Author Profile - Edgar Allan Poe

I’ve decided to start a series of author profiles. Not just any authors of course, but ones who have influenced me – positively – or that I’m interested in, intrigued by or who fit in the nebulous conglomerate of sub-genres I’m most ‘in’ to. So who better to start with than Edgar Allan Poe who is all those things?

It’s worth noting that in more recent times he would probably have been known as Allan-Poe as he adopted Allan into his name from his foster father who was a more positive role model than his biological one. So from the get-go Edgar had emotional damage and an alcoholic father. The course for this tormented genius was pretty much set from there.

I won’t get into his biography that can be found out easily enough if you’re interested. What I do want to talk about is his broad scope of influence. Some call him the father of modern horror, which is debatable but certainly he is best known for his macabre works. He’s also possibly the father of modern crime fiction, with his tales of ‘ratiocination’ as he called them seeing Auguste Dupin solving crimes through logical deduction years before Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

Moreover, aside from writing short stories and poems, Poe was talented editor and essayist. He had a passion for the facts and was sometimes in trouble for presenting them too harshly in the eyes of people involved. For instance, his logical mind saw him demonstrate Maelzel's Chess Player, which was supposedly a machine that could play chess, had a man hidden inside - this ruse had fooled thousands.

These aspects of his career have a great bearing on his fiction as well. His stories are filled with facts, at least as known to him at the time, which influence the narrative. Take Descent into a Maelstrom, which is about a ship caught in a giant whirlpool; alongside his evocative prose the tale details a means of escape then believed to be scientifically accurate. It’s since been debunked so if you’re in a maelstrom, don’t try it, but Poe couldn’t have known that.

His first major success, MS Found in a Bottle, also discusses a theory then believed to be true – that the South Pole would be ocean not land, again clearly no longer believed – all while dealing with a man alone on a ghost ship. And the level of detail in The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall are considerable. That story also bears the marks of the other overlooked aspect of Poe’s writing – his humour.

There’s no humour or indeed relief in his most macabre tales, his goal is to chill the reader and he typically succeeds. But in works like The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall or The Man Who Was Used Up, his humour is right at the fore, if somewhat droll. And of course what is now sometimes read as the story The Balloon Hoax was a hoax he wrote in one of his newspapers at the time.

These things went into his work, and his work went into the world’s consciousness and infused themselves into its literature. He’s influenced numerous writers across a range of fields and continues to do so today. So, gentle reader, I implore you, read more Poe.

Keep dreaming.

September Reading

Thought I might do a quick review of what I've been reading this month - if for no other reason than keeping it clear in my own head. I already mentioned the Elric novels so that was a big portion of it.

The other big one was Robert Chamber's The King in Yellow. I got this from the University of Adelaide ebook site as it was mentioned in terms of Weird fiction and having influenced HP Lovecraft. It was weird all right but not always in the sense of the supernatural genre.

It's a collection of short stories, the first four of which make reference to a fictional play, the eponymous King in Yellow. This play is so artistically wrought that anyone who reads it, or at least the second act, is mentally disturbed by it or downright insane. This concept Lovecraft liked and he referenced the play or the places mentioned in it a few times. He also liked some of Chamber's style at times.

The rest of the stories in the book, which make up the other two-thirds or so, have nothing to do with The King in Yellow or Weird fiction whatsoever. They are predominantly romances about naive American art students in Paris. One of them, The Street of the Four Winds, was absolutely brilliant though. It wasn't about a student but was set in Paris. It's a simple tale of a man who is kind to a stray cat and tells him something of his history. The coincidence at the story's heart will break the reader's own, at least it did mine.

I confess the concept of a play so powerful it affects people's psyches to the point of madness did rather rub the bells of synchronicity. I've been thinking about Artaud's Alchemical Theatre and the role of theatre to create a reality beyond our own mundane existence. The 'liminal' space and the greater truths of myth and story than everyday banality. Anyway, somewhere in that idea is my Masters thesis, one day.

The other things I've read, in full, are W W Jacob's The Monkey's Paw and some Lovecraft shorts. The former is a classic of the Weird too, and I believe Lovecraft thought it such as well. It works on the premise of less is more, terror over horror, suggestion over detail. And it works well. Reminiscent of a Buffy episode too, I suspect it was involved somewhere.

The Lovecraft were Pickman's Model and The Shadow Out of Time. The latter is one of his slightly longer works, a whole 76 pages in eight chapters, and is about a man possessed by a mind of a Great One from several epochs before humans evolved and consequently possessed the body of the Great One for a few years. Like In the Mountains of Madness, his longest work I think, it's less gripping than some of his shorter pieces but the atmosphere of dread slowly works a pervasive spell over you and the history of the world and the Great Ones and Elder Gods etc is quite fascinating.

Pickman's story has a more immediate effect, following in the Poe mode of first person 'I know this is unbelievable but it's what happened okay'. The plot itself is quite see-through these days but the descriptions and atmosphere are classic Lovecraft who truly knew the language of nightmare.

Keep dreaming - but not about Great Ones I hope.

Autumnal Musings

Perhaps it’s genetic; the evenings begin to cool, life begins to slow and we crowd round the fire to hear the storyteller conjure up new worlds from the flames, exciting our imaginations and reminding us of who we are. Perhaps I’m just odd; but whatever it is, autumn is here and as the cool evening breezes blow round me in the dying golden light I feel a stirring in my mind. Dreams awaken and I’m suddenly impelled to do the things I should’ve been doing all summer – writing, rewriting and actually submitting works to potential publications!

It’s early yet and my first attempt met with an unexpected setback. I thought I’d typed a story up but it turns out I hadn’t; so task one is to do so. That’s The Truth of Dragons, the first piece I completed as a married man and there are a few places I’m thinking of sending it to; watch this space. The second, ongoing, attempt met with a bit more luck. The Tale of Five-Fingered Jack (working title) which I started on New Year’s Day finally has a structure and is over half written. No idea what to do with that when it’s finished though. The idea was it would be a one-man show and told to a theatre audience, whether that’s a practical idea or not I don’t know but I know it can be done.

In fact, I think most first-person narratives can be mounted as live performances, and many have. I’ll never forget seeing John Astin reciting Poe’s Tell-tale Heart on an episode of Good News Week; I was putty in his hands. The trick is the language and the gift of the teller; which goes back to my idea that it’s genetic – we love stories, they’re our oldest tradition.

While I’m here, on a totally different topic, I’ve been troubled by certain comparisons being made in the media. The Hunger Games (no I haven’t seen it or read the book) is a new film franchise; obviously comparisons will be made, they always are – it’s sort of like this, or it’s this movie crossed with that other one. Fair enough, it seems to be how we decide if something will interest us, or is a shorthand way of getting a grasp on that. But The Hunger Games is being compared to two other franchises which bear no relation to it whatsoever, Twilight and Harry Potter – why? As far as I can tell to get people to read the article and to stir up hype that doesn’t exist. The three series may have started out as books for younger readers and may all belong to the all-encompassing speculative fiction genre, but they are vastly different properties that gain nothing in the comparison. Let’s just forget all that and judge each one on its own merits. And please, please let’s wait till we’ve seen them before we make that judgement; beating on something because it seems the cool thing to do, is not cool.

Back to the autumn, dreams shared are worth more than lost fancies. Fire your imaginations!