Tuesday, 4 December 2018 10:07 pm
Book Review: The Poe Shadow
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deckardcanineGosh, it doesn't feel like four years since I read Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club. His second novel could easily be seen as a spiritual successor: It too is a well-researched mystery set in the eastern U.S. in the mid-19th century concerning famous poets. A deleted chapter (included at the back) even includes one of the same characters and mentions a few others. But while TDC features mostly real people solving a fictitious mystery, TPS features mostly fictitious people solving a real mystery.
A bit of personal background: I've read and enjoyed a few tales and poems by Edgar Poe (at Pearl's insistence, I'm dropping "Allan," the surname of an unsupportive stepfather). In seventh grade, I got a thrill out of Avi's The Man Who Was Poe, in which Poe himself serves as a detective. Later, I learned that much of what is widely believed about Poe comes from a lying biographer, so Avi probably mischaracterized him. I anticipated that Pearl would do better, without disregarding Poe's actual substantial flaws.
First-person narrator Quentin Clark, a young Baltimore attorney, may be the biggest Poe fan among Poe contemporaries. He has been almost a pen pal to the writer and promised legal service as needed. You can imagine how he feels when Poe dies at 39, has a funeral fit for an anonymous vagabond, and gets smeared in the obituaries. Unwilling to believe that Poe abandoned his temperance pledge and drank himself to death (back when that was extra scandalous), and concerned about holes in the story, Quentin makes it his business to search for answers that might clear his idol's name. Nobody -- not his best friend and colleague, not his great aunt, not his relatively understanding fiancée, not even Poe's cousin -- encourages this quest, especially as it cuts into Quentin's work hours, but he feels that he owes Poe this favor. He even travels to Paris in order to persuade the man who inspired Poe's creation of C. Auguste Dupin (the forerunner of Sherlock Holmes and possibly the first modern-style literary detective) to join the cause. In doing so, Quentin risks more than he realizes, not least because France is still experiencing unrest under a Bonaparte.
This is not exactly a murder mystery. No one long entertains the idea that Poe was murdered, tho he may well have been mistreated shortly before his death. It's not immediately clear why we should care half as much as Quentin does; perhaps his acquaintances were right. I suspect that that's the key reason that TPS doesn't enjoy quite as much popularity as TDC. But there are a few murders and attempts thereat -- less gruesome than in TDC, of course. At some point, Quentin believes that filling in the gaps on Poe is the only way to save himself from ruin. Even if you don't respect Quentin's obsession, the sequence of events may well engage you.
And who is this "real" Dupin? Quentin believes it to be once-lauded detective Auguste Duponte, who remains a household name in Paris but hasn't done any investigations in ages. Some people assume he's dead. Actually, he's kept to himself after a case in which he uncovered the apparent truth but wished he hadn't. Quentin finds Duponte largely apathetic, disdainful, and rude half the time despite him calling out rudeness in others (well, he is Parisian), but he still demonstrates brilliant ratiocination now and then. Only when another Dupin candidate steps up to the plate does Duponte agree to come to Baltimore and shed light on Poe.
The other candidate is self-styled "Baron" Claude Dupin. He boasts of never having lost a case in court, which may be accurate, but that doesn't make him a champion of truth. In contrast to Duponte, he constructs scenarios that are merely plausible based on the gathered information, fitting them to preconceived notions, and delivers them with infectious charisma. He also is an impossible-sounding master of disguise and keeps dangerous company, most notably a talented, worryingly seductive assassin nicknamed Bonjour. His present goal is to drum up public interest in Poe, charge people to hear his fabulous "findings" (which may seem to do Poe honor but would not be approved by an honest man), and pay off his debts.
Quentin prefers to throw in his lot with Duponte, albeit with some doubts. Facing a threat from the "baron," Duponte swears off interviewing any witnesses. He expresses confidence that he can find enough answers anyway, between newspapers and Quentin's own espionage. Oddly enough, he puts exceedingly little trust in the press (bringing to mind a common modern mindset), focusing on what goes unsaid or unconnected.
It's fun to see a genius in action, but if you're hoping for the kind of mystery that gives readers the chance to figure things out before the detective does, you'll be disappointed. Duponte has a habit of not revealing his observations until he's put the whole puzzle together. Some of them require contextual knowledge that even a historian is unlikely to know.
On that note, might I say that TPS does at least as good a job of capturing its setting as TDC. In addition to some details I touched on above, it covers U.S. politics more intense than today's (watch your back on Election Day and have a password ready at the Whig headquarters), bygone jobs (mending umbrellas and trading clothes on rainy days), and problems that have passed out of living memory (darn those "resurrection men"). That last item includes slavery, then legal in Maryland, with manumission very difficult to secure properly. Quentin isn't an outspoken abolitionist, but at least his rich family doesn't keep slaves. He does help free one, not on general principle but in exchange for help. Another ex-slave, having known and liked Poe, helps Quentin more still; they might just become friends.
Pearl reports that his research even turned up information that had been lost since it was fresh. Who knows? Maybe the solution he offers is 100% correct. But he doesn't want everyone to accept it. That would not be in the spirit of historical integrity or of Poe. Me, I take his conclusion with a grain of salt. It is credible without the theatrics of Claude Dupin, and Pearl is no Dan Brown, but there's no way to know for sure.
While TDC hasn't gotten me to look beyond The Inferno to more of Dante yet, TPS probably will get me back into reading Poe. I could certainly stand to try a second Dupin story, and maybe I'll keep an eye out in other works for the qualities that Quentin highlighted. As for Pearl, he's now two for two in my mind, so I expect to read him again as well.
