Rebeka’s Reviews > Edgar Allan Poe: His Complete Works: (Bauer Classics) > Status Update

Metzengerstein — The descriptions of young baron and his infernal horse are evocative, but the story surrounding them was rather boring. I think these characters could surely do more.

X-ing a Paragraph — an unassuming and genuinely hilarious story. Probably because Poe stopped trying so hard to set up a believable ground to an unbelievable story. Very natural. Best of the bunch, I’d say!

Lionizing — absurdist satire again, about a man who’s huge nose makes him the cream of society until he shoots another fellow’s nose off. I didn’t get it.

The Devil in the Belfry — a nonsense silly type of satirical story that seems taken straight out of Poe’s morphine dreams. Not my type at all, but perhaps I just didn’t get the references.

Three Sundays in a Week — Poe starts strong with a very submissive narrator’s voice, in servile rage toward a master. Very intriguing, but in the end it devolves into the same boring narrative trickery.

King Pest — contains a really strong and jolly start, especially the starting paragraph which so well establishes the setting and principal characters. The ending was also funny and abrupt. However in a true Poe fashion, he spends pages building up the horrors, and then theres only like a paragraph of the horrors/punchline itself

The Spectacles — a young man with poor eyesight marries a granny because he refuses to wear glasses. The mystery is a bit funny, but it takes a long time to set up the joke and it takes just as much to explain it afterward, giving it a very artificial feel

A Tale of the Ragged Mountains -- a story where Poe explores his newest fascination - magnets and electricity! In something called psychomagnetism, there's doppelgangers, parallel lives etc. I couldn't be bothered. I just don't like it when Poe reads up something intriguing in science and then waxes poetic about what he thinks could happen.

Morella — Once more, a story about a beautiful wife/bride who dies young from tuberculosis while loving the protagonist dearly, and then supernatural stuff happens. This time, the twist is that she dies in childbirth and somehow gave birth to herself.

Ligeia — Another one of those Poe stories about a beautiful wife/bride/promised who dies young from tuberculosis while loving the protagonist dearly and strongly, and then he marries again and supernatural stuff happens. Very meh. Though description of Ligeia was really evocative and beautiful.