Choice 评论
Magistrale and Poger (both Univ. of Vermont) are correct in saying that "Poe is the American Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum, exploring a compressed world populated by psyches out of control." Poe's genius was in creating a central character (monster or criminal) with whom the reader has a relationship that is almost unbearable yet extremely pleasurable. So enticing is this contradiction that it has been exploited fully by the writer's numerous "children" whose work is examined here in relation to his: Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Harris, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, filmmaker Roger Corman, and the writers and directors of such films as Chinatown, Seven, and Blade Runner. The direct influence of one artist on another is always hard to substantiate, but one could use the same evidence the authors present here and come to a slightly different conclusion with which few would disagree: that the literary macabre is a genre so uniquely alluring that it seems likely to continue as long as there are artists and audiences, and that no one was better at it than the restless alcoholic genius named Poe, who died too young and in mysterious circumstances, like one of his own characters. Upper-division undergraduates and graduate students. D. Kirby; Florida State University