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A review by bookishairryn
The Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
3.0
I was familiar with a very small number of Poe’s works and I am so very proud to say that I made my way through all of his short tales and novel, finally. (I skipped poetry because I really can’t pick up on the author’s, any author’s, intent behind his poetic work.) I have mixed feelings about what I have read and I don’t want to discredit (or credit) pieces by lumping them together with the whole.
There are some short stories I loved. There are others that made me put the book down and say “Wow!” Others were so tedious to get through that I thought for a moment that I was reading ‘Walden’ again (yes, I did not like ‘Walden’…) But, by reading through Poe’s short stories, I really got a feeling for the diversity to the author and what this talented man was capable of, even though there were stories I did not enjoy in the slightest. Some of his stories were so incredibly creepy that I had goose bumps and others were such a disturbing surprise as the story twists at the very end that I couldn’t help but smile at his man’s artistic genius. He really had a unique mind; that much I can say for certain.
Poe’s sense of humour and clever story-telling abilities show up a couple of times through the narrative which literally had me laughing: “Some shipmen who remain with him in the packet, tempt him to unusual indulgences, in the way, first, of brown stout, and, secondly, of positive French brandy. The consequence is that Mr. Snook falls, thirdly, asleep, and, fourthly, overboard.”
But I did find some of his stories uneventful and somewhat boring. (To each their own, right?) I don’t need page after page after page of description of a tree when the story has nothing to do with said tree. I found a lot of stories, if I could get past the description, were decent, but some were nothing but description. Others I felgt were lost on me because I lost interest in them and nothing happened within the narrative to pull me back in.
One part that bothered me about his work is sometimes he would quote or use a foreign language and did not bother to translate or explain it. I saw French, Latin, and a few others (including one language that looked as though a four-year-old went to town with a pen and Poe’s manuscript). This normally wouldn’t have bothered me too much except sometimes what was written in the other language seemed to be the point of the paragraph or the character’s motivation/reasoning. I feel as though I missed something important because I’m unilingual and haven’t learned three or four (or five, or ten?) other languages.
Poe’s only novel was also included in this volume and I very much enjoyed the majority of it. I found the first two-thirds of the novel very gripping and I had a hard time putting it down; however, I feel afterwards he started including great detail about things not pertaining to the story. (I now know more about royal penguins and ‘biche de mer’ then I’d ever care to know.) And a few chapters were mainly about the narrator reflecting upon digressions that offered no added value to the story, and being frank, I found quite boring. Getting past those parts, though, the story picked back up. Overall, I really did enjoy the novel.
Reading Poe is not for everyone. A lot weren’t for me, but there are gems within the compilation that I loved. I can see myself revisiting the complete works again in the future.
There are some short stories I loved. There are others that made me put the book down and say “Wow!” Others were so tedious to get through that I thought for a moment that I was reading ‘Walden’ again (yes, I did not like ‘Walden’…) But, by reading through Poe’s short stories, I really got a feeling for the diversity to the author and what this talented man was capable of, even though there were stories I did not enjoy in the slightest. Some of his stories were so incredibly creepy that I had goose bumps and others were such a disturbing surprise as the story twists at the very end that I couldn’t help but smile at his man’s artistic genius. He really had a unique mind; that much I can say for certain.
Poe’s sense of humour and clever story-telling abilities show up a couple of times through the narrative which literally had me laughing: “Some shipmen who remain with him in the packet, tempt him to unusual indulgences, in the way, first, of brown stout, and, secondly, of positive French brandy. The consequence is that Mr. Snook falls, thirdly, asleep, and, fourthly, overboard.”
But I did find some of his stories uneventful and somewhat boring. (To each their own, right?) I don’t need page after page after page of description of a tree when the story has nothing to do with said tree. I found a lot of stories, if I could get past the description, were decent, but some were nothing but description. Others I felgt were lost on me because I lost interest in them and nothing happened within the narrative to pull me back in.
One part that bothered me about his work is sometimes he would quote or use a foreign language and did not bother to translate or explain it. I saw French, Latin, and a few others (including one language that looked as though a four-year-old went to town with a pen and Poe’s manuscript). This normally wouldn’t have bothered me too much except sometimes what was written in the other language seemed to be the point of the paragraph or the character’s motivation/reasoning. I feel as though I missed something important because I’m unilingual and haven’t learned three or four (or five, or ten?) other languages.
Poe’s only novel was also included in this volume and I very much enjoyed the majority of it. I found the first two-thirds of the novel very gripping and I had a hard time putting it down; however, I feel afterwards he started including great detail about things not pertaining to the story. (I now know more about royal penguins and ‘biche de mer’ then I’d ever care to know.) And a few chapters were mainly about the narrator reflecting upon digressions that offered no added value to the story, and being frank, I found quite boring. Getting past those parts, though, the story picked back up. Overall, I really did enjoy the novel.
Reading Poe is not for everyone. A lot weren’t for me, but there are gems within the compilation that I loved. I can see myself revisiting the complete works again in the future.