Loss of Breath

by Edgar Allan Poe

"Loss of Breath." is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Born in Boston, he was the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia. Although they never formally adopted him, Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian." With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement. Later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point and declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, Poe parted ways with John Allan. Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem, "The Raven," to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. For years, he had been planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents. Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre. After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer. He chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so. He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law. Publishers often pirated copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans. The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837. Despite a booming growth in American periodicals around this time period, fueled in part by new technology, many did not last beyond a few issues and publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised. Poe, throughout his attempts to live as a writer, repeatedly had to resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Classics, Fiction, Literature, Fantasy, Gothic

28 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 1832

About the author

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK......after much debate for such a short read and a little homework, 3+ Stars for me.

Actually read this one from my big book of POE that I hope to complete in its entirety some day (haha) so when I entered LOSS OF BREATH here on Goodread's, the edition I chose surprisingly gave a nice little historical recap of POE'S life that helped me decipher this one......I think.

It starts out wild as hell with what must have been a horror of a wedding night with the protagonist royally bitching out his new wife......"Thou wretch!......thou vixen!......thou shrew!......thou witch!......thou hag!......thou whipper-snapper!......thou sink of iniquity!" etc. etc. etc. You get the picture, so ok, maybe he was impotent or she was perhaps not a virgin???

Next it gets really bizarre as the man loses his breath in the midst of yelling......

He then leaves the premises after, believe it or not, giving his wife a goodbye kiss and has several strange encounters with people who think he is dead....but is he???

Don't want to share more, but wonder.....LOSS OF BREATH.....Could it be fear of....loss of communication....loss of his writing voice....or even loss of income bc of POE'S history??? All could have been the ultimate imagined horror for him I would think....not to mention sexual impotence.

Pretty darn WEIRD read with some interesting interpretations out there.

Thank you Goodread's friend Natalie for bringing this one to my attention!

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some people are critical of Loss of Breath as schlocky mimicry of the contemporary horror stories of the period. Although others see this as parody, I think Poe was being critical of the developing genre while simultaneously admiring it from afar. The very beginning is about a newly married couple on their wedding night, and how the man is incensed about something (insert inferences here) and screaming almost irrationally at the top of his lungs, insulting remarks to his wife. He loses his breath in his anger, and then begins the horror portion of the story. This is the fourth story published by the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. It was published on November 10, 1832. It was one of Poe's five submissions for a literary contest run by the magazine, but he did not win and was probably never paid for the story. Despite the fact that most people may relate to the loss of breath, Poe begins to explore the fear in fascinating ways that may have initiated zombie narratives with his visions of "possible" walking dead. I love this story and will be sure to include it for re-reading for future Halloweens. Brilliant!

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was ghoulish and absurd at the same time.

[Francesc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relato muy divertido del genial Poe.
Un hombre pierde su aliento mientras discute con su mujer. A partir de aquí, se desarrolla un argumento cargado de surrealismo y humor negro. Algunas partes del texto me han hecho reír mucho.

---------------------------

A very funny story by the brilliant Poe.
A man loses his breath while arguing with his wife. From here, a plot full of surrealism and dark humour unfolds. Some parts of the text made me laugh a lot.

[Christy Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edgar Allan Poe’s Loss of Breath is a wonderful satire on post-Civil War medicine and sensationalism in newspapers. The day after his wedding, Mr. Lackobreath verbally abuses his new wife because of love letters between her and their neighbor, Mr. Windenough. Suddenly, he finds that he has lost his breath. To conceal his condition he locks himself away. He finds that he can communicate without breath if he uses his voice like a frog and he tries to cover this strange development by saying he has a newfound interest in acting. Knowing this won’t last long and fearing doctors and their diagnoses, he decides to flee the country. On his way to do so, he climbs aboard a stagecoach where a very large man lays on him and dislocates his neck and arms. Since he can’t cry out over the pain, the travelers assume he is dead and a young doctor confirms this with a pocket mirror. No breath on the mirror means he must be dead, so the passengers throw him out. He breaks many bones in the fall and an innkeeper takes his belongings and sells “the body” to a surgeon. The surgeon seems to have no problem with vivisection because while he is dissecting the body, he does finds signs of life and yet he keeps dissecting and even calls in an apothecary who does his own reanimating experiments. Mr. Lackobreath is able to finally escape but falls into the hangman’s cart. He looks like a prisoner who then escapes, causing Mr. L- to be hanged in his place. The drop actually realigned his dislocated neck instead of snapping it. He gives a good show to the people who have come to watch him hang and then he is interred in a public tomb. There he gets out of his casket and starts opening other caskets to view and comment on the dead. He finds Mr. Windenough, who at the same moment Mr. Lackobreath lost his breath gained more breath and gave him spasms. These spasms led doctors to believe he was dead (due to epilepsy). Mr. Lackobreath realizes this is his breath and demands it back. They are able to right themselves and yell for someone to let them out of the tomb.

