In fact, Dupin also has a "sidekick" who serves as his narrator. He is capable of empathizing with the criminal psyche because Dupin himself remains essentially isolated from the social world" (21). In this regard, Magistrale reports that, "Dupin solves crimes in part from his ability to identify with the criminal mind. For inventing such a fully realised detective before the word "detective" even existed, it's tempting to label Poe a genius.Watson, and his several forays into the real world to solve mysteries that confounded others. The Murders in the Rue Morgue has changed the face of popular culture, and is essential reading for that reason alone. Isn't this Holmes speaking? Why does he utter a French tag instead of retreating to Baker Street? Conan Doyle's debt to Poe is hard to estimate – as is our own. The duo are so like Conan Doyle's in their attitude towards each other, in their manner of speaking and in how they solve problems together that reading the word "Dupin" in the text becomes a stumbling point. There may well have been detective stories without Dupin and his continually astounded companion, but there would definitely not have been any Holmes and Watson. Of course, the most exciting thing about this story is witnessing a new genre spring fully formed into the world. And while I might have doubted Dupin's deductive powers, the way he solves the story's conundrum of the sealed room and works out that the orangutan's master was a sailor from a Maltese vessel is exhilarating and brilliant. I loved how the whole story depends on the ape picking up his master's razor because he wished to emulate him, and have a shave. That the story hinges on this beast may seem absurd, but it is splendidly presented. Especially because, at this stage, we aren't aware that the killings have been carried out not by a singularly brutal man but by a rampaging monkey. The tongue had been partially bitten through. The poor murdered woman, meanwhile, was found with a face that was "fearfully discoloured, and the eyeballs protruded. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been pulled up by the roots"? By the roots! Later, we learn that these roots were "clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp". How to resist a newspaper report that starts with the information: "The inhabitants of Quartier St Roch were aroused from sleep by a succession of terrific shrieks"? Who wouldn't shudder upon reading: "On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. Perhaps we've gone slightly off the theme of this Halloween instalment of the Reading Group by tackling one of Poe's detective stories, but the gory details were among the things that most impressed me. Once I'd made it past the opening, and Poe's decidedly wacky theory that draughts provide a better test of "the higher powers of the reflective intellect" than chess, I was hooked. While it's easy to pick holes in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, it's easier still to enjoy and admire it. The birth of a genre … would we have had a Holmes and Dr Watson without the detective Dupin? Photograph: Colin Hutton Does it really seem likely that someone would think of "stereotomy" when stepping on a crack on the pavement, and from there go to Epicurus's atoms and then right to the constellation Orion? Does it also seem likely that someone else would understand and follow this train of thought simply by watching the person? And that's before we get to the meat of the story (look away now if you don't want to spoil the extremely surprising ending): a mystery set in motion when an orangutan goes on the rampage, cuts off an old woman's head with a razor and throttles and then stuffs her daughter up a chimney – at which point one can't help but make a joke about Henry James describing Poe's writing as "primitive". The trail of deduction Dupin next outlines is dafter still, and it's one he claims enabled him to work out what his companion was thinking. The technical term for such exchanges is "silly". How was it possible you should know I was thinking of _?'" I do not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses. 'Dupin,' said I gravely, 'this is beyond my comprehension. In an instant afterwards I recollected myself, and my astonishment was profound. 'There can be no doubt of that,' I replied unwittingly, and not at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my meditations. All at one Dupin broke forth with these words: 'He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the Théâtre des Variétés.' "Being both, apparently, occupied with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for 15 minutes at least.
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