matt@absolut.UUCP (10/11/85)
I recently bought a copy of _Confessions_of_an_English_Opium_Eater _and_Other_Writings, a collection of the essays of Thomas DeQuincey. I have been looking for one for several years, ever since reading excerpts from _Suspiria_De_Profundis_, the second half of the book. _Confessions_ is a kind of desultory chronical of DeQuincey's battle with opium and mental illness. It is remarkable, first on account of its subject matter, and second because of its prose style. Dequincey was a curious man; he was a scholar and an intellectual, he was a street person and a sensualist; he was an aspiring economist, he was a confirmed mystic; he was profoundly ambitious and yet ineffectual; he was touchingly gentle and loving with his family but had a passionate affair with opium. Of course he tells the story much better. The other thing that makes this book worthwhile is the prose style. I have a theory that modern prose style came from the journalistic practice of sending condensed, and therefore cheaper, reports over the telegraph, which were then then reconstituted in the office, devoid of meandering subordinate clauses and supernumerary vocabulary. Dequicey's writing abounds in both, yet on the whole is elegant and learned, if in places it is (rightfully) charged with being turgid and pedantic. The book abounds in, what can I call it... lore. Much is peculiar to Dequicey's hallucinations and classical imagination, while else is obscure facts and myths, reworked into an allegorical arras of Dequincey's life. Don't, by the way, read the introduction. It will spoil the book for you. Also, do not pay too much attention to the copious footnoting provided by the author, in which much of his pedanticism comes to the fore. They often lack cohesion with the text, and detract from the dreamlike rhythm. If your conscience will not allow you to leave any word unread, they generally stand as well when read separately, after finishing the book.