Readers can definitely see the lack of faith in science and doctors. The characters diagnose themselves and find their own cure. They are victims of the doctors, facing often cruel and awful practices like vivisection. Victorians often feared wrong diagnoses that would lead to the burial of a live person and Poe plays on this fear in many of his stories. Most are horror stories while Loss of Breath is more satirical and funny. The continual abuse of Mr. Lackobreath is very sensationalized and mocks how newspapers would attempt to shock their readers with gory details. Poe was often accused of this himself, so doing the same style in a cheeky way was definitely him making fun of his detractors. Loss of Breath is a funny story to read and is one of my favorites that doesn’t fall in the strict horror category.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strange and nonsensical tale about a man whose wife steals his breath. I’m not sure if there was a hidden meaning that she actually killed him? He proceeds to experience several travesties that should have killed any human, so I’m not sure, but I definitely didn’t get it...

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is another Poe story originally submitted to the Philadelphia Saturday Morning Courier in 1831, and supposedly destined for that never-to-be-published collection of pastiches, homages and parodies known as Tales of the Folio Club. It is a style-parody of the short horror fiction published in England’s Blackwood’s Magazine, which typically involved breakneck escapes from unusual predicaments. Five years later Poe would write a better parody of this sort (the companion pieces “The Psyche Zenobia” and “The Scythe of Time,” later published as “A Predicament” and “How to Write a Blackwood Article”), and ten years later he would transmute the Blackwood approach into a work of genius: “The Pit and the Pendulum.’

But “A Loss of Breath” (or “A Decided Loss,” as it was originally titled) is considerably removed from any touch of Poe’s genius. It is labored, overly long, and desperately unfunny, and should be avoided by all readers except those fascinated with everything Poe.

Instead of boring you with excerpts showing you how bad this is, I will instead show you a passage toward the beginning that I actually liked. Poe was always a precise observer and a precise thinker, and here we see the narrator, having literally ”lost his breath” arguing with his wife, discovering that he can produce some vocal sounds without any breath at all:

The phrases “I am out of breath,” “I have lost my breath,” etc., are often enough repeated in common conversation; but it had never occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could bona fide and actually happen! Imagine — that is if you have a fanciful turn — imagine, I say, my wonder — my consternation — my despair! ...

Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the occurence had affected me, I determined at all events to conceal the matter from my wife, until further experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity ...

I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life had been at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror. Hard fate! — yet there was some alleviation to the first overwhelming paroxysm of my sorrow. I found, upon trial, that the powers of utterance which, upon my inability to proceed in the conversation with my wife, I then concluded to be totally destroyed, were in fact only partially impeded, and I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the communication of my sentiments; this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.

[The Bibliophile Doctor · Rating 2 out of 5]

#15/148

“Invisible things are the only realities.”

Oh Poe, just when I thought you can't get any weirder, this book did prove me wrong.

Loss of breath is about well what the title says it is. This is satirical criticism on the medical practitioner of that time. At time Poe even indicates that common folk are better than the doctors.

Poe also expands on the faulty speech and diagnoses of practitioners. Many considered physicians to provide patients with incomplete or inconsistent information during Poe's time.

Doctors were criticized for avoiding a clear naming of the disease. The narrator in "Loss of Breath" mocks this because he diagnoses himself as having dyspnea which is shortness of breath by noting several common symptoms of it, but never explicitly stating so. He details his symptoms to prove his knowledge; for example, shortness of breath is one of the symptoms, which is emphasized with the character's complete lack of breath.



I being a Doctor didn't enjoy it , there are many misunderstandings in the world about our profession and one can not understand what we have to go through unless they are in our shoes.

You can give it a try but frankly I found many flaws in the storyline which I did not agree with.

“The idea of suicide flitted across my brain; but it is a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and the ready, for the far-distant and equivocal.”

[محمد خالد شريف · Rating 2 out of 5]

"هنا، يرقد إنسان تعيس لا يستحق أي مواساة من أحد على هذه الأرض."

