Confessions of an English Opium Eater

How hard is Confessions of an English Opium Eater to read?

Confessions of an English Opium Eater scores 47 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 70 out of 100

De Quincey writes in elevated Romantic English with classical allusions and Latinate diction. It is richer than The Great Gatsby and closer to the ornate registers of Lolita.

Sentence structure: 72 out of 100

His long periodic sentences loop through subordinate clauses and digressions, like a more musical Moby-Dick. The dream passages stretch syntax into incantation.

Abstraction: 58 out of 100

Concrete scenes of poverty and daily opium use sit beside reflections on pleasure, memory and dream-time. It is less philosophical than Notes from Underground.

Information density: 55 out of 100

Digressions on economics, literature, Oxford life and the physiology of opium make each section dense. The book is compact compared with Anna Karenina but rich in incident.

How Confessions of an English Opium Eater is regarded

Confessions of an English Opium Eater holds a literary regard score of 75 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.