The Surprising Comedy of Poe

I've been rather busy this past week, as you can see from the general scarcity of posts. I'm in a musical with my sister and father, and we've had rehearsals every evening since the 22nd, and opening night last Friday. I get a little break for the next couple days, and then it's back on the stage! The show runs for two more weekends, if anyone in the Glenview neighborhood is interested.
Here's a post I wrote a while ago and then forgot to publish. Enjoy!

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Poe is known for his horror. The Raven. The Telltale Heart. The Fall of the House of Usher. The Cask of Amontillado. The Pit and the Pendulum.

Quoth the raven - "Nevermore!"

I don't like horror. One bit.
Because of this, I have avoided Poe, even when my mother bought The Complete Works. I waited at least two years to pull it off the shelf and venture a peek.

My first story was The Telltale Heart, which we had listened to on Books-On-Tape a few years back, so I was fine with it. Then I tried the Dupin trio, which you can read about here. Finally, I picked a random story and plunged in.

Turns out, though Poe is most famous for his horror, I found a lot of his stories to be rather humorous. Take Xing the Paragrab, for example. With a name like that, how can that be anything other than comedy? It tells of two competing newspapers, and how one makes fun of the other for using "O!" so much, and how the other threatens to print an article so full of "o's" that it will burst, and how the one sneakily steals all the "o"-blocks from the other's printers, and how the other has to replace all the "o's" with the conventional "x," thus "x-ing the paragraph." (Paragraph is pronounced "paragrab" by the fellow who's job it is to X it.) The resulting publication is rather unreadable, to say the least.

Who would have though that story was written by Poe? Not a hint of anything terrible or horrible in it.
And there are many other examples. But what I found unites all of Poe's short stories is his love for all things utterly weird. The Man Who Was Used Up is an example of one that's just a head-scratcher. Not horrifyingly weird, just strange in a non-creepy way. Another example is The Angel of the Odd. It's just a weird, weird story. I don't want to give anything away - you're going to have to read them for yourself, which you could probably do in less than an hour, they're all rather short.

I must say, I do sort of like this funny side of Poe. He is, of course an excellent writer, and reading excellent writing is always nice. After viewing Poe as a dark, gloomy, creepy author, it was a pleasant surprise to find these funny short stories in the collection.

You may be wondering what my opinion on Poe's horror is now, being a little biased against the genre. (A little? That's an understatement.)
Well, I did end up reading a bunch of horror in addition to the others, and I must say that I absolutely adore them. They are so spectacular. They are frightening and yet not at the same time. Somehow, Poe manages to write in such a way that nothing is all despair or that the reader is left with some semblance of hope in the end. Usually (as in Telltale Heart or Cask of Amontillado) he does it by writing from the point of view of the murderer. We are so used to seeing it from the victims eyes, that this twist gives it so fresh a perspective that we almost sympathize with the murderer, before realizing sense and talking ourselves out of it..

Holmes vs. Dupin: The Ultimate Detective Face-Off

C. Auguste Dupin

Sherlock Holmes

Everyone knows who Sherlock Holmes is. You might have discovered him directly through Conan Doyle's great stories. Or, more probably, you saw a film version of one of his many adventures, or his newest screen appearance - BBC's Sherlock. And there are numerous other references to the great detective in our daily lives. Do you know who Sherlock Holmes is? "Elementary, my dear Watson."

Trivia time! Holmes never says the above phrase, though he does say "Elementary," in The Crooked Man, and "...my dear Watson," a few lines before.

Recently, however, I discovered that Sherlock, though he may be the most well known, was not, by far, the first of his kind. Doyle may have made famous the detective with the clever mind, the discerning eye, and the occasional dry humor, but he only developed what had come before.
Who was Holmes's predecessor? The clue is in the text. In the first-ever Sherlock Holmes story, A Study In Scarlet, Dr Watson comments:

"You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories." 

Sherlock Homes rose and lit his pipe. 

