A Month of Poe - The Fall of the House of Usher

Week three of reading Edgar Allan Poe is now over, and I have read The Fall of the House of Usher. Here are my thoughts on it…

This felt strikingly similar to Ligeia, with some unknown illness afflicting the characters which was supposed to make me feel some trepidation while reading. It did not. In fact, I found it incredibly dull, plodding and predictable.

This is, in my opinion, the worst of the three works by Poe that I have read this month and I am severely disappointed that even with my greatly reduced expectations, this failed to impress on any level.

I do not like Poe’s style of writing at all. I find him too wordy and repetitive, making any slight build-up of tension far too slow, rendering it ineffectual – I’ve yet to feel any horror or real suspense while reading Poe, which is a shame.

Perhaps my years of reading horror novels have rendered me immune to the genre, but I don’t think I was expecting too much in anticipating a few delightful shivers. Instead, I’ve found only boredom and the wish that I hadn’t bothered to read any of it.

However, I remain determined to complete my month of Poe, and hope that the shorter works (The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Raven) will leave a more positive impression on me. I already know the basic plot of The Masque of the Red Death, as I love the old movie starring Vincent Price, and I still harbour some hopes for The Raven, which is probably the most celebrated of Poe’s works.

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