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Paul Bryant's Reviews > Confessions of an English Opium-eater
Confessions of an English Opium-eater
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If there is reincarnation I want them to put a hold on mine until humanity has invented drugs that don't have a down-side to them. No tiresome side effects, like early death. And they'll be cheap. And you'll still be able to fire up your jet pack and get to the office and do your job and impress your team leader. And no skin blemishes. O drugs of the future, I salute you and your friendliness and complete lack of ill effects!
Because you see opium, for one, as Thomas de Quincey demonstrates in this famous but I think not much read book, has seriously deleterious effects upon the user's syntax. It goes all to hell. Thomas can start sentences but finds it really..like...hard... to finish them, so he adds in piles of clausy digressiony blah-blah-blah uninteresting detail in exactly the same way that drugged up people think that talking about their tattoos or their dealer for hours could possibly be interesting even for a halfnanosecond to their undrugged locutors..
When people in the future take their drugs of no down-side, they will converse graciously about matters of interest to all. And plus, they will never sit down heavily on their girlfriend's little cute dog and squash it flat, like Christopher Moltisanti did in The Sopranos. He didn't even realise he'd done it until she came in and asked him where her little darling was. In the future, that will never happen.
O Cosette!
Because you see opium, for one, as Thomas de Quincey demonstrates in this famous but I think not much read book, has seriously deleterious effects upon the user's syntax. It goes all to hell. Thomas can start sentences but finds it really..like...hard... to finish them, so he adds in piles of clausy digressiony blah-blah-blah uninteresting detail in exactly the same way that drugged up people think that talking about their tattoos or their dealer for hours could possibly be interesting even for a halfnanosecond to their undrugged locutors..
When people in the future take their drugs of no down-side, they will converse graciously about matters of interest to all. And plus, they will never sit down heavily on their girlfriend's little cute dog and squash it flat, like Christopher Moltisanti did in The Sopranos. He didn't even realise he'd done it until she came in and asked him where her little darling was. In the future, that will never happen.
O Cosette!
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without even a little goodbye woof... one of the most shocking of all tv deaths.
thanks Manny, it's on my shelf! (propelled there by your good self).
The early ones are really a lot of fun! Sex, drugs, giant spaceships, godlike AIs, weird but noble aliens, bodily fluids, irony, bad guys you love, good guys you can't stand, existentialist emptiness, he's got it all.
I'm there, Manny - just as soon as I've got out from under this gloomladen German rambler-in-more-than-one-sense WG Sebald and his Rings of Satan. Saturn.
But Banks' late stuff goes to pot (pardon the pun). Not recommended. The Player of Games was about the last I really enjoyed.
I also think he's past his peak. But Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games and Use of Weapons are all first-class modern SF novels.
Well, g'day Manny. Nice to see you floating about in classic text instead of those great and weighty philosophy of origin tomes you've been buried in lately.
It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.
I miss the old Manny. He's lost the common touch, I think.
'e's gone all cereball, Paul, 'e 'as.
Maybe I should take a break after I finish A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, Volume 2. Though I tell you it's a whole lot more exciting than you might guess from the title. Someone ought to snap up the movie rights while they're still cheap.
Manny wrote: "Maybe I should take a break after I finish A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, Volume 2. Though I tell you it's a whole lot more exciting than you might guess from the..."Oh god, I just know how he's going to play this review now.
Buzz Lightyear as "Science" and Mel Gibson as "Theology" in the new Pixar production...
we were right, but you just now decided to change it because we guessed. Anyway now I'm looking forward to it - you see what a bit of pre-publicity does?
Paul wrote: "we were right, but you just now decided to change it because we guessed."+1
Have you read anything of de Quincey's from before he tried opium? Maybe his syntax was always weird! ;)
it would be difficult, Confessions was his first book...
Paul said, "it would be difficult, Confessions was his first book..."See, there you go: inspiration!
Here's a cartoon about the drug Paul is specifying; if you can't read it, it says, "Would anyone here like to try this very, very safe, short-acting non-addictive extremely fantastic new drug?
I just started reading this and immediately noticed the big use of words and never-ending sentences. After reading your review I am now thankful that at least I know I'm not the only one who noticed this. I only started reading it, it's a big much to take in but I'm hoping I enjoy it. Also I'm reading it as a part of research for an upcoming book; then again I can only dream of writing in such conscienceness.
I guess if you eat a lot of opium you might start writing in gigantic sentences! But I'm not recommending it.
He was so stoned he didn't even know how to use the drug correctly. Have you read his sequels, Confessions of a Cigarette Eater and Confessions of an Oolong Tea Injector?
that reminds me of Bob Newhart's imaginary phone call from Sir Walter Raleigh -Telephone rings:
Yeh?... Who is it, Frank?... Sir Walter Raleigh?... Yeh?... Yeh, put him on, will you!
Hi, Walter baby, how are you, guy? How's everything going?...
Oh, things are fine here, Walt!...
What you got for us this time, Walt, you got another winner for us?
