| Author | Message | ||
     Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
... nevermore. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120119/D9SC19EG0.html | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.28.62 |
And the toaster, never grilling, still is chilling, still is chilling, On the wineglass-laden shelf above my tumble-dryer door; And the scent of toast once eaten hangs like something lost and beaten By the poster of Wil Wheaton back in 1994; I kept that faded calendar from 1994, But its days will come no more. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
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| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
This properly belongs here: Still forging my way through the varied delights of 'The Complete Tales And Poems Of Edgar Allan Poe' (1938) but, by heck, there's an awful lot of inessential "filler" material in there that, if it weren't for his deservedly vaunted historical status, would have long since been consigned to the dustbin of history. The tales I would select, thus far (at just over halfway through), as amongst the finest and most revolutionary works of genre fiction ever written would be (along with some of those authors he passed the baton on to): The Unparalleled Adventure Of One Hans Pfaall (SCI-FI) - Verne & Wells The Gold Bug (MYSTERY) - Doyle & Christie Mesmeric Revelation (HORROR/FANTASY) - Hodgson, Machen & Lovecraft The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar (HORROR) - Hodgson, Machen & Lovecraft MS. Found In A Bottle (FANTASY/HORROR) - Hodgson A Descent Into The Maelstrom (SUSPENSE/HORROR) - Hodgson The Murders In The Rue Morgue (CRIME/HORROR) - Doyle (Holmes) The Mystery Of Marie Roget (CRIME) - Doyle (Holmes) The Purloined Letter (CRIME) - Doyle (Holmes) The Black Cat (HORROR) - Le Fanu, Bierce & James The Fall Of The House Of Usher (HORROR/FANTASY) - Machen & Lovecraft The Pit And The Pendulum (HORROR/SUSPENSE) - Haggard, Rohmer & Fleming The Premature Burial (HORROR) - Le Fanu, Bierce & James The Masque Of The Red Death (HORROR/FANTASY) - Dunsany & Lovecraft The Cask Of Amontillado (HORROR) - Le Fanu & Bierce The Imp Of The Perverse (HORROR) - Kafka The Oval Portrait (HORROR) - De Maupassant The Assignation (HORROR) - De Maupassant The Tell-Tale Heart (HORROR) - Le Fanu, Bierce & James The System Of Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether (SATIRE/HORROR) - Huxley & Vonnegut A Predicament (COMIC/HORROR) - Carroll & Stephens The Angel Of The Odd (COMIC/HORROR) - Carroll & Stephens Loss Of Breath (COMIC/HORROR) - Le Fanu & Bierce The Man That Was Used Up (COMIC/HORROR) - Le Fanu & Bierce The Conversation Of Eiros And Charmion (SCI-FI/FANTASY) - Wells Shadow : A Parable (FANTASY/HORROR) - Dunsany & Lovecraft Silence : A Fable (FANTASY/HORROR) - Dunsany & Lovecraft The Man Of The Crowd (HORROR) - Kafka Never Bet The Devil Your Head (COMIC/HORROR) - Le Fanu & Bierce Those authors were the first to pop into my head when thinking of each tale but in truth the influence of all of them is incalculable. As for the rest they range from the dated satire of 'The Literary Life Of Thingum Bob, Esq.' to a frankly torpid discussion on 'The Philosophy Of Furniture', imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Determined to get through the rest of this Poe collection by reading at least one story a night from now to the end. Polished off three last night that demonstrate the varied nature of the tales both in subject matter and, for me, readability: Thou Art The Man (CRIME/HORROR) – entertaining little murder mystery with a surprise lurch into “revenge from beyond the grave” horror and a highly influential twist ending – Jacobs & Christie Hop-Frog (HORROR/FANTASY) – one of his perfectly constructed little masterpieces of gothic horror that unfolds a tale of still ghastly revenge – Le Fanu, Bierce & Peake Four Beasts In One : The Homo-Camelopard (COMIC/FANTASY) – painfully dated satire that pokes fun at the uncouth vanity of the ruling classes, bit of a struggle this one. See what I mean... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Hop Frog has long been one of my favourite Poe stories. It's quite brilliantly incorporated into the storyline of Corman's film version of Masque of the Red Death as well. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
You said it, Weber! And this weekend: Why The Little Frenchman Wears His Hand In A Sling (COMIC) - dated and not very funny narrative joke written in painful cod-Oirish, one of his weakest "tales". Bon-Bon (COMIC/HORROR) - from the ridiculous to the sublime, this is an extremely clever, genuinely hilarious and also somewhat creepy Faustian parable of an amateur philosopher's drunken joust with the Devil - Le Fanu & Stephens Some Words With A Mummy (COMIC/HORROR/SCI-FI) - entertaining and highly influential prototype of the "time travel by suspended animation" sci-fi sub-genre that sees an Egyptian mummy awakened from living "embalmment" and teaching 19th Century scientists a lesson in humility - Bierce & Wells | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
