In The Shadow Of The Master: Tales by Edgar Allan Poe

How I Became an Edgar Allan Poe Convert BY SUE GRAFTON

I hadn’t had occasion to read Edgar Allan Poe since high school, so when Michael Connelly asked me to contribute a few laudatory words to this anthology commemorating Poe’s two hundredth birthday, I said I’d consider his request. Please note: I didn’t actually commit myself, but I did experience a mild surge of interest and told Michael Connelly I’d do what I could. After all, why not? This was late October 2007, and my comments wouldn’t be due until the end of February 2008-a lead time of three months during which I might very well be killed.

Aside from the fact that I seldom agree to write anything “offgrid,” my reservations were twofold:

1. I’m not a scholar by any stretch, and I generally refuse to hold forth on any subject except, possibly, cats.

2. I’d recently started work on “U” Is for… , and I knew I needed to focus on the task at hand.

Nonetheless, being a fan of Michael Connelly’s (especially since, heretofore, he’d never asked me for anything), I bought a paperback edition of Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe to refresh my memory. I sailed through the introduction and the section called “Chronology of Edgar Allan Poe’s Life and Work.” So far, so good. I did question the wisdom of his marrying his thirteen-year-old tubercular cousin, but boys will be boys, and poor Poe was known as a falling-down drunk.

In rapid succession, I read “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Purloined Letter,” “Manuscript Found in a Bottle,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Oh, dear. That “Ourang-Outang” business really didn’t fly as far as I was concerned. Let’s not even talk about “The Gold-Bug,” which left me cranky and out of sorts. I found Poe profligate with his exclamation points, and his overheated prose was larded with inexplicable French phrases. Not only that, he was much too fond of adverbs, and his dialogue fairly cried out for the stern admonitions of a good editor. Mon Dieu!! These are all writerly habits of which I thoroughly disapprove!!! Further reading of his work did nothing to soften my views. What was I to do? I had nothing nice to say about the man and no hope of faking it.

I wrote to Michael Connelly, begging to be relieved of my responsibilities. He wrote back and most graciously excused me. Quel joie!! I returned to “U…” and thought no more about the Poe anthology. Then, two months later, just when my guilt was beginning to subside, Michael wrote again on “the long shot of all long shots” that I might relent. In the unlikely event that I’d say yes, he cautioned that my term paper would be due, not the middle of February as originally thought, but closer to February 1.

I felt myself waver and wondered if there was any way I might be of help. I decided to renew my efforts before closing the door on him once and for all. Given the accelerated deadline, I took the only sensible action that crossed my mind. I turned to the Internet and Googled Edgar Allan Poe in hopes of cribbing an academic paper I could pass off as my own.

In the course of this random research, I came across a reference to a Poe story called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which wasn’t included in the collected works I’d bought. What caught my attention were comments I unearthed from the archives of Cornell University: The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe; with a Memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, and Notices of His Life and Genius by N. P. Willis and J. R Lowell, 4 vols. (New York: Redfield, 1856). On page 434 of one of these volumes (alas, I know not which), either Mr. Griswold, N. P. Willis, or J. R. Lowell wrote the following: “Had this ‘Narrative’ been brought to a conclusion satisfactory, or even plausible, ‘Arthur Gordon Pym’ would have been the most perfect specimen of [Poe’s] imaginative and constructive powers.”

Well, that was curious.

Fifty key strokes later, I found the lengthy story online and reproduced as much of it as printer paper would allow. I’d read no more than a few paragraphs when I found myself transfixed. The prose was clear and accessible, with nary a!!! in sight. But what intrigued me was the challenge Poe had set for himself. The Narrative… purports to be an account of an extraordinary (and entirely invented) journey across the Antarctic Ocean, as told by one Arthur Gordon Pym at a gentlemen’s club in Richmond, Virginia, in the latter months of 1836. Those who hear of his remarkable adventures urge Pym to make the matter public. Pym declines, explaining that he kept no written journal during this protracted period and that he questions his ability to write, “from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have the appearance of that truth it would really possess.” The incidents, he says, are of a nature so marvelous that he doubts the public would regard his comments as anything other than “an impudent and ingenious fiction.”

