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A review by cartoonmicah
Tales of Terror by Edgar Allan Poe
4.0
Poe is skillful in creating unique and surreal scenes. He evokes eery supernatural dreamscapes and peoples them with really diverse and authentic characters. His stories range across horrors, from dark fairy tales to murder confessions to haunting. Some of his stories are most memorable because of the bizarre location and the terrifying tableaux that they highlight. Often his narrators and their lack of sanity are the highlight of the story. Across the board, his stories of the scenes they paint leave a stark mark upon the reader.
I don’t enjoy Poe’s frequent and excessive philosophizing in the midst of his tales. He does not feel any need to stick with plot and often takes rabbit trails to explain the universal principles he believes to exist behind some element in the tale. This, along with somewhat scientific and overwrought language are detrimental to the enjoyment and full effect of some of his stories.
Among these stories, there is one that stands apart and needs further discussion. I’m referring to The Murder In The Rue Morgue. While this story does maintain a level of the macabre, it is really one of the first detective stories. It is hilarious to be to finally read this much references tale and see just how much Conan Doyle cribbed for Sherlock and Watson. In their first escapade of A Study In Scarlet, Watson and Holmes specifically talk about Poe’s Dupin as a detective and Holmes berates his methods. In actuality, Holmes reflects Dupin almost precisely and everything from his pontifications to the the friendship to the conversations and metaphors of Holmes are lifted almost verbatim from this Dupin story. While the mystery and adventure here is much less satisfying than most Conan-Doyle stories, it’s hard to read both and not feel that Sherlock Holmes started out as Rue Morgue fanfiction.
I don’t enjoy Poe’s frequent and excessive philosophizing in the midst of his tales. He does not feel any need to stick with plot and often takes rabbit trails to explain the universal principles he believes to exist behind some element in the tale. This, along with somewhat scientific and overwrought language are detrimental to the enjoyment and full effect of some of his stories.
Among these stories, there is one that stands apart and needs further discussion. I’m referring to The Murder In The Rue Morgue. While this story does maintain a level of the macabre, it is really one of the first detective stories. It is hilarious to be to finally read this much references tale and see just how much Conan Doyle cribbed for Sherlock and Watson. In their first escapade of A Study In Scarlet, Watson and Holmes specifically talk about Poe’s Dupin as a detective and Holmes berates his methods. In actuality, Holmes reflects Dupin almost precisely and everything from his pontifications to the the friendship to the conversations and metaphors of Holmes are lifted almost verbatim from this Dupin story. While the mystery and adventure here is much less satisfying than most Conan-Doyle stories, it’s hard to read both and not feel that Sherlock Holmes started out as Rue Morgue fanfiction.