book of books - Selected Tales

As part of the Penguin blog the classics challenge the book sent was Selected Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and the deadline to read it and review it was six weeks. This is a slightly longer version of the review I have now submitted, which will hopefully go live soon. It was an enyoable experience and hopefully Penguin will do something similar again the future.

When Edgar Allan Poe sat down to write he must have been an incredible feeling of adventure. He was writing stories that went into that area that straddles the lines between good and evil, life and death and the natural and supernatural. Each time he put pen to paper the journey into a mystical world would start.

In this series of Selected Tales there are stories that shock for their gruesome content, surprise for their innovation and others that create a genre for other authors to follow. Like a mountaineer being the first to climb Everest this is a writer breaking new ground on almost every page.

The reason why he gets away with what could have been difficult for some writers trying to see where their imagination will take them is because of the confidence in the writing. He is able to sketch out not just characters, and some of them are far from normal, but locations that require some detailed description in just a couple of pages. He uses literary devices, like quoting newspaper reports in Murder on the Rue Morgue, which are imaginative but more importantly work. On top of that he shows that it is possible to mix styles to create something that appears to be a traditional narrative but then packs a supernatural punch.

At the heart of a good Poe story is the pace. The reader feels the rising tension, fears the next move and shivers at the conclusion.

Some of the best stories to show that working are the Fall of the House of Usher where the climax is enough to get the hairs on the back of your neck standing up as the house and the remaining Usher family both crumble into dust. Then there are a series of stories that start with a murderer lamenting over how he got caught - The Beating Heart and The Black Cat.

Then there are the detective stories with the enigmatic Dupin that remind you of Sherlock Holmes among others as the lonely odd individual uses deductive skills that solve crimes the police have not even got close to wrapping up. Murder in the Rue Morgue is the best of the three stories where Dupin appears because he visits the murder scene and solves the oddest of crimes, where the murderer was an Orangutan. All that is best about Poe is displayed in this single story with a mad ape yielding a cut throat razor turning an ordinary night time Paris into something much more disturbing. It also challenges the reader to push the boundaries of what they think might have happened and engage with a very active imagination.

Bearing in mind most writers are encouraged to write about what they know there is also a confidence here to tackle numerous locations ranging from Africa, Caribbean islands, Paris and America.

Most short story collections reinforce the impression that a writer is concerned with certain key themes, religion and love for example, but what this collection shows is just how wide Poe’s imagination stretched.

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Well the Poe finally comes to an end and despite the dark, supernatural and often gruesome content it has been an enjoyable ride.

What makes it something you stick with (apart from the commitment to read it and review it for the Penguin Classics blog) is that the writing is so good. You feel that this is a man on the cusp of something new almost every time he picks up his pen and along with helping develop certain genres he is also showing on every page an enquiring mind.

In the same way that ghost and horror stories grew out of crossing that line between the natural and supernatural there is a sense here that Poe is keen to investigate the thought process and the reaction to stories about murder, ghosts and spirits and near death experiences. What comes out of it is a sense sometimes of unease but equally unlike fiction based in bolted down reality there is an excitement because you never know quite what will happen next.

As a result it is quite easy to read stories that you suspect will have a nasty ending which in fact don’t and others that leave you wondering why Poe chose to focus on certain details when he appeared to have a narrative that could have gone in various different directions.

Highlights from The Domain of Arnheim
A man who comes into a very substantial fortune decides to spend all of his money on landscaping an area to master nature. He spends years trying to find the right spot and then Poe gives a description of the experience that the public would go through winding through streams and through different flora and fauna environments. The man dies but leaves a legacy of a transformed environment in the area of Arnheim, proving that he has been able to manipulate nature/

Highlights from Von Kempelen and His Discovery
An odd starting story that only really becomes clear at the very end with Von Kempelen being able to change lead into gold. As a result the suspicion is that the scientist will not be able to keep his secret for long so the price of lead shoots through the roof.

A review will follow by the end of the week…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

The Poe is almost at an end an although it is dark stuff it is interesting because it is so clearly written by someone with an enquiring mind. Not prepared just to let the norm be the stuff of writing there is a supernaturalism here that adds to the story an added dimension that does work. On top of that there is clearly a fascination in the line between good and evil and what happens when you cross it and murder someone.

Highlights from The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar
A man who is on his last legs agrees to be put into a mesmerist state and the narrator manages to put him under just before death intervenes. He remains in a state of half-death for months until finally it is agreed that they will let the patient wake. Asking him how he elicits the answer that is dead and demands to be let go. But no sooner out of the mesmerist state than the body crumbles and the bed is left full of a bitter smelling goo where the patient had been only moments before

Highlights from The Case of Amontillado
A man seeking revenge decides to get it on a festive day when the town will be focused on enjoying themselves. He beckons for his victim to accompany him into his dark and damp cellar to find some decent alcohol and when he reaches the farthest point chains the unsuspecting and drunk victim to the wall. He then bricks the man in and finds him changing from anger to hysteria to finally silence – a state that spooks the killer. But unlike other Poe tales he manages to get away with it and the story ends with the admission that no one has found the corpse.

Final couple of stories tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

The reappearance of Dupin is welcome but lets face it after the Murder in the Rue Morgue the detective adventures are best left to Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes. Apart from that there is another reminder of how Poe can make you feel uncomfortable dwelling on one particular phobia.

Highlights from The Purloined Letter
A member of the royal household is discovered in possession of a compromising letter and a minister steals it knowing that no protest is possible. The woman turns to the police to get it back but they take the house apart and cannot find it. The reward for finding it is considerable but no one has any joy. Dupin asks for a large sum, of money to get it back and no sooner is the cheque written he hands over the letter. He realised that the best place to hide it is right under the noses and so he discovered it on a visit and then replaced it with a copy.

Te moral of the story is that if you wan to hide something them keeping it obvious often tricks the minds of those looking for some secret hiding place.

Highlights from The Imp of the Perverse
After a few pages suggesting that sometimes there is an overpowering desire to be perverse and go against the norm Poe introduces a man who has committed murder who is quite happy at having got away with his crime. But then he is infected by the desire to shout out his crime and starts to run through the crowd and when he is caught sure enough he blurts it out and for his honesty is rewarded with the hangman’s noose.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Poe uses a device whereby the story is being told by someone who is confessing of a crime. It is used in the Tell-Tale Heart and again here with The Black Cat. The technique makes it darker because you know it ended in some grislly manner for the narrator to be telling the tale at all.

Highlights from The Gold Bug
A doctor on an island colony meets up with a friend who lives with a servant and occasionally meets up. He lets him self into his friends home and although the weather is usually hot it is such an unusually chilly day the fire is blazing and he sits down next to it and waits. His friend arrives and talks about finding a gold bug and draws it for him but when the doctor looks at the paper all he can see is a death’s head skull. The friend’s part on bad terms arguing about the image on the paper but an idea seems to have germinated in the mind of the gold bug owner.

Weeks pass and the doctor gets a visit from the servant who informs him that his master is going mad and has a letter calling on him to come. When they meet up the strange behaviour continues and the gold bug owner asks them to walk off into the forest and sends his servant up onto a tree. At the end of the seventh branch there is a skull and dropping the bug through the left eye it marks a spot from which the men can dig up Captain Kidd’s treasure. The gold bug is almost unconnected but had the owner not attempted to draw it he would never have found the map on the reverse that included the pirate sign of a death’s head that the doctor saw as he sat by the fire – which had heated the invisible ink.

Highlights from The Black Cat
An animal lover becomes an alcoholic and after one particularly bad bout he comes home and decides that his cat is looking at him strangely so cuts its eye out. He then tries to be remorseful but a few weeks later he hangs the cat. That night his house burns down all except for his bedroom wall that has the image of a cat being hanged burnt into the plaster. Again time passes and the animal lover comes across a cat almost identical to the one he killed and buys it. After a while he tires of the animal and moves to kill it with an axe but his wife stops him. For her trouble he puts the axe through her head. He thinks he has got away with bricking up her corpse but when the police come there is a screaming behind the wall that leads them to frantically pull the bricks away to reveal the corpse with the cat sitting on the head.