There then follows a series of non-tale literary review articles: an obscure travelogue, 'Arabia Petraea', the unremarkable short story, 'Peter Snook', a forgotten satire of the day, 'The Quacks Of Helicon', and Washington Irving's, 'Astoria', that are, to be perfectly frank, all but unreadable!  Thankfully we're back into the tales proper after that... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Last night: The Domain Of Arnheim (FANTASY) - beautifully written and peculiarly haunting tale of a megalomaniac millionaire's attempt to create a Paradise on Earth - De Maupassant & Dunsany | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Landor's Cottage (FANTASY) - just as beautiful, odd and ethereal sequel to the above that describes the awe-struck reaction of a lost hiker who wanders into the domain by accident - De Maupassant & Dunsany Apart from the trio of Auguste Dupin stories this is the third time I've come across a Poe sequel - The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar following on directly from Mesmeric Revelation and the linked and quite brilliant dark fantasies; Shadow : A Parable and Silence : A Fable. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Last night's was a corker: William Wilson (HORROR) - now this is the dog's bollocks, the kind of timeless masterpiece other horror writers aspire to, as well as being arguably the finest treatment in literature of that most terrifying of supernatural creatures - the doppelgänger. And, Weber, the soul-blasting climax, at a masked ball, was also brilliantly integrated into Corman's adaptation of 'The Masque Of The Red Death' - Le Fanu & James | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Stevie: if you get a chance, just list in order of quality, the crime/ratiocination/classic mystery tales of Poe... I'd like to know what your take is on how they rank compared to each other.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
There have been surprisingly few so far, Craig. But I'd rank them: 1. 'The Murders In The Rue Morgue' (Dupin) 2. 'The Mystery Of Marie Roget' (Dupin) 3. 'The Gold Bug' 4. 'The Purloined Letter' (Dupin) 5. 'Thou Art The Man' Auguste Dupin was such a memorable detective creation - so much so that Sherlock Holmes felt bound to pour scorn on him as "a very inferior fellow" in 'A Study In Scarlet' (1887) - that's it's one of the great shames of popular literature that Poe didn't live long enough to write more of his adventures. Even Dostoevsky(!) used him as the basis for Porfiry Petrovich in the greatest crime novel ever written; 'Crime And Punishment' (1866). Which reminds me I should have included the great Russian genius as one of the authors influenced by 'William Wilson' (1839) as he actually went on to perfect the doppelgänger story in 'The Double' (1846) - one of the greatest and most unsung horror novels of all time. No wonder Poe is so venerated!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Meanwhile, last night's was another belter: Berenice (HORROR) - a contender for the most outlandishly gruesome and nightmarish tale Poe ever wrote, a real fevered dream of a shocker that has lost none of its power to revolt the senses and haunt the mind's eye at one and the same time, brrrr... - Bierce, Stoker & Lovecraft | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Bit of a weird one: Eleonora (ROMANTIC/FANTASY) - Poe seems to be playing games with his readers' expectations in this short and unexpectedly sweet excursion into idyllic romance, that transcends even death, and can be seen as a template for such supernatural Hollywood tear-jerkers as; 'A Guy Named Joe', 'Always' & 'Ghost' (from the woman's perspective) - Dickens, De Maupassant & Dunsany | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Also refreshing to see the ghost of a former wife portrayed as something other than a jealous mischief-maker, as in 'Blithe Spirit', etc. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Stevie, you've already noted 'The Assignation' as a classic – that's the one that, many years ago, had me closing the book with the words 'Fucking hell!' The ending stuck in my head like a bad dream and I didn't know what to do with it. I had similar, but less intense, reactions to 'Berenice' and the poem 'The Sleeper'. Poe's twist endings are unique in that they actually change your sense of what it is you've read. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The story reminded me of Dante, Joel, and the punishment meted out to such lovers in the Second Circle of Hell... shudder. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