قد ترى أن قصة "انقطاع الأنفاس" لإدغار ألن بو غارقة في الرمزية، أو على الأقل تخلط بين الواقع والرمز، وربما يكون معك حق، وربما لا، هل تفهم شيئاً؟ بكل تأكيد لا، وهذا ما ستخرج به من هذه القصة؛ بعض التأملات الفلسفية الجيدة، رمزيات ربما يكون لها دلالة وربما مكتوبة من أجل الكتابة فقط، وبعض الأشياء الأخرى، لا تزال لدي مشكلة مع قصص بو الأولى، التي كُتب من أجل الأموال وباعها للجرائد والمجلات، ولكن بعض الأفكار في هذه القصة يجعلها لا بأس بها، ويجعلني أقدرها قليلاً، وليس أكثر من ذلك.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Poe's first takes on the macabre, with a bit of flair and comedy thrown into the mix. I admit, the story was a bit difficult to follow as it was full of random bouts of ranting and monologuing that often got in the way of the actual plot. The story was decent at best, but the idea alone was very frightening. What would it be like if we didn't die after we stopped breathing?

[David Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was 100% my cup of tea. The main character is instantly given his just desserts for his actions and the story spirals out of control from there. I loved the humour, emitting several chuckles during the read. The progression into a much darker storyline for me was the icing on the cake, pure perfection. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading the compiled Edgar Allan Poe, but want to post individual reviews of things that really stand out to me. This was one of my more favorites of the ones that I read so far. It is just a little short story, but this was the first one that had that truly "poe" flair I was looking for. I only read these stories after 11 p.m. so it was a great deal of fun to curl up in a blanket with the wind howling outside and read this!

[Fernando · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este cuento de Edgar Allan Poe tiene un doble propósito.
Por un lado, mostrarnos una serie de situaciones completamente disparatadas a partir de que el narrador cuenta que pierde su aliento.
Por el otro, describir situaciones absurdas o satíricas, un tanto emparentadas a mi entender con el Cándido de Voltaire, pero llevando al personaje a moverse dentro del cuento como una especie de zombie que va reconstruyéndose de a poco.

[IngeT (inge1970reads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short horror story with a bit of humor. It was fun to read 3.25

[Alexis Breut · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note finale : 2.5/5

Lu dans le recueil "La Chute de la Maison Usher et autres histoires extraordinaires" des éditions RBA coleccionables.

Vingtième nouvelle du recueil. C'est l'histoire d'un gars qui hurle sur sa femme et en perd son souffle. Après, il lui arrive plein de mésaventures parce que tout le monde le prend pour un cadavre et à la fin, il retrouve son souffle parce qu'un autre gars le lui avait chouré. Parfois un peu drôle mais surtout bizarre, celle-ci.

[Layla Crowie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nonsensical short story following a mercurial and jealous man through his coming to terms of his own mortality. Witty at times and filled with internal monologue, it makes for a quick read.

[Fifi · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5

[Eye of Sauron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This, like Philip K. Dick's "The Eyes Have It," is a humorous tale poking fun at English colloquialisms by means of satire. What would it truly be like to be "breathless"?

A funny little story hampered by a bit of moralizing, and perhaps a bit of unwelcome euphemism.

[Bob Fish · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hilarious adventures of the living dead with Mr. Lackobreath !

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loss of Breath is an unusual little story, exactly what you would expect from Poe. It is not the kind of horror that causes you to look over your shoulder and leave the light on, but it is a story that throws together enough out-there experiences to leave you hooked and curious to see how everything plays out.

I certainly recommend this to those curious about Poe, as it offers the strange that shows what Poe is known for.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of the 1835 edition in the Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond, VA), vol. I, no. 13, September 1835, pp. 735-740 (Duane copy, with manuscript changes made by Poe, about 1839).
https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/lss...

A satirical short story published under the pseudonym "Littleton Barry." The story is narrated by Mr. Lacko'breath who recounts his attempt to find and reclaim his lost breath, which he had literally misplaced. Throughout his journey, he is repeatedly dismembered and disfigured, falsely assumed to be dead, hanged, prepared for burial by an undertaker, and prematurely interred. The absurd exaggerations may be explained by the fact that the tale was meant to satirize the obsessions published in the Blackwood Magazine which was known for its sensational printing of a good deal of horror fiction with subtitles of A TALE NEITHER IN NOR OUT OF “BLACKWOOD” (1832), and A TALE A LA BLACKWOOD in 1835. The story lampooned such topics as metaphysicianism (developed by a German idealist and romantic philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling encompassing a metaphysical system based on the philosophy of nature); transcendentalism (a system developed by Immanuel Kant, based on the idea that, in order to understand the nature of reality, one must first examine and analyze the reasoning process which governs the nature of experience); pseudoscience (consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method) the article also satirized 19th century medicine and physician practices, anatomists (surgeons) and apothecaries. But with Poe being Poe there are always undercurrents to his stories and one such undercurrent was put forward by Princess Marie Bonaparte (French author and psychoanalyst, closely linked with Sigmund Freud).

