Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth has been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by a secret police. He felt bad. p.61
What does the sentence “His mouth has been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum.” mean ?
It literally means that some creature went to the toilet in his mouth and then died!
Never bettered. Every time I read it I howl over the “creature of the night” using his mouth as a latrine, then a mausoleum. It’s been decades since I’ve had a bad hangover, and I can attest to the veracity of his description. But the brilliance is in the words chosen.
Martin Amis does a good job on the stages of getting drunk and the consequent hangover in ‘Success’
Wonder where he could have got his inspiration from…:)
Mine too, I love the image of going on a cross country run during the night only to get beaten up by the secret police at the end!
It is my personal opinion that, yes, it might very well be the absolutely best description of a hangover in writing ever, as it struck me when I first read Lucky Jim.