What was Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous story? My restlessness and The Cask of Amontillado

My eyes are heavy. I am trying to sleep. Sleep is evading me. Restlessness is here. This is a new place. I have come here for some time. It’s an outskirt of a small town in northern India. I will stay here for some days. It’s night. It’s almost 11 o clock at night. Here is silence everywhere. Complete tranquility. Just beyond there is a concrete factory. Some machine is still working there. A faint grinding sound is reaching my room. There is no other sound outside. It’s dark. Dead dark. ….No… Wait… There is one more sound… tick …tick.. tick…it’s a clock on the wall. The needle of the second is making a noise every second. I am trying to sleep. It’s not coming.

Though, I am tired. Mr. EDGAR ALLAN POE is coming to my mind. I don’t know why? I wish to read him. It’s a perfect ambiance. Though I know my brain is not focused. I am exhausted. I still long to read him. I am rolling over his titles on my iPad. I want something short. Here it is. This one is just 12-pages. I have opened it. It is THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO. I am reading this. I have finished it. It is really short. In a few pages, only dialogues. A quick read. I think I have sensed the story. This is not that great. Just OK! Now sleep is overcoming me. I am sleeping. GOOD NIGHT!

This is the next morning. I have woken up early. I am leaving the bed. The story is flashing in my mind. But it is blurred. It is very filmy, unclear. My mind is fresh. I want to write a short review on GR. I will give it three-star. Not more than that. I am thinking. I am ready to write, first on paper but I am not getting anything. I remember an avenger had taken revenge. But I am feeling nothing. What was the story? I knew that at night. But I want to visualize! I am not able to. Did I read it in delirium? I decide I will read it again after the bath. I read it again. This time I am keeping a lexicon alongside. I am jotting down these words arrowing them like an uninteresting baby, on a paper.

VAULT—> VINTAGE—> PALAZZO—> SCONCES—> FLAMBEAUX—> CATACOMB—> PUNCHEON—> FLAGON—> MASON—> TROWEL—> CRYPT—> STAPLES—> PADLOCK—> A RAPIER

Can you see the sequence of these words is hinting at the storyline? I am minting them one by one in my mind. It is over. OK. Now I know how it was happening there. I can now visualize. I was missing the Italian flavor. A VAULT was something else for me at night. It is a true Italian word. It is clear now… Same with VINTAGE… It was something else at night. In the morning it became wine, an Italic wine. I had forgotten the story was based in Italy. In the same way, I know all of them now, the Italian way! While re-reading the story, this quote is becoming more and more clear to me now.

“I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.”

CASK OF AMONTILLADO

I am ready for the review now. Here I am writing it. IT’S NOT A THREE-STAR. IT’S A FIVE-STAR NOW. I think this story is not only about horror. This story did not terrify me at all. I read it twice. I was not affrighted both times. It looked lyrical. It was all jest until the last. It was like a drama. I think I should not call it a story. It is just an act. I think the quote mentioned above in the very first part of this story settles the purport of the story.

The tale is something like this.

Two men, one mortifies, the other disparaged, both moving on, side by side, unaware of each other’s intentions, their arms intertwined as if of two best buddies. One is drunk in Italian vintage wine. Other is also drunk but in vengeance. Both smiling, making jokes, concerning each other, the disparaged one taking all subtle cares of the mortifier, slowly and willingly both reaching to the remotest part of a crypt of a catacomb, and among all this merriment, an act of retribution is performed by the avenger, in such a way that it could only be perceived 50 years later. The perfect execution!

In my comprehension, this is not just about horror or a tale of retribution. It’s is something else. I am lacking the exact word on how to define it. I think this is a FARRAGO. This is an interfusion of the art of narration of Poe with the subtlety of a perfect crime execution. Perhaps this story is a mélange of horror, retribution, and psychoanalysis. But whatever it is…It is something unprecedented!

THANK YOU, MR. EDGAR ALLAN POE!

I will read to you again after going back to my place!

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