Summary: A locked room mystery with decapitations, people stuffed up chimmies, and unintelligible accents.
Bonus:
Kinda accurate to the story.
Summary: Tonight's silent book club theme was mysteries. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is widely credited as the first detective story, and I was happy for an excuse to read more Poe.
Two women are murdered (in a locked room, because of course). One is shoved up a chimney, the other is decapitated (seemingly by the straight razor at the scene of the crime). The most important clue is that there were two voices heard, one French and one variously described as one of a half dozen unintelligible foreign languages, each by a person who speaks a different languages (eg an Italian says its Russian, a Russian says its Spanish, etc.).
Poe's anonymous (very self-inserty) narrator and Dupin establish the Watson-Holmes pairing very quickly, down to being vaguely gay.
In the end, it's a fun story, but somewhat weakened by the fact that several of the clues don't show up until too late. After a rambling introduction (using as examples) of calculation vs analysis, Poe gives the details of the murder via newspaper clippings. I've summarized the key points above. Poe and Dupin investigate the scene of the crime for about a paragraph, then return to their gothic mansion. Dupin has it solved! Thanks to a tuft of hair and a ribbon he pulls out of his ass. An orangutan stole its owner ( a sailor)'s razor and escaped. It comes to the rooms of the two women, murders one and tries to hide the body from the sailor. It lops off the other's head and throws her into the street. Also, the room isn't locked, due to a precisely damaged nail that looks like it's holding the window shut.
3/5 on the classics scale. Interesting and significant despite its faults.
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