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A review by tombomp
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
1.0
The rating is dragged down by the Mystery of Marie Roget being absolutely atrocious. It's not a story, it's a barely fictionalised tale about a real murder. It goes on far too long and it's padded out by pages and pages of incredibly tedious prattle that's not saying anything interesting. It's intense criticism of a few paragraphs from newspapers and then a couple of pages of total supposition to "solve" the case which is incredibly unconvincing and doesn't explain anything. And he then ends by a bizarre claim that if you roll 2 6s on dice, it's incredibly unlikely to roll a 3rd 6 because it's not independent events.
All of the stories are ludicrously padded, even the shortest, and full of total prattle where he makes bizarre bullshit claims about science, maths, deduction, logic, metaphysics etc that are clearly wrong or don't make any sense. Apparently chess is a game for stupid people because it has too much variety unlike true genius game draughts. Everything is dragged out yet there's minimal building of interest that might make you want to trudge through this. Both rue morgue and purloined letter have a slightly clever solution but it's so weighed down by waffle and ludicrous coincidences or stuff that's just plain wrong.the portrayal of orangutans is so fucking stupid and the solution requires so many absurd coincidences and apparently NOBODY SPOTTING A WILD ORANGUTAN IN CENTRAL PARIS FOR WEEKS??? The Purloined Letter has a slightly clever idea but requires that, despite the pages and pages of the police searching every nook and cranny of the minister's apartment, they never actually checked the personal letters of the minister. Despite looking for... A letter. The solution is like hiding something in an envelope
I made it through just because I'm fascinated by the mystery genre and was curious as to the origins. I understand how people could come away from these wanting to write more - in Rue Morgue he basically invents THE detective, the stereotype that's still completely recognisable now, fully formed in all his quirks, which is an absolutely incredible achievement, honestly - but I'm so glad there's been so much improvement since because good god this was hard work for popular literature.
All of the stories are ludicrously padded, even the shortest, and full of total prattle where he makes bizarre bullshit claims about science, maths, deduction, logic, metaphysics etc that are clearly wrong or don't make any sense. Apparently chess is a game for stupid people because it has too much variety unlike true genius game draughts. Everything is dragged out yet there's minimal building of interest that might make you want to trudge through this. Both rue morgue and purloined letter have a slightly clever solution but it's so weighed down by waffle and ludicrous coincidences or stuff that's just plain wrong.
I made it through just because I'm fascinated by the mystery genre and was curious as to the origins. I understand how people could come away from these wanting to write more - in Rue Morgue he basically invents THE detective, the stereotype that's still completely recognisable now, fully formed in all his quirks, which is an absolutely incredible achievement, honestly - but I'm so glad there's been so much improvement since because good god this was hard work for popular literature.