Confessions of an English Opium Eater and Other Writings

I couldn't find a picture of my particular copy of this book on Google, so I had to take a picture and upload it. Personally, I think that this cover is much more interesting than many of the other cover designs out there.

This particular edition contains Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Suspiria de Profundis, The English Mail Coach, and three essays: "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts", "On the Knocking on the Gate in Macbeth", and "The Literature of Knowledge, the Literature of Power." It's quite a bit to digest in reading straight through, but taken separately, each section is worth the read.

As might be expected in such a narrative, Confessions of an English Opium Eater has DeQuincey repeatedly emphasizing his station in life, the fact that he is a learned scholar, and that he came to opium for relief of pain only, and resorted to more frequent usage again for pain relief, before the drug finally put its hooks into him. However, despite his occasionally too frequent protestations, this is a very strong section of the work, and well worth revisiting. A criticism frequently leveled at the Confessions are that they glorify and condone the use of opium, that they encourage addiction, but I didn't quite get that; given the subject matter, DeQuincey's praise of opium is less full-throated than I had expected.

Suspiria de Profundis is nominally a sequel to the Confessions, but is a much more abstract work. After an expansion on his childhood and a digression on the human brain, DeQuincey moves into what can only be assumed to be dreams/visions while under the influence of opium. These are, as might be expected, unreal and extravagant. I would recommend "The Dark Interpreter" and "Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow."

The English Mail Coach begins with a very straightforward section, called "The Glory of Motion", extolling the virtues of being a passenger on a Royal Mail Coach. We then have a meditation on sudden death, a retelling of an incident that DeQuincey observed as a passenger on the Mail, and finally, opium dreams about said incident. A very well done essay.

"On Murder" is the highlight of the essays, and is more of a description of some crimes rather than an exaltation of them, which is fine, but a slight disappointment given (again) the author's protestations that this is really a satire, totally, and how could you indict him for it?

Recommended, although more individually than straight through.

Stand on Zanzibar

The first chapter of Stand on Zanzibar is an introduction to a newsmagazine-type program that will recur throughout the novel. The second is titled "Read the Directions" and intersperses bare bones characterization (such as: "Donald Hogan is a spy") with excerpts from in-universe books, newscasts, advertisements, corporate mottoes, gossip, and recruitment. Every character introduced in that chapter is featured in the novel, some more prominently than others. It's a device designed to simulate the information overload that's prevalent in the setting of this novel -- Earth, 40 years from time of writing (that is, 2010, with the novel written in 1969).

The remainder of the novel is like an expanded version of the first chapter; the main plot is interwoven with ads, snippets of talk shows, and the like. It can be a bit jarring. Additionally, of all the characters introduced in the first chapter, some get an expanded look, while others only get one or two -- an intro chapter that sets up their conflict, and the resolution chapter. However, due to the cutting in, introducing the new characters isn't too distracting, and we're left wondering if any of them are going to join the main plot (most of them wind up tangential to it), or even what the main plot is.

While the plot is the engine that drives the book, I would recommend picking this up for the structure, as the ending is pretty facile, even if the big reveal is a bit unusual.