamorous about it at all. She has been living off of the royalties from the book (and possibly the movie too) ever since. She is in her 40's now, has a kid who she recently just placed in care because she could no longer take care of him due to her drug addiction.

Overall, this is not a happy story. It's really sad that she never succeeded academically after having been rejected from good schools due to her drug use. She herself seemed like a cool person, maybe that was what was so interesting about the book. It was written in her words so you really get to know her.

Maybe the story is interesting because she is young and naive and living in the moment. She fully embraces youth. She lives a bohemian peaceful type of life, rather than an angry, punk lifestyle, and seems to be down to earth.

She had a lot of friends, they were her family. Maybe that is part of what was so exciting. But either way, it shouldn't be the sort of life anyone would want to copy, and yet many people have. Instead of the book being a warning to teenagers everywhere that drugs are bad and that you should stay in school she is like a flashing neon light saying "over here, this way, come and do this it's fun!". Even though she sleeps with gross older men for money and is a total slave to heroin, her life still seems somewhat alluring.