Tob-acco... er, what's tob-acco, Walt?...
It's a kind of leaf, huh?...
And you bought eighty tonnes of it?!!...
Let me get this straight, Walt, you've bought eighty tonnes of leaves? This may come as a kind of a surprise to you Walt but come fall in England, we're kinda upto our...
It isn't that kind of leaf, huh?...
Oh!, what kind is it then... some special kind of food?...
Not exactly?...
Oh, it has a lot of different uses, like, what are some of the uses, Walt?...
Are you saying 'snuff', Walt?...
What's snuff?...
You take a pinch of tobacco... and you shove it up your nose. ha! ha!... and it makes you sneeze? ha! ha! ha!...
Yeh, I imagine it would, Walt! Hey, Goldenrod seems to do it pretty well over here!
It has other uses though, huh?...
You can chew it!... or put it in a pipe!... or you can shred it up... and put it in a piece of paper. ha! ha! ha!... and roll it up. ha ha ha... Don't tell me, Walt, don't tell me. ha! ha! ha! you stick it in your ear, right? ha! ha! ha!...
Oh! between your lips!...
Then what do you do, Walt? ha! ha! ha!...
You set fire to it! ha! ha! ha!...
Then what do you do, Walt?...
Ha! ha! ha! You inhale the smoke, huh! ha! ha! ha!...
You know, Walt... it seems you can stand in front of your own fireplace and have the same thing going for you!
You see, Walt... we've been a little worried about you, y'know, ever since you put your cape down over that mud.
Y'see, Walt... I think you're gonna have rather a tough time selling people on sticking burning leaves in their mouthes...
It's going very big over there, is it?...
What's the matter, Walt?...
You spilt your what?...
Your coff-ee?.
What's coff-ee, Walt?...
That's a drink you make out of beans, huh? ha! ha! ha!...
That's going over very big there, too, is it?...
A lot of people have a cup of coffee right after their first cigar-ette in the morning, huh?...
Is that what you call the burning leaves, Walt?... cigar-ettes?...
I tell you what, Walt!, why don't you send us a boatload of those beans, too!
If you can talk people into putting those burning leaves in their mouthes... they've gotta go for those beans, Walt!... right?
Listen, Walt... don't call us... we'll call you!...
G'bye!
I can almost conjure up some distant memory of Newhart doing that routine... at least, it surely sounds like his kind of thing.
If there is reincarnation I want them to put a hold on mine until humanity has invented drugs that don't have a down-side to them. ----- I don't know how much experience you have had with drugs, Paul, but, from my experience, there are at least a couple of powerful drugs that are all upside.
Glenn wrote: "If there is reincarnation I want them to put a hold on mine until humanity has invented drugs that don't have a down-side to the...there are at least a couple of powerful drugs that are all upside."So there would be no need to put your reincarnation on hold?
Cecily wrote: "Glenn wrote: "If there is reincarnation I want them to put a hold on mine until humanity has invented drugs that don't have a down-side to the...there are at least a couple of powerful drugs that a..."If I could have unlimited access to the right drugs, now would be a great time to be reborn!
Cecily wrote: "A better bet than http://www.alcor.org/"Goodness, yes.
I have always enjoyed the aphorism:
Life without death isn't life, its self-preservation.
What goes up must come down ;)
That is true now, but in the future I believe you will be able to go up indefinitely.
"He was so stoned he didn't even know how to use the drug correctly. Have you read his sequels, Confessions of a Cigarette Eater and Confessions of an Oolong Tea Injector?"This reminds me of the SNL sketch where Chevy Chase ties off and tries to stick the joint into his arm.
The sixty fourth Like was brought to you courtesy of a lover of De Quincey's elaborately constructed sentences ;-)
that sounds like Agatha Christie - The Riddle of the 64th Like
Seeing the comments above about cryonics and Alcor, that's been getting a more critical press in the UK lately, after a 14-year old was given permission to be frozen and transported to the US and the whole process has been looked at more critically. I'm afraid you might just as well take Jane Eyre's approach to avoiding Hell: stay in good health and not die.
Cryonics is such a great scam.
Paul wrote: "Cryonics is such a great scam."Yes, but it makes some people less afraid of death, and although it takes their money, the side-effects on living adherents and those around them are arguably less severe than those of the traditional source of such reassurance: religion.
I haven't actually sat down & thought about cryogenics too much but in some very significant ways it has the same function in its adherents' lives as religion, promising a happier life to come after this one, promising, indeed, that the individual can look forward to a new body free of ailments. Jehovah's Witnesses would instantly recognise this picture. I do accept that the side effects of belief in cryogenics might be less debilitating that those of more traditional religions. It's a curious comparison.
Now is the time to open cryo pets and cryo rapture pets!
that's what I call niche marketing!
Wow. I wish I'd thought of that. Then again, the startup costs for a religion are a lot less than for cryonics.
Have you read an Iain M. Banks "Culture" novel yet? If not, it will give you a whole lot more detail here.