As luck would have it, among those present at the gathering is our very own Edgar Allan Poe, lately editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, who strongly advises Pym to prepare a thorough rendering of the affair and who further proposes to publish this chronicle in the Southern Literary Messenger as a work of fiction under his (Poe’s) name. This ruse, says Poe, will allow Pym to fully air his tale without inciting the public’s incredulity.

In January and February 1837, twenty-five chapters of this narrative appear in the Messenger, meticulously detailing a voyage to the South Pacific, which results in the alleged discovery of a new land, complete with the specifics of climate, atmosphere, water, novel plants, and strange animals, capped by a description of the inhabitants, who differ from all other races of men.

The response is unexpected.

As convincing as the author (Poe) has hoped to be in persuading the public that the tale is mere fable, letters are sent to Mr. Poe’s address “distinctly expressing a conviction to the contrary.” Far from viewing these exploits as fiction, the public believes them to be true. Edgar Allan Poe is forced to confess that the tale is not his, but is an unexpurgated and completely factual account of actual events that happened to Arthur Gordon Pym. Arthur Gordon Pym, in turn, is finally convinced to step forward and acknowledge the reportage as his own. He then proceeds to dictate his experiences in such an authoritative tone that the whole of it is accepted as gospel. So much so that a publishing house in London commences arrangements to reprint the work as a bona fide history.

Having established this dazzling turnabout premise, Poe now faces the tricky issue of how to bring the tale to a conclusion without leaving himself open to the very scientific scrutiny he’s hoping to avoid. In order to sustain the authenticity of his deception-posing as Pym and limning a supposed fiction whose outing as truth motivates Pym to affirm his role as author and participant (whew!!)-Poe must find a means of completing the yarn without tipping his hand.

For a few moments, I put myself in Poe’s shoes and pondered the possibilities. My temptation would have been to chuck the whole scheme as a rebellion of plot and character now desperately in need of quashing.

His solution was to make the following announcement:

The circumstances connected with the late sudden and distressing death of Mr. Pym are already well known to the public through the medium of the daily press. It is feared that the few remaining chapters which were to have completed his narrative, and which were retained by him… for the purpose of revision, have been irrecoverably lost through the accident by which he perished himself. This, however, may prove not to be the case, and the papers, if ultimately found, will be given to the public. The loss of two or three final chapters… is the more deeply to be regretted, as it can not be doubted they contained matter relative to the Pole itself, or at least to regions in its very near proximity; and as, too, the statements of the author in relation to these regions may shortly be verified or contradicted by means of the governmental expedition now preparing for the Southern Ocean.

In support of this, Poe attaches a number of footnotes in which he clarifies and annotates the veracity of Pym’s assertions in all of their particulars.

The elaborate and ingenious conceit of this story (which is, by the way, executed with unfaltering confidence) was finally sufficient to arouse my admiration and elevate my prior opinion of Edgar Allan Poe… at least in terms of this one stunning testimonial to his skills. I’m delighted to recommend The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket as exemplary of Poe’s powers of invention. I do this with a clear conscience and in sincere support of this anthology honoring his work. Personal integrity aside, there is one more important point to be made: now Michael Connelly owes me.

Sue Grafton entered the mystery field in 1982 with the publication of “A” Is for Alibi, which introduced female hard-boiled private investigator Kinsey Millhone, who operates out of the fictional town of Santa Teresa (a.k.a. Santa Barbara), California. “B” Is for Burglar followed in 1985, and since then she has added eighteen novels to the series now referred to as “the alphabet mysteries.” At the rate she’s going, she’ll reach “Z” Is for Zero in the year 2020, give or take a decade. She will be much much older than she is now.