Thursday, October 9, 2014

The Purloined Letter: Review

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” offers a glimpse into the mind of a brilliant

man. Or does it? It can be a tedious read at times while the narrator, the narcissistic private

detective, ventures to explain every single bit of thinking that went on in his head as he was

figuring out the mystery of the letter’s location. It seems like he must use every bit of

information that he has ever learned from kindergarten to the higher education to not only solve

the mystery and procure the letter but also to tell the story in detail. Yes, the story is interesting.

But its quality lies not so much in the substance of the intellectual discourse (which, most likely,

belongs in a scientific report), but in the solving of the mystery itself. In other words, if not for

human curiosity, this short story might have had difficult time finding readership.

2 comments:

  1. It was a little bit of a tedious read. Almost wanted him to get to the point, but at the same time it had wishing I could be that descriptive in my writing.

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  2. it was a long read and everything was dragged on and like the above comment mentioned that i wish they could just get to the point. It was interesting and does resemble as mentioned a hitchcock film. Whenever we think things are going one way it suddenly boggles our minds and changes direction.

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