Rebeka > Recent Status Updates

Berenice — as always, I want to tell Poe, as all his maincharacters are imaginings based on his own self, to just stop thinking about himself so much all the time. The narrative voice is unbearably annoying. The twist and the story of this is interesting and very creepy this one!

The Tell-Tale Heart is a really standout, solid gothic short story. It has it all - an unreliable narrator, a focused story, melodic, rhytmic writing - what’s not to love?

“William Wilson” is an interesting short story with a paranormal vibe. The protagonist has a mysterious kindhearted doppelganger who keeps following him around and stopping him from villainous acts. Fun twist.

“Landor’s Cottage” is simply a description of a place in the style of romanticism. As is with Poe, the weather outside conveys something about the mood and inherent goodness of inhabitants, as well as the beauty of a woman conveys something of her morals. Simply put, I was bored senseless by this Poe’s attempt in landscape architecture.

With "Little Men" Louisa May Alcott returns to what she writes best - honest, if idealistic portrayals of young children in a home setting. Here the home environment keeps the characters close, which really seems to be a setting where she shines. Here we can see the transcendentalist ideas of her time - of not hitting children, of leading by example. The chapters often have a clever theme or format.

Little Women -- a charming, if moralistic tale. I'm not too taken with overly preachy novels, but this one somehow manages to ring the right chord and finds me nodding along, my heart full.
Good Wives -- a lot of people hate this one because it's not a tropey romance flick. it's grounded and realistic, yet its not as charming because you're split up in time and space among the sisters. the cozy feeling is gone.

The Domain of Arnheim — much ado about nothing. Just a fanciful imagining of what it would be like to be rich and live in a pretty place. Quite literally, just descriptions of Poe’s dream home with his usual faffery of groundless arrogance and certainty in it

The Premature Burial — I actually liked this one. Poe seems rational and a bit tongue-in-cheek regarding his own fearfulness and seeing spectres where there lay none.

Reed Anthony, Cowman — This is the only story so far that disappointed me. Entirely concerned with economics of the trail cattle trade, the politics and very, very little of any personal flourosh. Literally pages upon pages of practical business dealings with no relief. Here Adams’ realism cuts too much.

The Pit and the Pendulum -- so continues Poe's obsession with the medieval. Here an unknown protagonist is thrown into an unknown dungeon to be tortured by the Spanish Inquisition and then saved in the lick of time by some general. Definitely more engaging than most of Poe's stories, and this one also triggered a medieval torture wikipedia rabbithole for me.

The Assignation -- a story of murder-suicide... I think? I'm unsure, but it seems Poe has entered his medieval obsession phase. Poisons, Italy, supposed mistresses and mysterious, unlikely survivals. At least this one seemed to have a semblance of a story.

The Island of the Fay -- more like a musing on the nature of time & god and microscopic world, a longing for impressionistic green valleys, and then a little imaginitive etude on meeting a fae.

The Imp of the Perverse -- Hardly a story, more like a reflection of Poe's. He theorizes what could cause the wish to do harm for harm's sake, but, of course, never comes even close to the real solution, instead combining procrastination and murder, as well as trolling a friend under the same behavioural cause. Still interesting to see, as always, that ppl have always been concerned with the same things.

The Cask of Amontillado — this is an intriguing story of revenge - medieval style. What I found specifically fascinating was the rythmic tempo of the text.

The Masque of the Red Death - a fable like short story about a Prince who hides away from a plague with his entire entourage, then is murdered by a spectre of the Red Death itself.

Silence - A fable. A really short story in a biblical style. A demon recounts his encounters with a desolate and silent god/genie. The descriptions are really lovely, but feels like a rough sketch.

The Fall of the House Usher — the beginning is strongly worded but then it again swirls away into madness. These tales might just not be for me, I find them tedious. Yet I am thankful that he seems to have finally found his groove with horror tales, instead of too confidently inflicting bad science upon me

The Black Cat — a gorey story of an abusive, whiny man who falls deeper his vices and beats animals and his wife. He’s using the typical excuses of a man in his situation - that he fell into madness and rage, when he kills a certain person and at the same time manages to have the presence of mind to hide the murder and lie to the police and conceal his feelings. ‘Fell into an uncontrollable rage’ my ass.

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar — another story about hypnotizing a nearly dead person, this time Poe delves more into the mystical and otherworldly aspects of it, instead of fake science that grates on the nerves. Genuinely creepy too!

Hear the Wind Sing -- a perfect debut novel(la?), a shorter piece with no magical realism elements, just youthful enthusiasm. All about the surprising passage of time, the absurdity of life experiences, abrupt endings and the utter randomness and unpredictability of life that I am too wondering over at this stage of my life. Very short chapters, full of snappy quotes, a real enjoyable read.

Mesmeric Revelation — A story about a dying man arguing in his sleep with the narrator about nature of atoms, matter, God etc. Just really seemed like Poe just wanted to write a treatise on the matter of, well, matter. Poe really reminds me to be humbler, because in the future they will laugh at what holes I reason myself into

Von Kempelen and His Discovery -- another whimsical short story in the form of a newspaper opinion piece talking about some other guy discovering how to make gold out of lead. Same old tales of wonder and whimsy that I just don't like.

A Descent Into the Maelstrom -- A fanciful short story about a fisherman telling the story of surviving a deadly whirlpool storm, in a typical Poe manner by describing the events in a somewhat scientific way. Usually none of Poe's observations have survived the test of time, but he still has a cocky and know-it-all attitude.

Finished The Outlet. Andy Adams, again, proves a realist with the attention paid to animal care and typical hardships on the road, main drama being served by the complicated legality of cattle contracts. My gripe is that, although he is peeved by the dismissive attitude that upper class americans take towards the cowmen, he employs the same attitude and even worse toward people of color, blind to the hipocrisy

The Thousand-And-Second Tale of Scheherazade -- a weird work of Poe's fancy of describing and describing and endless describing of fantastical creatures and their habits. A satirical work, but not one I enjoyed.

The Purloined Letter -- Another Dupin detective story - this time concerning political affairs and a lesson about how you should give proper credit to your enemies intelligence, with a diatribe about mathematics being kinda for stick in the mud idiots. Very meh, really not into that Sherlockey 19th century pretentious babble.

The Oval Portrait

A really short story of a woman's soul being painted into a portrait, at least that's what I took from it. Really liked this one, even though it seems like more of a draft idea.

Ms. Found in a Bottle

Another story of an intellectual disowned by family and left destitute, there seems to be a pattern. A fanciful fiction of a ghost ship of some sort.

The Balloon-hoax

A fun science fiction writing which exploded at that age , just goes to show that overconfidence in one's intellect that is so typical of men of that age is incredibly annoying and false. In the end, it turns out that earth from space is very much convex, not concave, despite Poe's intellectual ramblings. Honestly you can somehow reason your way into any explanation, but the proof is what matters.

The Mystery of Marie Roget

Much of the same as before - unfounded speculation, yet a bit more grounded in reality and not as whimsical as before. I guess that made me like it a bit more.