Mar. 14th, 2009 09:00 am
Confessions of an English Opium Voyeur
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klwardI have been reading Thomas de Quincey, a 19th century English intellectual who was a contemporary of all the Romantic greats and friend to many. He is best known, however, for a circumstance enshrined in the title of his best known work: Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Some may also have heard of the sequel, Suspiria de Profundis.
It was his best known work at the time, as well as being the one that has survived in the popular consciousness. This alone marks it as unusual. I came to it via my usual winding path, tracing contemporary pop cultural references back to the Weird Tales set and on to the gothic novel. My impetus to seek it out lay in seeing Dario Argento's Mother of Tears, the film which completes the trilogy of Suspiria and Inferno. I have long been aware that the inspiration for Argento's three archetypal witches lay in a section of Suspiria de Profundis, to which Fritz Leiber also alludes in his novel Our Lady of Darkness. Michael Moorcock lauds de Quincey in Tales of Wizardry and Wild Romance and Lovecraft and Clark Ashton-Smith are said to have taken inspiration, if nothing else.
De Quincey spends some time at the start of the Confessions insisting that he is doing this as a warning to others who might be tempted to experiment in the same manner. But at the start of Suspiria, he further confesses this was but an excuse for him to record the substance of his dreams. So, having at last read them, what can I report? Or am I like the hero of Ashton-Smith's Ubbo-Sathla, who can only approach the primal text by reducing himself to protoplasm?
My first observation may not be scintillating, but is I think important. De Quincey is self-consciously, unashamedly elitest. He is aware that he is part of a privileged class and considers himself gifted amongst them. He is not unaware of the social divisions and suffering of his time - indeed, the experiences of his adolesence grant him insights that haunt him the rest of his days - but he is not of the masses and will not pretend commonality with them. Which I for one find incredibly refreshing.
"If a man 'whose talk is of oxen,' should become an Opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) - he will dream about oxen: whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher..."
I therefore qualify my comments: de Quincey is best appreciated by a well-read and above all sensitive soul.
Much of both books is taken up with recollections of de Quincey's childhood and adolesence, which as he explains is necessary for the reader to understand his dreams. These are pages not to be regretted, both because he is utterly correct - the eventual impact is astounding - and the exquisite quality of both the reminisence and the prose. De Quincey wrote one novel, described as a gothic, which is not readily available and by reports appalling. This is ironic, because judging by the Confessions, his life formed a perfectly acceptable gothic novel and he himself an archetypical gothic protagonist. That these are usually female is, I think, to his credit.
This next observation may be going out on a limb, but I further see in de Quincey a phenomenon I detect in such novels as The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. This is a tension between the accepted, Christian spirituality of the day and - everything else. De Quincey is especially troubled by the inconsistency between belief in Heaven and irrepressible human grief. The deaths of young children, a recurring motif in his life, can only be accepted in terms of a blessing. And yet such a transmutation seems to him both impossible and obscene.
It is to deal with this that he, eventually, shares his vision of the Three Mothers. I have a sense that this is only with reluctance, out of a need for completion. Their appearence is carefully qualified with references to the permission of God.
"Let us call them, therefore, Our Ladies of Sorrow. I know them thoroughly and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three sisters they are, of one mysterious household; and their paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end... Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their pleasure, not by sounds that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven - by changes on earth - by pulses in secret rivers - heraldries painted on darkness - and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain. They wheeled in mazes; I spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; I read the signals. They conspired together; and on mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols, - mine are the words."
I will not speak casually of Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum. De Quincey's words should be read in context and no matter the actual time and location of their reading, I say you shall be in darkness and solitude and perhaps you too shall whisper, yes, them.
These texts are dense and parts would probably be heavy going for someone who has not, for instance, managed to get through Melmoth the Wanderer. They are at time eccentric in their arrangement and by the author's own admission, Suspiria de Profundis is incomplete. But they are worth reading not only for the visions, but for the process they record, which may be considered in several lights. There is an addict and a depressive here, using every resource of his superior mind to work through his symptoms and by understanding, control them. Some commentators consider him a forerunner of Freud, though I would say at least, let it be Jung. There may also be an occultist here, albeit a conflicted one, recording his insights in a manner both qualified and daringly open. Perhaps there is another lineage of writings here, though one that would require much more reading on my part to trace.
In summary, to read de Quincey is a worthwhile exercise and one would I recommend. As to eating opium, I really cannot say. But I wonder now more than ever how injecting drugs (morphine at the time) can have ever taken off, when a goblet of ruby-coloured laudanum could have such potent effects, was so much more elegant and could be readily obtained from the local pharmacist!
