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ayanami

ayanami

Currently reading

All You Need Is Kill
Hiroshi Sakurazaka
The Two Towers
J.R.R. Tolkien
The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord, Donald Nicholson-Smith
Les Misérables
Victor Hugo, Norman MacAfee, Lee Fahnestock
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales - Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Marlowe Kind of a hit or miss collection. There were a few stories that I found really dull to read, but I really enjoyed the title story, "The Fall of the House of Usher", along with "The Black Cat", and all the classic Poe tales, "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Masque of the Red Death", etc. Poe is a master at delving into the dark psychological recesses of the human mind.

I also really liked the Dupin tales, which reminded me a lot of Sherlock Holmes-- makes sense since apparently Poe's Dupin provided the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic detective. "Diddling" was also an interesting find, it's more of an exposition than a story but I enjoyed all the descriptions of the various cons.

Poe's only full-length novel, "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym", was a real disappointment. An adventure story and travelogue, it didn't have as much excitement as I was expecting despite having a couple sea voyages with humans braving against the forces of nature, a mutiny, cannabalism, a mysterious island and an encounter with an unknown culture. Naturally, Poe does a great job describing the despair of being lost at sea, sick and starving, and all the mental distresses of the main character in bleak times. The emotions and agonies are felt so viscerally in his writing. Much of the story, though, is bogged down by dry descriptions of the technical aspects of sea voyages, and I found myself skimming through those to get to more interesting parts.