When one thinks about it the two stories bear interesting comparison. In 'The Assignation' the lovers cannot bear to live apart and choose Death, with the threat of damnation together in Hell, as a preferable alternative. In 'Eleonora' Death comes as an intruder separating soulmates, with the surviving partner choosing to go on, his suffering gradually easing over time, until he is rewarded by earthly love anew and the promise of a place in Heaven beside his one eternal love. 'The Assignation' is the more powerful of the two stories, as this was the view of reality toward which Poe was naturally drawn, while 'Eleonora' bears the tinge of unconvinced wishful thinking for all the beauty of its sentiment. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
No no no Stevie thou hast surely missed the point! There are no lovers in 'The Assignation'. The child was spared, so Death comes to tell the mother that she must pay the price. The implication is that she mentally promised her own life to save the child's, but then thought the child being saved was a lucky break. She was wrong. Stories influenced by 'The Assignation' include Frank Belknap Long's noir short-short 'Johnny On the Spot'. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Joel, you had me doubting my sanity so I had to read 'The Assignation' again and urge you to do so as well. The near drowning of the child was incidental to the plot, a device for thrusting the former lovers together again for one last brief moment and whispered agreement; "thou hast conquered - one hour after sunrise - we shall meet - so let it be!" i.e. they arrange the assignation of the title and, as we all know, an "assignation" is "an appointment for a meeting, especially a lover's secret rendezvous". The inference is that they have discussed this special arrangement and "place of meeting" in the past - as evidenced by the youth's painting of his beloved and heartbroken love poem to her from their days together in London. Since those happy times she, probably due to some family duty, has been forced into an unhappy marriage with old Duke Mentoni: "Alas for that accursed time They bore thee o'er the billow, From Love to titled age and crime, And an unholy pillow! - From me, and from our misty clime, Where weeps the silver willow!" They have lost the chance to be together forever on this plane and so, ater her admission that he "hast conquered" her heart, finally agree to "meet" by each drinking from a poison goblet of wine one hour after sunrise. And whichever one arrives first: "Stay for me there! I will not fail To meet thee in that hollow vale." And, if Dante is to be believed, "that hollow vale", is the Second Circle of Hell. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Ligeia (HORROR) - another of his rightly famous fevered gothic nightmares with an unbearable intensity to the writing that makes one almost fear for the sanity of the author. I read this as a descent into homicidal madness, on the part of the narrator, due to obsessive grief and bottled up hatred of his new and inferior spouse - Ligeia's unholy resurrection being surely the result of an opium dream and he himself having administered the four large drops of poison to the wine goblet? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Have to say 'The Tomb Of Ligeia' (1964) is my favourite of all the Corman Poe adaptations. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
If the above tale pointed the way to the likes of Machen & Lovecraft then what followed, for all its similarities, reminded me of no one more than Franz Kafka: Morella (HORROR) - one of his weirdest and most difficult to fathom tales, a fragmentary distillation of the same horrors that beset the author in The Fall Of The House Of Usher, Berenice, Eleonora & Ligeia, but this time impossible to reconcile with physical reality. Poe's obsessions have never been more laid bare and indefinably disturbing than in this story of a father lusting after the daughter whose birth parted him from his identical wife. Yet, nothing is clear here and the tale could be considered almost throwaway if it weren't for what it doesn't say. Oddly shuddersome... Metzengerstein (HORROR/FANTASY) - a sublimely haunting dark parable of supernatural retribution, with more than a touch of the Brothers Grimm about it, that nailed one of the classic tropes of physical horror fiction and is, for my money, one of the author's most under-appreciated tales - Le Fanu, Saki & James | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
