Edogawa Rampo (1894–1965)

3.5? Maybe higher, I'm terrible at rating anthologies. The best story here is absolutely the first, The Chair, about a guy who lives in a chair and the incredibly described erotic, intimate feelings he gets when people sit on him, unknowingly. It's really unique and fascinating and weird. The way he "reciprocates" by adjusting his chair-body to better suit the person sitting on him... It's repulsive and sexual, it's great.

There's another story focusing on a similar combination of emotions about a woman and her severely disabled husband who had a quadruple amputation after a war injury and also can't talk/hear. I had pretty mixed feelings because it's both grossly ableist in terms of focusing on how weird and gross he is now... But also again there's the same focus on how the wife finds this incredibly erotic and hot and loves getting to "play" with him in his present state. The combination of eroticism and repulsion is unpleasant to read and the whole story is pretty horrible in those ways but it's still a really interesting work to read.

The other stories are a combination of weird tales, horror and stuff more in a mystery vein. The worst story here features his incredibly popular series detective solving a murder that we see from the perspective of the murderer but it's incredibly weak - the "gotcha" type way the detective catches the murderer would be so easy to get out of by just saying "oh I must have misremembered". Really disappointing given how popular his mysteries were!

The other stories don't reach the fascination the first two I mentioned do but all of them are effectively creepy and uncomfortable and leave you a little unsettled in the end. Definitely an entertaining read.… (more)

There are a lot of authors that are claimed as Edgar Allan Poe's successor. There is only one Poe and many second rate imitators. Rampo however, is an author that clearly understands Poe, that can channel Poe styling and put his own voice in the work. This story about a creepy creator of a bizarre chair that on its surface is not a scary concept, but Rampo twists this initial seed of a story into a very unnerving tale of obsession and extreme voyeurism. It's got all the Poe hallmarks: a grotesque protagonist, a dark, cold, but plush atmosphere, a broken psyche, and a truly shocking twist. These are pretty standard in most inspired works. What Rampo gets about Poe that many authors fail at is the rhythm of the story. There's a slow build up of the stories heart beat. Something that crescendos, when the story reaches a high point it drops you off a cliff. It's in the sudden change that the impact of the story is felt, not necessarily how creepy the twist is or how dark the story is. There's no limit to the depravity of the human mind. Darkness is not what makes a story unnerving, Rampo clearly understands this and like Poe is great at manipulating our emotions to break our spirit. I can't wait to consume more of Rampo's work.… (more)