Highlights from The Premature Burial
A man, who is obsessed with being buried alive, partly because he suffers from a condition that means he slips into trance states that resemble death, discusses his phobia. First of all he reveals stories of others who have not been dead who wither died in a crypt or were lucky to be found before they died. Then he thinks the worst has happened and starts to scream out before remembering he is tightly squeezed on a ship and is waking the rest of the crew. The result of his moments when he really thought he had been buried alive is to relive him of the fear and hand him the chance to enjoy life.

More tomorrow…



 

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Back from Dublin and tired from a full day being talked to about Cisco’s plans for the future so although I started Slaughterhouse 5 on the plane will just stick to the lunchtime read. Although must make one moan. Having read most of James Joyce it seemed like a great idea to pop into the bookshop at the airport and pick up Finnegan’s Wake. But all they had was The Dubliners and not just one or two copies but about ten. It was a real shame that having been deprived of the chance to go to a bookshop the airport failed to deliver the goods.

Anyway back to Poe…

Highlights from The Pit and the Pendulum
A man sentenced to death by the inquisition is put through various tortures with the first being a room with a deep pit, which he only narrowly avoids in the dark. Then a pendulum swings down and only just misses him after he frees himself from its path. Final attempts to push him into the it by heating up the walls, which are pushed in towards him leave him about to faint into the abyss until a hand reaches out and pulls him back and it’s the French who have come and quashed the inquisition forces.

Highlights from The Tell-Tale Heart
A man decides to murder an old man because he has an evil eye that keeps staring at him so he waits and stalks him night after night until he manages to get into his room without waking him. But one night he disturbs the old man who is so terrified that his heart beats loudly and appears to be beating enough to raise the alarm but the murderer silences the heart by killing the old man. Then the police come after reports of a nigh time shriek and they are shown the old man’s room where the killer has cleverly dismembered the body and hidden it in the floorboards. He starts hearing the beating heart and finally is driven mad by the sound and confesses his crime to the police.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

I am in Dublin right now with work so everything is going to be slightly delayed. Sadly work is intense so there won;t be a chance to see anything other than the conference facilities at the Guinness storehouse. Anyway back to Poe...

There is something about a book that makes you really think that is very attractive. There is something happening here beyond the simple trying to guess which way the plot will turn and with the sequel to Murder in the Rue Morgue you are left without a resolution but thinking about the value in thinking differently about events and understanding what makes it as a clue.

Highlights from The Masque of the Red Death
A territory run by a duke is plagued by the red death, so called because of the bloody appearance of its victims. The Duke turns his back on his people and takes 1,000 courtiers and takes to a walled citadel to protect themselves against the plague. But at a masqued ball suddenly a stranger appears in a cloak with the marks of the red death on his face. he Duke demands his removal and when no one manages to do anything about it he runs at the stranger and then falls down dead, swiftly followed by the rest of his guests who tried to avoid death but managed to get caught after all.

Highlights from The Mystery of Marie Roget
This is a sequel to Murder in the Rue Morgue so Dupin reappears but he doesn't do so for quite a while. Mirroring the true events of a murder of a girl in New York the case centres on a girl found dead in a river.Theories abound through the press but Dupin shows by reading all the press cuttings, which are printed here in full, it is possible without even visiting the murder site to show that not only have the police missed most clues but also made completely the wrong assumptions about the killers - which is not a gang but an individual.

You are left wondering if the killer was a mystery naval officer or wether or not the finance had somehow managed to find out about a possible elopement and stopped it. The reality is that no one tells you because you are left wondering without an answer.

More tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

By now with not quite 200 pages of the book got through you get the feel of Poe, an inventive and dark writer, really must have had fun pushing the boundaries. He is able to come up with different styles and make up the rulebook as he goes along.

