Matthew Pearl specializes in a somewhat particular sub-genre of fiction, namely historical fiction. His first book, The Dante Club, was about Longfellow’s translation of Dante’s Inferno to English, which is historical fact. He adds, though, a series of gruesome murders seemingly based upon the Inferno which Longfellow and his fellow poets must muster up the courage to solve. It was a very enjoyable book, fast paced and a bit violent.
Pearl’s newest offering is The Poe Shadow. Again, it is an actual historical fact, the death of Edgar Allan Poe, that is the catalyst for the story. And the events of the novel, centering on Quentin Clark, are entirely fictional. Or, are they? This novel is more than a fictional account of what might have happened to Poe in Baltimore in 1849. It is Pearl’s hypothesis on what happened, developed after much careful research and the unearthing of new facts connected to Poe’s death. That he chooses to present his theory in a novel rather than a journal seems to be due more to his desire to use fiction to present his theory than any real weakness in what he has uncovered.
Quentin, a lawyer in Baltimore, is somewhat obsessed with Poe and his writings. Upon Poe’s death, which is very mysterious, Quentin takes it upon himself, with no small cost to his career and reputation, to uncover what happened to Poe. This takes him to Paris, where he finds the supposed inspirations for one of Poe’s most famous characters, the detective C. Auguste Dupin. Much adventure follows as Quentin and the detective return to Baltimore and try to uncover the truth behind Poe’s death before a charlatan beats them to it, or, worse yet, reveals some fictional account of Poe’s death that is believed more than the truth.
There are many subtle twists and turns that occur as Quentin discovers small facts about what happened to Poe during the mysterious 5 days between his first setting foot in Baltimore and his death. The one unfortunate aspect of the novel, for me, was that the “truth” is revealed at the end of the novel in a very expository way. The final story behind Poe’s death is related by the detective, Auguste Duponte, in a relatively dry account. That the hypothesis had to be directly narrated to Quentin, and thus the reader, in this way was somewhat anti-climactic.
However, overall, the book was very interesting and the theory on Poe’s death proposed by Pearl makes good sense, mostly for the fact that it is not sensationalist at all. All of the mysterious facts surrounding Poe’s death are attributed to relatively minor occurances, each of which, individually, are nothing extraordinary. It is the accumulation of such details that lead to the mystery surrounding Poe’s demise.
So, during our road trip to Oregon, Lisa and I listened to the 5th Harry Potter book on tape, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was the first direct exposure I’ve had to anything Harry Potter. I haven’t read any of the books and I haven’t seen any of the movies. I’ve sort of avoided them. