Berenice and the Power of Poe.

Instead of reading my daily chapter of Gorky Park tonight, I decided to read again one of my favourite stories of Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice. (I have two favourites, the other being The Fall of the House of Usher, and those familiar with Poe will know that there are similarities which might indicate something fundamental about my oddness.)

So why was I suddenly taken away from my current novel and directed towards a very short story by the master of the macabre? Was I in a macabre mood? No, it was because I seemed to recall having seen the name somewhere – I don’t even remember where – and I felt intrigued to wonder why it was a favourite. I tried to remember the plot, but was met only by vagueness and one word: teeth. I knew it had something to do with teeth.

And so I collected my anthology of Poe and found that the page marker was at the start of the story in question. This had to be significant, didn’t it? The good, wise old universe is telling me that I must read this story again. Well, in all honesty, probably not, but I read it anyway

Oh my giddy aunt, what a masterpiece of short story writing it is. Formal and highly complex in its syntax, it’s not an easy read. I persevered, took my time, concentrated hard to understand every word, and was rewarded with a most intelligent, observant, and lyrical exposition on the madness of extreme monomania, the tragedy of sickness so pernicious as to utterly destroy the essence of natural beauty, the horror of premature burial, and the iniquity of grave desecration further stained by involuntary torture.

So why was I unaccountably driven to read it by some agent of unknown provenance? You tell me, but not until you’ve read and understood every word of the genius contained therein.