Highlights from The Colloquy of Monos and Una
This one is a bit of a struggle until near the end when it becomes clear that this is a conversation between two dead lovers that have been reunited in the spirit world. They say that the sign of a good writer is someone who can get into the head of a different character. Poe shows here with the description of the thoughts of a dying man and then a corpse that he is quite capable of going into any sort of territory.

Highlights from The Oval Portrait
A very short story but by now you recognise all the hallmarks of Poe – darkness, horror both against a sense of faded grandeur. A traveller pitches up at a chateaux for the night and a book on his pillow explains the history of the numerous pictures in the room. As the hours tick by he is struck by a small oval portrait of a woman. Picking up the guide book he reads that she married the painter of the picture and he agonised about her portrait for a long time and when it was finally finished the sitter had died.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Well these things happen but I headed off for work leaving Mr Pye on the dining table so all there is to blog about today is the Poe which following the brilliant Murder in the Rue Morgue was always going to be a bit of let down. One passing thought reading the first story is that of course in pre aeroplane travelling times the sea was unavoidable and no doubt seen as dark and mysterious with only a few people being able to master it. Not quite sure if the storyteller in this tale has been totally mastered by the swirling whirlpool.

Highlights from A Descent into the Maelstrom
A sailor taking a tourist up the cliffs points out to him the raging sea below and the whirlpools that form then suddenly disappear and then tells him a tale about how he was sucked into one on his boat with his brother. They were caught in a great storm and dragged towards the whirlpool and went into it and were slowly sucked down. The surviving narrator threw himself off the boat onto a barrel and was eventually spat out but his brother was smashed with the boat at the bottom of the whirling sea. After he was rescued the man’s hair had turned from “raven black” to white and despite his graphic detail none of the fishermen who had saved him believed his tale.

Highlights from The Island of the Fay
A short and whimsical tale about fairies – Fay’s - that streak like shadows across the woods until their shadow is no more. Compared to what has gone before there is not much in common here in terms of mood with it being more melancholic and reflective than inspiring horror but of course there is the supernatural element to unsettle.

More hopefully over the weekend…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Sorry for the lateness with this post but on the magazine Thursday is press day so it is all hands on deck and I ended up writing a couple of stories so had to work through lunch break.

Mind you this is worth the wait because the couple of stories today included the Murder on the Rue Morgue. The echoes in the world of Sherlock Holmes are obvious but the difference here is that you like Holmes more than the reclusive Frenchman who cracks this crime. Still for atmosphere and style its Conan Doyle in so many ways.

Highlights from William Wilson
This might sound like an odd thing but I was left thinking of the film Fight Club after reading this. William Wilson has what he thinks is a shadow a doppelganger who follows him round and destroys his life but when he finally faces him and drives the knife home several times he looks in the mirror and it is himself he has killed.

Highlights from Murder in the Rue Morgue
A woman and her daughter are found brutally murdered and the police have no idea about how the crime was perpetuated. Two solitary friends live together and one of them Dupin decides to help solve the crime once a friend has been arrested without evidence. He visits the scene and minutely examines everything and then works put that the crime was perpetuated by an orang-utan and manages to entice the owner to his house to look for the missing beast and confess what happened.

There is a darkness that comes from the descriptions of the murders and the bodies but so many things that happen here are repeated in Conan Doyle. There is one scene where Dupin manages to voice his friend’s thoughts and then explains how through a combination of reading his expression and reaction to events he managed to read his mind. Something exactly the same happens in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes where Holmes interrupts the thoughts of Dr Watson.

Mind you with writing of the standard of both Poe and Conan Doyle questions of originality are not to be too much worried about. Just enjoy the results of their creativity.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Reading a bunch of stories from someone as well known as Poe is a bit like putting a Greatest Hits collection on your iPod. The temptation is to just head for the tracks that were big hits and then gradually expose yourself to the others. That temptation is the same here with some of the less known stories sometimes being seen as obstacles to some of the ‘hits’.