It was his best known work at the time, as well as being the one that has survived in the popular consciousness. This alone marks it as unusual. I came to it via my usual winding path, tracing contemporary pop cultural references back to the Weird Tales set and on to the gothic novel. My impetus to seek it out lay in seeing Dario Argento's Mother of Tears, the film which completes the trilogy of Suspiria and Inferno. I have long been aware that the inspiration for Argento's three archetypal witches lay in a section of Suspiria de Profundis, to which Fritz Leiber also alludes in his novel Our Lady of Darkness. Michael Moorcock lauds de Quincey in Tales of Wizardry and Wild Romance and Lovecraft and Clark Ashton-Smith are said to have taken inspiration, if nothing else.
De Quincey spends some time at the start of the Confessions insisting that he is doing this as a warning to others who might be tempted to experiment in the same manner. But at the start of Suspiria, he further confesses this was but an excuse for him to record the substance of his dreams. So, having at last read them, what can I report? Or am I like the hero of Ashton-Smith's Ubbo-Sathla, who can only approach the primal text by reducing himself to protoplasm?
My first observation may not be scintillating, but is I think important. De Quincey is self-consciously, unashamedly elitest. He is aware that he is part of a privileged class and considers himself gifted amongst them. He is not unaware of the social divisions and suffering of his time - indeed, the experiences of his adolesence grant him insights that haunt him the rest of his days - but he is not of the masses and will not pretend commonality with them. Which I for one find incredibly refreshing.
"If a man 'whose talk is of oxen,' should become an Opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) - he will dream about oxen: whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher..."
I therefore qualify my comments: de Quincey is best appreciated by a well-read and above all sensitive soul.
Much of both books is taken up with recollections of de Quincey's childhood and adolesence, which as he explains is necessary for the reader to understand his dreams. These are pages not to be regretted, both because he is utterly correct - the eventual impact is astounding - and the exquisite quality of both the reminisence and the prose. De Quincey wrote one novel, described as a gothic, which is not readily available and by reports appalling. This is ironic, because judging by the Confessions, his life formed a perfectly acceptable gothic novel and he himself an archetypical gothic protagonist. That these are usually female is, I think, to his credit.
This next observation may be going out on a limb, but I further see in de Quincey a phenomenon I detect in such novels as The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. This is a tension between the accepted, Christian spirituality of the day and - everything else. De Quincey is especially troubled by the inconsistency between belief in Heaven and irrepressible human grief. The deaths of young children, a recurring motif in his life, can only be accepted in terms of a blessing. And yet such a transmutation seems to him both impossible and obscene.
It is to deal with this that he, eventually, shares his vision of the Three Mothers. I have a sense that this is only with reluctance, out of a need for completion. Their appearence is carefully qualified with references to the permission of God.
"Let us call them, therefore, Our Ladies of Sorrow. I know them thoroughly and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three sisters they are, of one mysterious household; and their paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end... Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their pleasure, not by sounds that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven - by changes on earth - by pulses in secret rivers - heraldries painted on darkness - and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain. They wheeled in mazes; I spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; I read the signals. They conspired together; and on mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols, - mine are the words."
I will not speak casually of Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum. De Quincey's words should be read in context and no matter the actual time and location of their reading, I say you shall be in darkness and solitude and perhaps you too shall whisper, yes, them.
These texts are dense and parts would probably be heavy going for someone who has not, for instance, managed to get through Melmoth the Wanderer. They are at time eccentric in their arrangement and by the author's own admission, Suspiria de Profundis is incomplete. But they are worth reading not only for the visions, but for the process they record, which may be considered in several lights. There is an addict and a depressive here, using every resource of his superior mind to work through his symptoms and by understanding, control them. Some commentators consider him a forerunner of Freud, though I would say at least, let it be Jung. There may also be an occultist here, albeit a conflicted one, recording his insights in a manner both qualified and daringly open. Perhaps there is another lineage of writings here, though one that would require much more reading on my part to trace.
In summary, to read de Quincey is a worthwhile exercise and one would I recommend. As to eating opium, I really cannot say. But I wonder now more than ever how injecting drugs (morphine at the time) can have ever taken off, when a goblet of ruby-coloured laudanum could have such potent effects, was so much more elegant and could be readily obtained from the local pharmacist!
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You write this reviews? essays? whatever so well. They are a pleasure to read.