Where do I even begin with describing this book? Just know that this book review is slightly biased as I'm reviewing one of my favourite authors if not my absolute favourite.
Edgar Allan Poe is mostly known for his gothic novels and slightly horrifying nature but The Murder in the Rue Morgue really isn't as horrifying as his other works. If anything, the book comes off as a fun mystery of who the murderer is with slight sarcastic humour coming from the re-occuring character and detective C Auguste Dupin and the unnamed narrator that is solving this crime with him.
This book has everything that would catch your interest, or at least mine. I absolutely love gothic novels and murder mysteries, which is why I spent most of my youth sitting like an old person watching Agatha Christie's Poirot. Poe's writing style is one of those how-on-earth-were-you-born-with-this-talent types of things, because not a lot of authors are very captivating with their works, but Poe has a way to further interest in things and this short story (to me) is no exception.
If you have already read the book or want to avoid spoilers, keep scrolling!
A quick re-cap:
An unnamed narrator opens the story with quite a long introduction where they talk about analytical reasoning and how they met Dupin in Paris. The pair share a room and have cut off contact with the outside world and only ever leave at night. To show us Dupins analytical skills, we learn that he is "deducing the narrator's thoughts about a particular stage actor, based on clues gathered from the narrator's previous words and actions." The next morning while reading the newspaper, the pair come across the news of the double murder on Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter. The mother was found in the yard with broken bones and a throat so badly cut that "her head fell off upon moving the body" and the daughter strangled and stuffed up a chimney. The murders occurred in a fourth-floor room that was locked from the inside; on the floor were found a bloody razor, several bloody tufts of gray hair, and two bags of gold coins. Several witnesses reported hearing two voices at the time of the murder, one male and French, but disagreed on the language spoken by the other. The speech was unclear, and all witnesses claimed not to know the language they believed the second voice to be speaking. A bank clerk that delivered gold to the madame the day earlier is captured for the crime but Dupin dismisses his case since the witnesses he had interviewed claimed all to have heard two voices where one was a foreign language that no one recognized.
Dupin realises the crime could not have been committed by a human as it has an element of super strength, figures out that it must be an "Ourang-Outang" and searches for ads about one. He finds a sailor that owns one, confronts him and learns that he could not keep it under control and so on and on.
Stop scrolling, the review is here!
So if you enjoy a slightly over the top murder mystery this book is absolutely for you. The blend of a rich old lady, stolen goods, brutal murder, an orangutang and two detectives that are probably weirder than anyone else in the story, I mean who stays in a room together all day and only come out at night (spoiler alert: 16-year old me, thats who).
The short story is rich with event, through it is only 32 pages (or between 70-90 in other editions) Poe takes you through the whole journey of the crime and has time to introduce his narrator, the partner and the backstory that unites them leading up to this one crime mission. The story can be read from quite a humorous point of view, it does not include such a serious element that you would be sitting there shivering while reading it from the gothic aura such as Poes other works (e.g The Fall of the House of the Usher) but the book does keep you entertained and is a very easy read. I would recommend starting with this story if you are new to the Poe world as to just dip your toes into the gothic element and see how it feels for you. However it is worth noting that not all of Poes works are as easy going, short or so and therefore you can not really build your whole understanding of his works based on this one.
So is The Murder in the Rue Morgue my favourite book? Absolutely not. It does not join my top five books or stories at all, but it does keep me entertained and I find it fun and intruiging to read no matter how many times I have read it, especially now since two years have passed since last time, it was like a nice little nostalgia wave back into the Poe community. Basically what I am trying to say here is if you like orangutangs, murder, mystery and gothic, then this book might be a good read and a way into the spooky-world, if you are simply not a Poe fan, you can probably still read the story and enjoy it but you definitely don't have to. It's not like I'm going to be there, watching, waiting for you to flip the page or anything.
This concludes our Edgar Allan Poe review this time, you just know he's going to re-appear a few times on this blog!
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