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…