Thomas de Quincey: Confessions of an English Opium Eater

Hi everyone

I read Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
This is my dad’s copy and it has a 9-page introduction and 127 pages of story.

“Once upon a time, opium (the main ingredient of heroin) was easily available over the chemist's counter. The secret of happiness, about which philosophers have disputed for so many ages, could be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies could be corked up in a pint bottle. Paradise? So thought Thomas de Quincey, but he soon discovered that 'nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium'.”

I did not like this at all.

It’s incredibly boring, nothing more than a stream of consciousness, the main-character is a vain, dumb, self-absorbed twit and the writing style is tedious, trying too hard to be intelligent, dull and overwritten.

1 STAR

Happy reading (the next one).
Helena