Edgar Allen Poe | Saying nothing in particular

I did not intend to watch Netflix’s Fall of the House of Usher but, once upon a midday dreary, as I pondered weak and weary, there came a rapping at my door.

Let me begin by saying, I am truly astonished by anyone who can read Poe without an open Google window or a set of encyclopedias nearby. In the volume I’ve possessed since wretched youth, now sadly long gone, many stories commence with quotes in French, Latin, German etc., from such well-known sources as Buckhurst’s Tragedy of Ferrex & Portex. If you’re like me, you have to decipher the opening quotes before reading a story. And then you have to figure out why the author picked that particular quote which means more investigation of the source. In Poe’s case, I’ve found some interesting rabbit’s holes to get lost in.

Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher is actually a series of flashbacks. I won’t go into details about each episode, but they are interesting rifts on Gold Bug, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Tell Tale Heart, The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death and the Pit and the Pendulum with many references to Poe’s poems thrown in for fun. The fact that they are set in modern times with cell phones, Tiktok, podcasts, designer drugs, (and even Fox News!) makes the Usher family’s depravity contemporary and therefore much more perverse*. In Poe’s day, decadent families rotted behind the walls of crumbling mansions. Now they can go on social media, have millions of followers, corrupt more innocent young lives, and ultimately become the kiss of death for decency and honor!

Murders in the Rue Morgue, illustration by Harry Clarke*

In my opinion, the series is too preachy. Verna, a character who is either an avenging angel or soul-seeking devil … it’s hard to say which, gives each of the Usher children the chance to change the likely trajectory of their lives. But do they care about the environment, the cruelty of animal testing, medical ethics, the plight of animals in shelters etc, etc? No and so guess what happens to them?

And then there’s that ending …

* Perverse is an adjective Poe used extensively. If you were perverse, you were willfully going against what you knew was healthy for you and for others. Perversion led to suffering and death.

* Interesting fact: Harry Clarke (1889-1931), the illustrator of the above images, also created stained glass windows for churches. He was apparently a deeply religious man who really believed in heaven …. and hell.

Henry Clarke stained glass window: From the Irish Cultural Heritage Tours

Anyway, the next midday dreary that comes along I think I’ll clean out the closet or bake chocolate chip cookies. No more Netflix series’ to remind me just how perverse it’s becoming out.

A friend of mine posted this snippet regarding the question: “If you could invite a famous writer or artist (dead or alive) to dinner who would it be?”

From New York Times Book Review’s Chuck Klosterman:

“The only problem is that dead people might not understand what was going on, why they were suddenly alive, or why they were being forced to make conversation with some bozo at a weird dinner party. They might just sit there and scream for two hours. And even if they kept it together, I’m sure they’d be highly distracted. If I invite Edgar Allan Poe to dinner, it seems possible he’d spend the whole time expressing amazement over the restaurant’s air conditioning.”

I’m far from an expert on Poe but I imagine, if you took him to dinner at a modern restaurant he’d be far more alarmed by the menu items than the air-conditioning.

Dinner with Poe

“Dandelion salad? Thirty-four dollars and fifty cents? Highway robbery! Call forth the proprietor! He deserves a tongue lashing. I was assured that my return to this vile and wretched planet merited a meal at Manhattan’s finest establishment.”

“But Mr. Poe. This is the finest ⏤”

“My morning repast, delivered ‘complimentary” to my chamber without my even having made a request, consisted of a plateful of delightfully crispy bacon, sweet rolls the likes of which I’ve not beheld since brief childhood, a full pot of coffee with pitchers of cream and sugar and even, fruit. Not one damned and cursed dandelion. And I was encouraged to dine in bed ⏤ to rest from my ordeal ⏤ in bedding as soft as the satin in my beloved Virginia’s coffin,” he paused “Where is my love? If I must be dragged from endless rest, why couldn’t she also be reconstituted by foul alchemy? Once again to cuddle, if just for a day. It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea.”

“Ah, um …” The man in charge of Harvard’s annual Dinner With Your Favorite Author event didn’t know how to respond. The year before they had brought back both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning at the insistence of an exceedingly wealthy donor. But at least they were both adults. At the height of his creative output (which was when the bidders demanded their interviews) Poe was married to a thirteen year old.

Luckily they were rescued from having to explain the Me-Too movement by the arrival of the high bidder and introductions were made.

Much to the organizer’s distress, Poe scowled at the high bidder. “You have made a donation to a university to converse with me?” I, who scarcely eked out a living ⏤ oft reduced to consuming only dandelion soup ⏤”

You’re a legend now, Mr. Poe.”

“A legend? What damsel in distress have I saved or battle charge have I led? Sir, I daresay you have been swindled. Did I not see beggars on the streets? Did I not see mere children selling their bodies and men, even some women, drinking spirits directly from a bottle in the middle of the day. I say onto you – entirely too many dandelions are consumed in this time and place and you’re all quite mad!