"People often see me as crazy, and I don't care. However, there is a question that has been lingering in my heart for a long time, that is: Is madness the highest manifestation of human intelligence?"
—Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's Leaked Heart was written 178 years ago, and he is known as the founder of the short story, the forerunner of science fiction, the founder of speculative fiction, and a full 72 years older than our vernacular novel founder, Mr. Lu Xun.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
The first time I read his novel, I didn't like it, and I even felt that he was a little biased psychologically, and the perspective and emotional traces of the novel were different from ordinary people. Checked his upbringing and experiences: his parents died one after another after the Revolutionary War, he grew up with his adoptive parents, rebelled against gambling, joined the West Point Military Academy and was dissuaded, and after his wife fell ill, he was drunk and insane.
Such mental disorders seem to be particularly capable of making contemporary artists, such as Yayoi Kusama, the queen of polka dots, Nikki Sanfaler of shooting art, and the "She" exhibition I watched at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, in which the bride has this strong horror color, and the bride in the wedding dress carries a variety of sharp alien emotions.
This is probably the collision of this kind of abnormal artist with the times and with his own life, bursting out of the fierce spark and cathartic aesthetic. There is a critical attitude, a spiritual revolt of the times, and a state of inertia beyond the present.
Nikki Sanfaler "The Bride" 2018 Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai "She"
Edgar Poe's Leaky Heart has such a rebellion, and although it was written in 1843, five years before his death, the abnormality of horror has solidified into the style of his novels. His text arrangement is exaggerated, and he piles up a lot of strange elements, such as the origin of the killing in the book: "All for his eyes!" Yes, for those eyes! His eyes were like eagles, light blue, and covered with layers of fog. As soon as that sight fell on me, my blood was cold. He loved the old man, but he killed people because of his eyes.
There is a video adapted from a novel on the Internet that very realistically restores this horror, alienation, or misread emotion. Acknowledging that the criminal process and psychology described by the author is very narrow, and even you can see through the ending at a glance, you have to admit that the special processing method of the Slope style brings the reader a unique sensory experience.
The Tell-Tale Heart Leaked Hearts of AeroS poe
In the novel, the criminals have cleaned up the murder scene, and the police handling the case have not found any problems, but the heartbeat of the old man who was killed is still ringing in the murderer's ears, and it is getting louder and louder, louder and louder, and he finally can't stand it and confesses the crime to the police. "Badass! I lost my voice and screamed, stop pretending to be garlic! My confession is! - Pry open the floor! - Here, here! - His hateful heart is beating! ”
Poe loves to describe untouchable fears in a dark world, to copy the feeling of suffocation that cannot be extricated in the approaching layers of auditory hallucinations. Someone commented on his novel: "This is the infiltration of the devil in the article, with extremely illusory horror, exposing the most terrible and even dark parts of human nature to the reader's eyes, which is a perfect combination of primitive fear and primitive mystery, so the article can bring people a corresponding shock to the soul." ”
His novels also have a Gothic style, perhaps elements that were popular 178 years ago: horror, mystery, doom, death, decadence, ghostly old houses, madness.
Poe uses Gothic depictions of the murderer's criminal psychology and the process of committing the crime, but it is not a detective drama in the general sense. He portrays the condemnation of conscience with the horror of darkness, he uses exaggerated techniques to show the psychological trajectory of morbid torture, he presents the suffocation of good and evil, he amplifies the fear between loss of control and death, but he is not responsible for preaching the values of right and wrong, he is only responsible for bringing the reader into such a scene, so that everyone can face and deal with it on their own. Then leave it to everyone to think: "Is madness the highest manifestation of human intelligence?"