Reviews

On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts by Thomas De Quincey

Only show reviews with written explanations

a_lex_reads's review

3.0

"I'll play the part of a whetstone, which sharpens iron, but is itself unable to cut" - Horace. A sharp and twisty piece of writing, funny in its bleakness, worry, and Victorian morals. I think it draws a good observation of humanity's continuing fascination with the disturbing and how in our desire to understand it, we can end up deifying it.

mt0698's review

Go to review page

dark reflective medium-paced

2.5

Content Warnings

snakeling's review

Go to review page

challenging funny lighthearted slow-paced

4.25

Once you get past the (deliberately?) pompous, flowery style, this book is hilarious.

Content Warnings

mrwcc's review

Go to review page

5.0

Quite splendid and unique. There was a wonderful Chestertonesque humour present.

sssummer's review

Go to review page

4.0

This was cute! And pretty fun. It's definitely good satire and is honestly more relevant than ever considering shows nowadays like Hannibal or My Favourite Murder.

I liked most of the references to philosophers and how they twisted their words/morality, (for an example, the famous Kant maxim of honesty that stipulates if a murder asks you where someone is you must answer honestly and point them in the right direction. The society in this piece argues they are even so moral as to go a step further and help apprehend the target.)

My deduction of a star is perhaps a bit unfair, but I did find as a subjective experience a lot of references and some of the language went over my head. A lot of the jokes I didn't get is probably because I'm missing historical context. I would love for someone to make a modern version of this piece.