Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Murders in the Rue Morgue [Short Story Review]

I haven't really been reviewing most of the Poe stories I have been reading. I made this decision because I am assuming that my dislike of his writing might be more of a subjective thing. But here I think that reviews in general are subjective in nature. For this reason, I am officially issuing an apology to anyone who likes this story.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was published in 1841. I don't like it.

Now, not liking it has little to do with the story. If anything the story itself is decent enough as a clever murder mystery or a detective story. I even found the whole ending revelations to be rather intriguing. The problem was the entirely emersion-breaking aspects of the writing itself. This entire story is absolutely pumped full of Poe's unique brand of ego. It's inflated with all of his hot air. I spent the entire reading feeling completely annoyed, which sadly affected how much I wanted to care about what was going on. 

The idea of the story, just so you know, is that there is this guy named Dupin who is extremely good at the science of investigation. He is so incredibly good at it that it's almost like he can read people's minds. He reminds me a lot of Sherlock Holmes but far more talkative. Like... he won't shut up. There were so many times I wanted him to shut up. If you can't explain yourself more succinctly, then you might as well not talk at all.

Needless to say, this Dupin pretty much can solve any murder or mystery just by glancing at it. He's that smart. The problem is that he has to explain the entire process to us laymen. And he can't just be plain about it. He has to do what a lot of Poe characters do and just randomly mix in quotes in foreign languages.

To put that latter complaint into better perspective, I want to mention two big annoyances that I had with this one:

1. It's fine and dandy when your character likes to speak French or Latin randomly, but when the local Gazette starts doing it while reporting a crime, that's when you realize that you're just listening to Poe himself. There was a big loss of emersion from those articles. It was dumb. When a local newspaper reports about crimes, they don't (or at least shouldn't) put in random words in different languages just to be fancy. Maybe newspapers were doing it back then. (?!) I don't really know. If they did, then the story was accurate, but I still hate it.

2. The very last line in the entire story was extremely clever and cool... but it was also in French. I had no idea what it said. I had to break out a freaking translator app on my phone just to read it. What if I had not had that?! It was annoying as heck.

Maybe you like the story or are still interested. The story itself is good, but I don't really want to recommend something that's written this badly. Keep in mind that not all of Poe's stories are like this. He has some really good ones. But he has a lot of bad ones too, and this is one of them. I'm sorry but I don't like it. I hated reading it, and I am looking forward to the day that I wrap up all my Poe stuff.

I'll leave you with one final question that you should take to heart before you make your decision: "Trouvez-vous cela irritant?"

This blog was written on February 5, 2023.

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