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Loading... The Poe Shadowby Matthew Pearl
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I thought the book dragged in the first half, but stuck with it and enjoyed the last hafl. Matthew Pearl has quite the imagination. (  ) janetcoletti | Nov 24, 2009 |  I just couldn't ride the zeal of the main character to shed light on the mysterious circumstances regarding Poe's death. I found him overly whiny and naive. And I couldn't help but side with the characters around him who see him as being a downright selfish fool. I did enjoy reading the big theory, or the result of Duponte's investigation, plus the notes at the end of the book. (  ) ulan25 | Nov 22, 2009 | I found The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl, much more enjoyable than my first encounter with this author, The Dante Club. This may have been due, in part, to Poe being a much more familiar literary figure than Dante. I also found his descriptions of mid nineteenth century Baltimore much richer than the more distant past of Boston Pearl wrote about in the other book. Matthew Pearl weaves a wonderful historical novel around the missing last days of Poe’s life. There are certain documented historical facts concerning Poe’s last days, such as his trip to raise money, but he then vanishes until he mysteriously turns up in Baltimore, like a figure from one of his own works, at death’s door in a bar room being used as a polling place, where in his few lucid moments raves incoherently. Pearl seizes on this and even goes so far was to enlist the aid of one of Poe’s creations, Inspector Dupin and a second figure, also claiming to be the model for the noted crime solver. What follows are two interpretations the known facts about the time immediately preceding Poe’s death until he is actually buried. The story resembles a prolonged version of the tale of the blind monks encountering an elephant, each touching a different portion of the animal and each convinced that what they feel is the true nature of what an elephant is really like. We really do not know what happened to Poe during the missing time, but Pearl delivers an entertaining possible explanation. If you remember that this is a work of fiction and do not concentrate on the reality of Poe, the story is a wonderful period piece of life in Baltimore of a time long since past. I do not know how much of Perl’s research on Poe is entirely new, but I found his views plausible. If you are a fan of Poe, check this out. If you enjoy historical fiction or real life mysteries, this is worth your time. A good solid four star work. (  ) PghDragonMan | Nov 18, 2009 | Umm.... I liked it. I think. One of the stronger elements to the book was a fairly believable 19th Century American voice. The pedantic in me liked, no, loved the original research that went into the novel. Some of the "twists" were really only turns. I for one loved the non-fictive elements. Not sure if that's a word. It was true to the sad life of Poe and offers a couple ideas as to how he truly died. (  ) benjclark | Nov 17, 2009 | Quentin Clark, a Baltimore attorney, is obsessed with Poe's death. He is determined to resolve it with the help of the person who was the basis for Poe's character Dupin. Has he chosen the right Dupin? Will the mystery surrounding Poe's death be resolved? I had difficulty forcing myself to finish this book. The book did not hold my attention. The book was at least 100 pages too long. I never felt a connection to the lead character. I would much prefer to read the primary source materials from which this work was drawn than this work which does not do a very good job of combining the facts surrounding Poe's death with a fictional sleuth to investigage it. (  )1  thornton37814 | Sep 26, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812970128, Paperback)“I present to you . . . the truth about this man’s death and my life.”Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. The public, the press, and even Poe’s own family and friends accept the conclusion that Poe was a second-rate writer who met a disgraceful end as a drunkard. Everyone, in fact, seems to believe this except a young Baltimore lawyer named Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a passionate crusade to salvage Poe’s. As Quentin explores the puzzling circumstances of Poe’s demise, he discovers that the writer’s last days are riddled with unanswered questions the police are possibly willfully ignoring. Just when Poe’s death seems destined to remain a mystery, and forever sealing his ignominy, inspiration strikes Quentin–in the form of Poe’s own stories. The young attorney realizes that he must find the one person who can solve the strange case of Poe’s death: the real-life model for Poe’s brilliant fictional detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of ingenious tales of crime and detection. In short order, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in sinister machinations involving political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade, and the lost secrets of Poe’s final hours. With his own future hanging in the balance, Quentin Clark must turn master investigator himself to unchain his now imperiled fate from that of Poe’s. Following his phenomenal debut novel, The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl has once again crossed pitch-perfect literary history with innovative mystery to create a beautifully detailed, ingeniously plotted tale of suspense. Pearl’s groundbreaking research–featuring documented material never published before–opens a new window on the truth behind Poe’s demise, literary history’s most persistent enigma. The resulting novel is a publishing event that, through sublime craftsmanship, subtle wit, and devious twists, does honor to Poe himself From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
LibraryThing AuthorMatthew Pearl is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing. Author ChatMatthew Pearl chatted with LibraryThing members from Oct 5, 2009 to Oct 16, 2009. Read the chat.
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