Good ol' Edgar A. Poe

After reading finally Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" then plowing through Jonathan Harvey's "The Girl Who Just Appeared" I thought it was high time that I finally read some Edgar Allan Poe because I read somewhere that he single-handedly invented the "Detective Fiction" genre, which is one of my favourite genres..

C. August Dupin as he

appeared in 1999's

"League of Extraordinary

Gentlemen."

Previously my exposure to Poe went as far as:

1. Oh yeah, he's the writer of "The Tell-Tale Heart." (Never read it, but referenced heavily in an early episode of The Simpsons.)
2. The Simpson's "Treehouse of Horror" (Season 2) segment "The Raven."
3. (Without realizing it at the time) C. Auguste Dupin's guest spot in 1999's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" written by Alan Moore.

And that is the totality of my exposure to Edgar Alan Poe, unless you take into account the numerous authors so obviously inspired/influenced by Poe, most notably Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.

So, I grabbed a copy of The Modern Library's collection of stories that focuses on the exploits of Dupin, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales." The book contains three stories and I've only finished reading "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" but I'd say I'm a fan, even if the opening paragraphs are dense with lots of big words it felt like my brain was out of shape the same way a 40-year old sprints up a couple of flights of stairs then has stop to catch his breath and, possibly, throw-up before walking the rest of the way at a staid pace more in line with his age and physical prowess.