"No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

I have the Complete Works of Poe on my shelf, so I was curious to find out about this Dupin fellow, of whom Holmes speaks so disparagingly. Turns out, Poe only wrote three stories starring Dupin: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter. These three short stories are narrated by a friend of Dupin's - a sort of Dr. Watson character - who's name is never revealed. I won't talk much about the plots of the stories - I highly recommend that you read them yourself - but here is my analysis  regarding Dupin, his methods, and his comparison to Holmes.

Firstly, I found that the stories could be classified in the following manner: Rue Morgue was quite an adventure story, and rather similar to Sherlock Holmes. Marie Roget was very analytical, as Dupin not only got all of his clues from the newspaper, he never left the comfort of his home or exerted himself physically in any way. The Purloined Letter could be called a mixture of the two, having some action, but less than in Rue Morgue.
However, overall, I found Dupin to be much less active than Holmes, even in Rue Morgue. In both Rue Morgue and Purloined Letter, Dupin does go out to do some investigating, but all in all, he and his unnamed friend are rather secluded on the outskirts of the town, and get most of their information from the newspaper. Though Holmes does have his pensive moments of excessive smoking and violin playing, he is much more of a part of society than Dupin.

Before I go on, I must make the point that in no way did I not like Dupin or the aforementioned three stories in which he appears. My opinion was quite the opposite. And though it may sound as though I have much to say in favor of Holmes and even some against Dupin, I must say that in Dupin's day, the term detective had not yet originated. Dupin was the first of his kind. He was not a professional "Consulting Detective" like Holmes. It must have been hard to get permission to look over a crime scene such as the one in Rue Morgue without being in the police force. Dupin's character was a very unique idea at the time. Highest commendations to Poe!

We continue.

One thing that I find very strikingly different between Dupin and Holmes is that Holmes is much more of a Character. Dupin is not as a well rounded Character as Holmes. This may come of the fact that Holmes is in sixty stories, and Dupin is in three. But even in A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock's debut appearance, Holmes is more fully developed in that one novel (an extremely short one, though) then Dupin is in his entire literary existence (disregarding fan fiction, of course). We know that Holmes plays violin, smokes a pipe, is an excellent shot, enjoys boxing and wrestling, has an excellent knowledge of the theatre, and doesn't know that  the earth goes around the sun. (Yeah, Watson was amazed at that last one, too...)
But Dupin? Can't say that much for him. Sure, he has an excellent mind. Yes, he likes seclusion. He definitely enjoys reading the newspaper. But what else? I suspect that at least he knows the structure of our solar system. :-)

And talking about developed characters, what of Dupin's friend with no name? Watson is as clear a character as Holmes (though many times portrayed in film incorrectly - but that's for another post). We know about his past in the wars, his medical practice, his married life - but we know practically nothing of the Unnamed Fellow. It seems as though the Unnamed Fellow is just there to marvel at Dupin's wisdom and perspicacity, similar to Watson in many film versions.

But despite these differences, there are quite a few similarities. They both like to freak people out by their uncanny perception abilities (despite this being what Holmes so disparagingly accused Dupin of in the quote in the beginning of this post). They both like to show off their knowledge. They both have to deal with the rather dull police. They both agree that the right method is to put themselves in the mind of the criminal, and both use this method time and time again:

Watson/Unnamed Fellow/Unbelieving Observer: "But there is no way out! The criminal couldn't have escaped!"

Holmes/Dupin: "But he did, for we searched the room and he is not here. Therefore, he must have gotten out somehow, or is hiding in some secret place we didn't think of.  Now, if you were the criminal, what would you have done?..."

...and so on and so forth.

I believe that I am slightly biased in that I was raised on Sherlock Holmes and just recently discovered Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. I have seen no films with the French detective (though I am sure there are many), and the fact that there are only three of his books makes him rather less widely known. However, am very glad that I found him, as I am sincerely greatful to Poe for introducing the genre of detective stories, without which Holmes would never have existed. Once again: highest commendations to Poe!

And talking about detectives before Holmes, has anyone heard of Sergeant Cuff? From Wilkie Collins' Moonstone? Regarded as the first true British detective?

Hmmm... I feel another round of "The Ultimate Detective Face-Off" is near at hand!

~Sophia