The Front Office

As promised, here is my rapid reaction to The Fall of the House of Usher.

Holy run-on sentences, Edgar! My middle school English teachers would have completely run out of red ink had a draft of this story been dropped on their desks. Give us a moment to breathe, man.

So much description. So much exposition. It was a heavy, dense story to take in, and Poe’s vocabulary was definitely doing gymnastics. Challenging, but genuinely fun to read.

I even learned a new word:
Prolixity (noun): The quality or state of being unduly prolonged or drawn out.
(The irony of Poe using this word inside a sentence that took three calendar days to finish was not lost on me.)

The October and gothic vibes, though? Off the charts. The description of the decaying house itself, the suffocating rooms, the burial vault, and the meta-storytelling during the storm? Everything I hoped it would be.

And I got literal goosebumps when (SPOILER ALERT) Madeline appeared in the doorway.

My hottest take, however, is that all the heartbreak, dread, and agony would have been 100% avoidable with a few gallons of bleach and a dehumidifier. Black mold had to be saturating every square inch of that place. They should have ushered in a hazmat cleaning crew centuries ago.

That, and maybe lay off all the inbreeding. The toxic spores and the incent were definitely working against them.

Rating: 4 out of 5 ravens.