Sunday 1/21/24
A couple days ago was the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe--right here in Boston, where Poe went on to build up large stores of animus for the city's insular literary community, with its prejudices and predilection for arid, blue-blooded writings.
Boston is always quick to claim Poe, which would make Poe's ghost gag. There was some off-chance good in the relationship; while stationed at Boston's Fort Independence, Poe got the idea for "The Cask of Amontillado," so there is that.
Poe is a writer who has become more a symbol--a personified indication of certain ideas--than a writer one reads. I think very few people read Poe and it's been that way for a long time. People talk about Poe. They credit Poe with various things. Often that's as a pioneer of American horror, but those in the know know that what Poe contributed to the development of the mystery story is perhaps more notable.
But even then, those contributions are rather dry, so far as actual reading experiences go. Poe is name-checked. There are many artists who are name-checked that people don't partake of, or partake of that much.
What does someone do when they want to say that someone is this genius or whatever? They're apt to name-check Beethoven. I saw it recently on a hockey discussion forum regarding Wayne Gretzky. The Beethoven of hockey. (In truth, Gretzky was more of a fugato-like hockey player, coming from all directions and angles, as if in different octaves and keys, and therefore more like J.S. Bach.) Do you think that person listens to much Beethoven? Probably not, right?
Billie Holiday is name-checked by social justice types who want to aver to everyone on their "socials" that they're one of the good ones. Think they're listening to the sides she made with Teddy Wilson? Again, probably never, right? You think they'd even recognize her music if they heard it?
That is how Poe functions. Whereas, the people who cite M.R. James really love to read M.R. James. James's ghost stories make for the better reading experiences. You can read them again and again. Poe isn't so much for reading as for people saying, "There went a purveyor!" His most interesting works to me are his nonfiction--his criticism (though he's often a dick because he was good at being a dick and he never saw an ax that he didn't wish to grind)--and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, because it is a kind of proto-modernism.
Poe's legacy is also assisted by his biographical details. This wasn't a fit, stable, emotionally-under-control guy who excelled at mental discipline and compartmentalization. Sordidness is cheap, and it has that gossipy, Chatty Kathy element that many people go for because they can be lazy and childish and short-change themselves out of substance, which is a paradoxical thing people do a lot of.
During his lifetime, Poe had two big popular successes. One of them was the poem, "The Raven," and the other was a long short story called "The Gold-Bug." "The Raven" came out in 1845, "The Gold-Bug" in 1843. Poe said words to the effect that the bird beat the bug--that is, it was the greater popular discuss--but people went nuts for the story.
There are essentially two parts to it. The first part is a kind of treasure hunt soaked in so much racism that you're just about staggered. That portion of "The Gold-Bug" is perhaps the gold standard of racism in American letters, if we were to hand out such a backwards award. Yes, there was the time period, but even then, these were some extremes--meant as representative indications of a large number of people--that shouldn't have been a part of your thinking.
I don't think Poe understood humanity very well. And if you don't, your writing only goes so far as writing. I'm not talking as a rough-hewn building block, which someone else might look at, as some people definitely did, and who then said, "A detective seems like a good idea, I should write a story about one of those." Poe did some things first. Sort of. That doesn't mean he did them artfully. Or that they provide ample reasons to read them again and again.
Poe wrote "The Gold-Bug" for a writing contest, which he won. The story was published in three parts, and he received $100 for his effort, which was about the highest fee he ever received for his writing.
We get through the treasure hunt, and that's the narrative, patchy as it is, because there are things that are glossed over quickly. There isn't much suspense. That's just a fraction of the story, though, because what follows--and follows--and follows--and follows--is this lengthy, desert-dry explanation regarding the cryptogram that allowed the main treasure hunter to find the bounty.
Reading all of this is like reading a boring scientific paper. Try and get through it. To say it's tedious is generous. It just won't stop. You repeatedly think, "Please, sir, finish this off." That is, if you're committed to making it to the end. The entire story is almost 18,000 words long, and most of that is labored, plot-less explanation.
And you know what? People ate it up at the time. It's not writing. Poe wrote this to get the money. Which is fine. But he didn't write writing to get money. Do you follow me? It was simply an exercise for him. This kind of thing was in at that time. Looking at these puzzles, ciphers. The story is really more of an extended explanation for a puzzle than anything else.
But if you're not looking at it that way--note how I said looking at it, not reading it that way--it's going to be painful to get through, and I bet if you try to, you won't. You can read the story for free--it's in the public domain. Have at it.
As a writer, M.R. James was much better than Poe. He understood people, which is apparent in a work like "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." Poe doesn't have anything like that. James's very best stories stand apart from his other stories, and he didn't have a huge amount of stories overall. They all fit in a single collection, even though he published multiple collections during his lifetime. James did the cipher thing himself, with "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas," and you think, "You don't need to do this man--you're better than this. Just give us a story."
People weren't reading "The Gold-Bug"--they were treating it like some super-sized Wordle exercise. Poe wanted the cash. He knew he could win the writing contest in large part by not writing. It's an interesting motivation for a writer. I've mentioned before how Laurence Sterne decided to write Tristram Shandy because he thought it'd make him rich. Another interesting motivation.
When it comes to reading, Poe doesn't have a short story to match the blistering humanity of Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamauga." Poe is talked about, cited, referenced, touchstoned, but there are very valid reasons why Poe isn't read and why there isn't a lot of reason to spend time reading him. He does not repay the reader. You want to repay the reader for their time, and do that quickly--the faster you make it worth their while, the better--and give them so much more.
"The Cask of Amontillado" has unity of time, place, and action, but once you've read it, would you read it again?
Or is the gambit--revenge via burying someone alive--the takeaway? That's what you think about when you call the story to mind--that summary. The gist. Because that gist is the whole thing, really.
And you don't want that. As a writer you don't want that. As an artist you don't want that. As a reader you don't want that. Poe is gist-y. Gist-y isn't enough. Gist-y isn't great art. And it's not great entertainment, either. It's something else.
With Poe, that means citing, symbolizing, touchstoning. But he won't take you very far as a reader.
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