TIDBIT /u> Marie Bonaparte, a Freudian trained psychoanalyst wrote a book (The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe: A psycho-analytic interpretation) which posthumously psychoanalyzes Poe through his works and points out in a whole chapter titled Loss of Breath that this story definitively proves Poe was impotent. [Hmm, given Poe's infamous legend I can't imagine Freudians not having a field day psychoanalyzing Poe's ghost].

"The theory that Edgar Allan Poe was impotent is one of the more unusual canards associated with his name. This notion of his physical inadequacy was first popularized in the 1920s, when the Freudians got their claws into the poor man. They came up with what they liked to think were psychoanalytic interpretations of his stories and poems which 'proved' that, for whatever physical or psychological reasons, Poe was unable to have sexual relations. (The limp plumes trailing in the dust in "Ulalume?" Three guesses what that really meant.) This is, of course, an unprovable assertion, but when did little matters like 'proof' ever stop your typical Poe biographer?" https://worldofpoe.blogspot.com/2010/...
Following this train of thought concerning psychoanalysts and their interpretation of Poe's supposed impotence through his writings is Marie Bonaparte's take on this short story . "To-day. Loss of Breath seems to the reader somewhat like those 'surrealist' films which present a series of unlinked images emanating from the unconscious. [no wonder Franz Kafka liked Poe's writings] . . .[after quoting from Poe's tale the verbal assault of the groom upon his bride the morning after the wedding Bonaparte postulates the following] In place of the genital act performed in darkness, we have a verbal and sadistic attack in the day, which these insults represent, while, at the very moment the husband seizes the wife to attack her, we find his powers suddenly fail and that, for want of breath, he cannot 'ejaculate' the penetrating words. [Ai-yai-yai! well what other interpretation would you expect from a Freudian trained psychoanalyst? other than that the husband's verbal impotence was linked to his penal impotence] In the chapter Loss of Breath of her book ( The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation.) Bonaparte examines the symbolism of breath and how Poe being impotent [no valid proof of clinical impotency for Poe exists only conjecture and second-hand hearsay by known enemies of Poe] came to choose breathing and breath as the symbol of male potency. Bonaparte mentions the notion which Ernst Jones brings forth in his book The Madonna's Conception through the Ear that the legend of the Annunciation implied that the Virgin was impregnated by the Angel's words and the breath of God (represented by the Holy Ghost) which entered through her ear. [Gee! I thought that it was sitting on toilet seats was what got you pregnant] Bonaparte states ". . . that myths relating to the conception of gods or heroes are not special to Christianity, though there it reaches its highest perfection. Shigemuni, the Mongol savior, for instance, having chosen the most perfect of earthly virgins, Mahaenna or Maya, for mother, impregnated her while she slept by entering her right ear, while, in the Mahabharata, Kunti, the very pure virgin and later mother of the hero Karna, (whose name signifies breath), is similarly impregnated by the sun god. Now it is just this channel which Poe's burlesque hero choses through which to approach his wife. The difference in attitude between a religious legend, and an extravaganza, in no way affects the significance of the symbols on which they are based, and it is here worth recalling that Rabelais' Gargantua was also born from his mother's ear. . . . Thus the mouth, as orifice, serves at times as a female symbol; it may also readily become, thanks to its phallic tongue and its ability to spit or blow, a male potency symbol." Bonaparte, Marie, Princess. (1949). "Loss of Breath." The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation. London: Imago Publishing, Co. LTD. (373-413) Throughout this chapter Bonaparte reiterates the symbolism of the story which in her opinion shows Poe's repression by his foster father John Allan (portraying him as various corpulent characters in the story) through both physical and verbal whippings effectively castrating Poe mentally leaving him supposedly physically impotent, a compelling argument for sure, but with no clinical proof it only lends to a vigorous mental exercise of potentials to why Poe had such a dry black sarcastic humor which he portrayed masterfully in his writings.

