Pharmacopeia: The Most Lamentable Tragedy of William Payne, M.D.

Pharmacopeia: The Most Lamentable Tragedy of William Payne, M.D. tells the story of an oncologist who has set some very high goals for himself — namely, to cure cancer and receive the Nobel Prize. But the bravado of this self-aggrandizing doctor — “My gauntlet is thrown. the duel between me and the disease it set!” — is soon perfortated by the abject reality he creates for himself. Frustrated by the existential confines of his own thought and the routine delirium of life itself, we watch Dr. Payne groping for some elusive meaning in his life. But rather than finding a way to overcome his self-absorbed nihilism, Dr. Payne embraces it with onanistic fury. Consequently, the hedonistic doctor lashes out at God, his patients, and all who come in contact with him, with a sadistic relish that recalls the most famous antiheroes of Jacobean tragedy — for it is only in the pain and humiliation of others that Dr. Payne starts to feel alive again.