From the giveaway shelf, I've picked up Warriors: Into the Wild by Erin Hunter. Looks like Tailchaser's Song for a slightly younger audience.
A bit of personal background: I've read and enjoyed a few tales and poems by Edgar Poe (at Pearl's insistence, I'm dropping "Allan," the surname of an unsupportive stepfather). In seventh grade, I got a thrill out of Avi's The Man Who Was Poe, in which Poe himself serves as a detective. Later, I learned that much of what is widely believed about Poe comes from a lying biographer, so Avi probably mischaracterized him. I anticipated that Pearl would do better, without disregarding Poe's actual substantial flaws.
First-person narrator Quentin Clark, a young Baltimore attorney, may be the biggest Poe fan among Poe contemporaries. He has been almost a pen pal to the writer and promised legal service as needed. You can imagine how he feels when Poe dies at 39, has a funeral fit for an anonymous vagabond, and gets smeared in the obituaries. Unwilling to believe that Poe abandoned his temperance pledge and drank himself to death (back when that was extra scandalous), and concerned about holes in the story, Quentin makes it his business to search for answers that might clear his idol's name. Nobody -- not his best friend and colleague, not his great aunt, not his relatively understanding fiancée, not even Poe's cousin -- encourages this quest, especially as it cuts into Quentin's work hours, but he feels that he owes Poe this favor. He even travels to Paris in order to persuade the man who inspired Poe's creation of C. Auguste Dupin (the forerunner of Sherlock Holmes and possibly the first modern-style literary detective) to join the cause. In doing so, Quentin risks more than he realizes, not least because France is still experiencing unrest under a Bonaparte.
This is not exactly a murder mystery. No one long entertains the idea that Poe was murdered, tho he may well have been mistreated shortly before his death. It's not immediately clear why we should care half as much as Quentin does; perhaps his acquaintances were right. I suspect that that's the key reason that TPS doesn't enjoy quite as much popularity as TDC. But there are a few murders and attempts thereat -- less gruesome than in TDC, of course. At some point, Quentin believes that filling in the gaps on Poe is the only way to save himself from ruin. Even if you don't respect Quentin's obsession, the sequence of events may well engage you.
And who is this "real" Dupin? Quentin believes it to be once-lauded detective Auguste Duponte, who remains a household name in Paris but hasn't done any investigations in ages. Some people assume he's dead. Actually, he's kept to himself after a case in which he uncovered the apparent truth but wished he hadn't. Quentin finds Duponte largely apathetic, disdainful, and rude half the time despite him calling out rudeness in others (well, he is Parisian), but he still demonstrates brilliant ratiocination now and then. Only when another Dupin candidate steps up to the plate does Duponte agree to come to Baltimore and shed light on Poe.
The other candidate is self-styled "Baron" Claude Dupin. He boasts of never having lost a case in court, which may be accurate, but that doesn't make him a champion of truth. In contrast to Duponte, he constructs scenarios that are merely plausible based on the gathered information, fitting them to preconceived notions, and delivers them with infectious charisma. He also is an impossible-sounding master of disguise and keeps dangerous company, most notably a talented, worryingly seductive assassin nicknamed Bonjour. His present goal is to drum up public interest in Poe, charge people to hear his fabulous "findings" (which may seem to do Poe honor but would not be approved by an honest man), and pay off his debts.
Quentin prefers to throw in his lot with Duponte, albeit with some doubts. Facing a threat from the "baron," Duponte swears off interviewing any witnesses. He expresses confidence that he can find enough answers anyway, between newspapers and Quentin's own espionage. Oddly enough, he puts exceedingly little trust in the press (bringing to mind a common modern mindset), focusing on what goes unsaid or unconnected.
It's fun to see a genius in action, but if you're hoping for the kind of mystery that gives readers the chance to figure things out before the detective does, you'll be disappointed. Duponte has a habit of not revealing his observations until he's put the whole puzzle together. Some of them require contextual knowledge that even a historian is unlikely to know.
On that note, might I say that TPS does at least as good a job of capturing its setting as TDC. In addition to some details I touched on above, it covers U.S. politics more intense than today's (watch your back on Election Day and have a password ready at the Whig headquarters), bygone jobs (mending umbrellas and trading clothes on rainy days), and problems that have passed out of living memory (darn those "resurrection men"). That last item includes slavery, then legal in Maryland, with manumission very difficult to secure properly. Quentin isn't an outspoken abolitionist, but at least his rich family doesn't keep slaves. He does help free one, not on general principle but in exchange for help. Another ex-slave, having known and liked Poe, helps Quentin more still; they might just become friends.
Pearl reports that his research even turned up information that had been lost since it was fresh. Who knows? Maybe the solution he offers is 100% correct. But he doesn't want everyone to accept it. That would not be in the spirit of historical integrity or of Poe. Me, I take his conclusion with a grain of salt. It is credible without the theatrics of Claude Dupin, and Pearl is no Dan Brown, but there's no way to know for sure.
While TDC hasn't gotten me to look beyond The Inferno to more of Dante yet, TPS probably will get me back into reading Poe. I could certainly stand to try a second Dupin story, and maybe I'll keep an eye out in other works for the qualities that Quentin highlighted. As for Pearl, he's now two for two in my mind, so I expect to read him again as well.
From the giveaway shelf, I've picked up Warriors: Into the Wild by Erin Hunter. Looks like Tailchaser's Song for a slightly younger audience.