There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
- "The Masque of the Red Death"
I love Halloween. How utterly uninspired and cliche of me for loving Poe as well, but here we are.
I think the brilliance of Poe is the brevity of his short stories, and what he manages to accomplish within that limited narrative space. As someone whose skills lie in long-form storytelling, I'm always wildly impressed by a successfully executed short story. It's no easy feat to convey a wealth of conflict and sentiment in just a few-thousand words, but Poe not only managed it, he carved himself indelibly and forever famously in the landscape of American literature. Why? Skill, yes. But mostly because of the horror. Horror is affecting and memorable.
I think there are readers who enjoy horror (me), and those who might not enjoy it, per se, but are both fascinated by it, and by the fascination it holds for fans. In either case, everyone's heard of at least one Poe story or poem, and even those who don't enjoy his work still felt some kind of way when they read "[T]ear up the planks! - here, here! - it is the beating of his hideous heart!" There's something visceral and touching about the macabre; the contemplation of dark, unpleasant, or wicked deeds grips us with the same kind of fervor as love or heartbreak. True Crime wouldn't be such a runaway hit of a genre if not.
Stylistically, Poe does two things that I think make his fiction effective. One, he throws the reader immediately into the narrator's deepest confidence. There's no slow intro, no convoluted backstory; in the stories that seem to be taking their time establishing setting, those paragraphs are pulling double duty: they're establishing the setting and vibe of the story, and they're also lulling you into a sense of calm so he can spring The Horror on you at the perfect moment. Some of his narrators, as in the case of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat," are truly horrendous people, but he presents their perspectives in a plain-spoken, unselfconscious manner that trusts the audience to come to the right conclusion without a lot of hand-holding or moralizing.
And two: he punches you right in the face with The Horror, and then ducks neatly away without dawdling about with any sort of conclusion or lesson-learning. Just boom, look at this! And out.
No one currently writes in Poe's prose style, nor should they: as delightful as it was/is, language has evolved and modernized, and a modern-set story written by a modern author is going to reflect the pose stylings of today. But the set up and payoff approach of his stories is something we still see in most horror writing. It's a formula that still works, as timeless as it is stirring. And his prose is inspiring and useful; while I wouldn't want to duplicate it exactly, his particular, handpicked approach to detail is a worthy area of study.
I also happen to think that all of Poe's work is ripe for modern interpretation. Every one of his short stories and poems has the potential to become a long-form novel, TV series, or film, given the right approach, and a broad enough imagination.
No comments:
Post a Comment