[Knigoqdec · Rating 4 out of 5]

Това е един от най-странните хумористично-фантастични разкази, на които съм попадала... Толкова е странно и необичайно... И стилът на По наистина е доста необичаен. Сега ми се струва, че го бяха уловили доста успешно в онзи филм, "Гарванът". Е, поне засега изглежда така.

Българското заглавие на разказа, поне според изданието от 1981-ва година, е "Без дъх". Твърде жалко е, че книгите ��т "Световна класика" не присъстват в сайта, ама, сега, претенции...

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have arranged my takeaway thoughts on this story into a haiku:

"There is a zombie
Hiding in Poe's works, and it's
Breathless and confused."

[José Cruz Parker · Rating 1 out of 5]

The most notorious ill-fortune must in the end yield to the untiring courage of philosophy, as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless vigilance of an enemy

As the epigraph to my humble review shows, even the worst of Poe's tales have a felicitous turn of phrase. Incidentally, said epigraph is an example of the author's facility for simile (another one is to be found in The Tell-Tale Heart, where the narrator makes a clever comparison between the old man's heart and the beating of a drum in times of war).

But the stylish prose of Mr. Edgar Poe is not enough to redeem this lackluster story about a man who, quite literally, loses his breath. But although Poe's humor is far from good, the names of the characters in Loss of Breath are hilarious. The protagonist is called Lackobreath, while his nemesis goes by the name of Windenough.

To be fair, Loss of Breath does have some ingenious parts. For instance, Lackobreath learns an entire play by heart when he realizes that he can only speak in a guttural voice:

"Being naturally quick, I committed to memory the entire tragedy of 'Metamora'. I had the good fortune to recollect that in the accentuation of this drama, or at least of such portion of it as is allotted to the hero, the tones of voice in which I found myself deficient were altogether unnecessary, and the deep guttural was expected to reign monotonously throughout".

The whole the situation is utterly absurd, of course. However, it reminded of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In Huxley's novel, there's a savage whose only acquaintance with English happened through Shakespeare. Therefore, he can only speak in a sort of shakespearean language.

All in all, Loss of Breath is definitely not one of Poe's best works. Nevertheless, I am a big fan of his and, therefore, feel compelled to read all that he wrote.

[King Crusoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Loss of Breath" is satire at its most...satirical. It is comedic. It is weird. It is funny. It is really fucking strange.

But also really fun, despite the issues that it's high levels of, well, oddness bring as well. Reading about a man who quite literally *loses* his breath, and going between a crazy weird set of happenings to (thankfully) relocate his lost breath in the most unexpected of circumstances was a trip and a half. I had a lot of fun while reading, and for once I largely understood "Loss of Breath" (as opposed to the other satirical stories up to this point).

On top of that, there was also a decent bit of criticism on, say, the medical industry of the time in this story, as irrelevant as that is today.

But yeah. The writing is pretty good; the plot is funny; the absurdity is catchy; it's just so freaking strange it puts me off a tad.

This one is more like a 3.5/5, but I have rounded it down, as I don't think it's QUITE 4 star worthy.

[Sanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very strange story — a wild and confusing ride. I’m sure there is some allegorical meaning behind it all but I just enjoyed the adventures of a man who may or may not be dead.
Highlight: MC was squeezed between two large men on the train while a third large gentleman went to sit on top of him “requesting pardon for the liberty he was about to take”, causing MC’s limbs to be dislocated and his head twisted to one side. But luckily he is hanged shortly after on suspicion of robbery which doesn’t kill him (because he’s already dead? because you can’t strangle a man who’s already lost his breath?) but only “proved a corrective to the twist afforded [him] by the fat gentleman in the coach”.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basically, this guy is being a total dick to his wife when he suddenly, and very literally loses his breath.

Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely gone.

This causes him unending problems.

To be sure they spoke of confining me in a strait-jacket--but good God! they never suspected me of having lost my breath.

Personally, anyone that treats his wife that way deserves whatever comes to him.

He goes through all manner of horrors because apparently when you lose your breath you lose the ability to die or really feel pain.

An odd macabre Poe tale.

[Christian Ginosyan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Շունչը կորցնելը կարելի ա ուրիշ ձևով հասկանալ, բայց ոչ էնքան անկապ, ինչքան գրել ա Պոն: Անկապ էր: Նախընտրում եմ Գոգոլի «Քիթը»:

[Nicole]

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[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really loved the beginning and the end portions, it kind of fell off in the middle but overall I enjoyed this story a lot (even though I only gave it 3 stars)