Managed to get to one this lunch break and it is dark and not quite the best thing to keep you in a positive frame of mind at work.

Highlights from How to Write a Blackwood Article
A woman approaches Mr Blackwood and asks how you go about getting an article into his magazine. He advises her to write with a blunt pen and along with other odd recommendations insists that her subject matter should be some sort of personal disaster. Using a story about her choking on a chicken bone as an example he tells her to throw in some French, Italian, Greek and German to spice it up. Fired up she leaves his company and tries to run into some sort of trouble as soon as possible until she finally manages to find something and starts her story, which ends mid sentence…

Highlights from The Fall of the House of Usher
A school friend of the last remaining Usher male is called to visit his friend and finds him and his twin sister in a terrible state. She seems to be dying of some disease and he is mentally falling apart. As the last of their line there is a feeling that with them will go the physical building also referred to as the House of Usher. The brother tells his friend that his sister has died but is contagious so they take her into the bowls of the old house. But he remains in an odd state and as his friend reads an old story about a knight fighting a dragon the sounds of the tale resound around the house.

The brother tells his friend that he has buried his sister alive and the sounds are those of her smashing her tomb and wrenching the gates off the cellar door. Sure enough she bursts into the room and falls on her brother killing him. The friend flees in a state of horror and as he rides off the House of Usher crumbles into dust.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

There is a writing style that makes it sometimes difficult to follow the stories but now and again there are a few pages of clarity that give a clear indication of the power of Poe’s gothic imagination. One of the stories read today is particularly dark and back in the days when I walked around in a pair of winkle pickers dressed all in black it would have appealed in a quite different way.

Highlights from The Assignation
An observer is drifting along in a gondola in Venice when he hears a scream and understands that a beautiful woman has dropped her baby out of the window into the water. People are diving in trying to help her but she is fixed on staring at the other side of the lake and a stranger dressed in black and retrieves her daughter from the depths and then makes as assignation with her. He also asks to meet the stranger who visits him in a luxurious house that is topped off with a full length portrait of the woman that was seen the night before. The stranger clearly loves the woman and then drinks deeply on a goblet and throws himself down on an ottoman. At that moment the door bursts open and a messenger shouts out that the beautiful woman is poisoned and checking on the stranger he turns out to have taken his own life as well.

A lovers pact to meet and be together in the hereafter?

Highlights from Ligeia
Talking of a pact to be together a man who has to watch as his wife Ligeia dies is heartbroken but carries on his life and marries again. His second wife starts to become ill and is convinced in the later stages of her illness that someone else is in the room and even her husband notices it. When she finally dies the corpse keeps returning to life every hour or so each time trying to get off the bed and finally it does and as the man looks for signs of recovery he sees that his first wife has returned.

A dark gothic tale of a spirit returning to take possession of the body of the woman who is married to her husband. You sense that the husband knows what is happening all along and welcomes the return of Ligeia.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

One of the things I signed up for before heading off on holiday was to take part in the blogging book reviews that Penguin is running on its classics site. Once you register you get send a book at random and then have six weeks to get through it and post a review – well at least that was my understanding of it. Just before heading off for Switzerland The Selected Tales of Edgar Allan Poe turned up and so for probably the next fortnight will be providing reading over the lunch break.

Highlights from The Duc L’Omelette
The book starts with a story that throws you a little bit because it uses French just in the places that appear to be quite critical so you have a rough idea of what is happening but not a crystal clear one. It seems that a French duke has been taken from his coffin and dragged into hell where he has to accept his vices and then gamble on his future with the king.

Highlights from MS. Found in a Bottle
A man who ends up being tossed around in the storm finally ends up on some doomed ship that is destined to spend its days being tossed around the icy seas of the pole. He writes about his adventures and the other members of the crew, who are all old and don’t take any notice of him, and puts it in a bottle. He seems to be fighting the obvious that he will join the crew and be stranded with them forever.

More tomorrow…