A Tale Of The Ragged Mountains (HORROR/FANTASY) - another hugely influential and too often neglected tale of astral travel to a previous life, reincarnation and a horrible fate repeating itself in the present - Stoker, Blackwood & M. Bowen The Spectacles (COMIC) - entertaining and genuinely funny story of "love at first sight" scuppered for want of a pair of spectacles, leading to a farcical nightmare for the hapless suitor. The explanation at the end, making sense of the string of "misunderstandings" (which I wouldn't dare spoil), has all the intricacy of one of Poe's crime mysteries making this a fascinating cross-genre one-off - Wilde & Wodehouse The Duc De L' Omelette (COMIC/HORROR) - throwaway two page piece of comedy fluff that tells a just about readable yarn of a game of pontoon with the Devil by a recently deceased nobleman disgruntled at ending up down below, quite weak and forgettable. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The Oblong Box (MYSTERY/HORROR) - oddly toned, half farce-half tragedy, black comedy of manners set on board ship that warns against taking too inquisitive an interest in the private doings of one's fellow passengers. Another one of those stories with an elaborate explanation of the mystery at the end and that plays similar games with social etiquette as did 'The Spectacles', but to more macabre effect than comic - Le Fanu, Wilde & Stoker King Pest (COMIC/HORROR) - one of his funniest and most vividly descriptive comic nightmares, with more than a ring of Monty Python or The League Of Gentlemen about it, this tells of the drunken misadventure of two roguish sailors who stumble into the wrong part of town, during the reign of the Black Death in London, and end up crashing a party of celebrating demons, led by King Pest(ilence) himself. The comic duo of Legs & Hugh Tarpaulin are so memorable it is a crime of the highest order that he didn't write more of their adventures - Le Fanu & Barker | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Three Sundays In A Week (COMIC) - short comic conundrum that purports to show how three Sundays can come together in a week. Mildly diverting but ultimately throwaway piece of fluff. The Devil In The Belfry (COMIC/FANTASY) - sadly not one of the tales that inspired the likes of Lovecraft but rather an odd and rather memorable comic fairy-tale that sees Poe's old friend, the Devil, in a rather more heroic light as the upsetter of stuffy and stifling conservative tradition in an insular Dutch village - Belcampo | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Lionizing (SATIRE) - oh dear, I'd hoped we were done with this kind of material. Another no doubt very clever in its day but now painfully obscure and all but unreadable short satiric piece. They really could have done a better job of editing this collection, imo. And that's me completed all the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe! Next up my first complete read of his famous one and only horror novel, 'The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym Of Nantucket' (1838).  | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.115.204 |
"Tekeli-li"! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Sounds very south seas, Mick. If I had to edit a collection of the Complete Poe I would group the stories section thus: TALES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR AND DARK FANTASY TALES OF FANTASY AND ROMANCE CRIMES, MYSTERIES & CONUNDRUMS THE FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE FICTION COMIC TALES & TUSSLES WITH THE DEVIL SHORT SATIRIC PIECES Followed by a short section of MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES And the rest of the book as gathered here, with the NOVEL coming before the MAJOR POEMS followed by the JUVENILE POEMS. And I'd add a final section of UNFINISHED WORKS including the fragments of his adventure novel, 'The Journal Of Julius Rodman', and his one and only play, 'Politian' - even more explicitly about a suicide pact than was 'The Assignation'. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
I went to a hypnotic regession session the other day. I found out that in my past life I was a close friend of the Poe family. I was actually at his wedding, showing people to their seats. It's pretty difficult to guide people at a wedding when the bride and groom are first cousins. What happens when the person you're trying to direct is an uncle or aunt to both of them? That wasn't the worst part of the day though. When I got home, my house had fallen down. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
You been scrimping on your medication again, Weber? You know you were warned about that. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I read about the first third of The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym Of Nantucket back when I was 16 or so and remember giving up on it in frustration. It's interesting to read these early chapters again, 30 odd years later, and realise what seemed lacking. The flavour would very much like to be that of Robert Louis Stevenson, before the fact, but Poe lacks the strengths of a natural novel writer in his setting up of one insulated situation after another without any thought of how these will fit into the whole. Individual passages are gripping in their own right but fail to flow easily into each other - making this more like a weird collection of nautical tall tales strung together by a single narrator as a supposedly cohesive narrative. Poe may have been a genius but Dickens he was not. Interesting... |