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.

The Song of the Dodo

Although the narrative in David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo is sprawling and peripatetic, the author's focus is not. While Quammen jumps between focusing on others' research (either in the field, in their offices, or in scientific journals), visiting sites himself (both with and not in conjunction with field biologists) and generally waxing on the topic, he's always engaging, and is always able to relate what that particular tidbit has to do with island biogeography.

The Song of the Dodo isn't focused on the dodo at all. Sure, our favorite wacky looking fowl does make a few appearances, but really, this is a paean to Alfred Russell Wallace. The book begins and closes with an account of Wallace's journeys to the South Pacific, with the ending of the author retracing Wallace's footsteps. Between those bookends, we have discussion of conservation, the pressures that isolated habitats (such as islands) exert on evolution (here we have many examples, from insects to birds to mammals to reptiles, covering island gigantism, insular dwarfism, species evolving to fill niches that are typically filled by other species, and much more), how the theory of island biogeography can be used to inform the design of nature reserves (and if this is a proper use for the theory), the treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia, the "right" amount of species for a particular island (and how this is achieved through migrations and extinctions), and much more.

I would recommend this unreservedly to anyone interested in natural history or biology in general.

Murder City

Murder City isn't quite what I expected. Rather than a sober overview of Mexico's troubles, this is a depressing narrative that skips between scenes and characters, like a bad dream. Murders without motive, seemingly without reason, without explanations, and certainly without consequences for the killers.

Throughout Murder City, Bowden uses jump cuts -- he describes a murder, a threat, an incident, in a paragraph and then flashes to another, and another, before returning (or moving) to a something else. The referenced instances may recur, or may not. One thread that runs through nearly all of them, though, is that witnesses or neighbors saw or noticed nothing, or saw men "dressed as commandos."

Bowden has several people and settings he returns to again and again, but the three most prevalent are the story of a former beauty queen who came to the city to party, was gang-raped for days and lost her mind (Miss Sinaloa), a killer for one of the cartels (Murder Artist), and the intimidation and silencing of the Mexican press by both the cartels and the government (Dead Reporter Driving). These are the only chapters that are titled, others are merely denoted by the page breaks.

Overall, this book doesn't give a sense of perspective on the violence in Ciudad Juarez, but underscores the senselessness of it all. And that is precisely the point.

The Man-Eaters of Tsavo

This book could be more accurately titled East African Adventures, Including that Time I Killed Two Man-Eating Lions, but that might be too conversational (and not nearly Victorian enough) for Col. Patterson. There are twenty-seven chapters in this book, and the ninth one is titled "The Death of the Second Man-Eater", so the majority of this book is clearly the other East African adventures. Luckily, Patterson's writing style is engaging enough that even without the excitement of the lions, it's not bad going.

I doubt that Patterson saw this work getting the audience that it eventually would -- in the brief preface, he states that he wrote this for the benefit of the friends who kept insisting that he put his escapades down on paper. The most famous (and interesting) of Patterson's adventures in Africa is his time building a railway in Kenya (then British East Africa) which was set upon by maneless lions (the man-eaters of the title) who dragged off many workers, to the point where the laborers refused to work on the railway, and many deserted. Patterson devoted much of his time at night to waiting for the lions, progressing to hunting them, finally having one stalk him. He eventually kills them and eliminates the threat, although not before many of his men are eaten. It's a fascinating, terrifyingly primal story, and Patterson renders it laconically, not really conveying the fear or sense of urgency, even though he himself lived it.

The remainder of the book is railway engineering, hunting in East Africa (rhino, hippo, many other lions, antelope, elephant, giraffe, etc). It's never all that boring, because it's easy to digest, but it does get a tad repetitive. The story of the lions is worth reading. The rest? Eh.

Gentlemen's Blood

Barbara Holland's Gentlemen's Blood is not quite a comprehensive overview of dueling and its history, but an excellent introductory look at a past custom that we currently look a little askance at.

Holland begins with the duel's origins in the trial by combat, and moves deftly through the centuries (from fencing masters in Italy to swordfighting in France to dueling pistols in England to bloody frontier affairs in the American West, with stops in between in Ireland, the American South, Russia, and Germany, among other places). Given the breadth of the subject matter (dueling was an accepted custom in many cultures, and although it was deplored and illegal at various times, laws against it were very often not enforced), Holland doesn't quite treat the subject exhaustively, but her digressions make this well worth reading. There's plenty of information on how honor was treated (as the currency of polite society), how exactly a duel should be arranged (by the seconds, via a series of notes), the insults most likely to bring about a challenge ("liar" is the most unforgivable, right up with physical violence, which either requires a challenge or renders the aggressor beneath contempt, depending on the culture), and the capabilities of the weapons involved (smoothbore pistols weren't particularly accurate).

There's a lot here, but Holland is most entertaining in her snapshot-like depictions of the many duels, spotlighting combats across countries and centuries. Her eye is sharp, and her wit is acerbic. Highly recommended, it's a quick and entertaining read.

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake

Don't judge a book by its cover, or an author by his appellation. I saw "Breece D'J Pancake" and cringed. I figured I knew exactly why someone would choose to do that, and exactly what kind of stories they would write. Luckily, I was way off; from reading the afterword (or one of them, anyway), I learned that the awful punctuation was the fault of the first magazine that published one of Pancake's stories, and he kept it, because why not? Secondly, these stories aren't precious and tedious at all.

The first story in this collection, "Trilobites" is one of the best short stories I've ever read. Some critics, (like Joyce Carol Oates, on the freaking cover of my edition, and at least one of the fore and afterwords) liken Pancake to Hemingway, and while I can see it, I don't think that's wholly accurate. Hemingway is just more sparse than Pancake is -- Hemingway's protagonists seem more detached. The rest of the collection is quite strong, as well. Sure, there are ebbs and flows (the foreword singles out the gothic "Time and Again" as an ebb), but the stories remain inventive and haunting. Recommended unreservedly.

That said, while this is great writing, it isn't always fun reading. These are depressing stories about lost and desperate people, the kind who "have lost a wheel, fallen off a biplane wing, or crossed yourself left-handedly . . .". Pancake doesn't let his characters blur together -- sure, these are miserable people, but they all have very different reasons and circumstances, and he's not going to let you forget that.