By Thomas De Quincey

I have to admit for an X-Gen reader such as myself, with a short attention span, this was a difficult read, especially coming from the rhythmic, rapid fire, word-gun poetics of the Beat writers. That is not to say it wasn’t poetic. It is, richly so; but it is written in a decorative Victorian language, in complex multi-part sentences, within page length paragraphs, by an academic that was keen on 16th and 17th century literature.

Due to the fact that I read before bed, it sometimes took me a few nights to complete one paragraph. I am not not recommending this book, I am just saying read it in the daytime hours if you have the time. I am having the same problem with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Great Boer War.

This is the true account of Thomas De Quincey’s addiction to Laudanum. It was first published in serial form in 1821, anonymously. De Quincey was a brilliant young scholar of Greek and Latin who, because of various tragedies and dissatisfaction, leaves boarding school for a life in the streets. A physical ailment leads him to try laudanum, which at that time could be obtained legally through any local pharmacy. I think maybe, it was De Quincy’s wandering and unconventional lifestyle that may have appealed to members of the Beat Generation, not to mention the obvious: his honest and free depiction of his drug use.

From impassioned passages about the pleasures of opiates, to the nightmare of its pains, and the context of a life that lived it, we get a realistic portrait of the artist. His scholarship and recognition of emotional drivers of addiction defies times in which it was written, and our still persistent notion of the modern street junkie. If you can’t get enough, for additional reading, I would suggest, Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs, and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.