Jan 09 2009
Edgar Allan Poe’s Detective Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin
I shook my head in agreement during the first evening class I took for fun on detective fiction. It was no surprise to me and made perfect sense when the teacher declared that Edgar Allan Poe was the father of detective fiction. I remembered Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin and The Murders in the Rue Morgue. I confess that I was a bit bemused by the absurdity of the crimes, my first reading elicited a laugh or two or more. The vision of bodies pushed up a chimney and the difficulty to retrieve them was humorous in a way…almost like a Quentin Tarantino film. You know the one with the scenes where you don’t want to admit you laughed but hey, it is crazy funny in some way?
I can’t help but imagine that if Poe had lived longer there would have been more detective stories. Perhaps in another realm…
You can read more about the history of detective fiction visit Classic Crime Fiction. Here is a review from YouTube’s One Minute Critic (YouTube user crashsolo) on an audiobook read by David Case called Murders in the Rue Morgue & Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
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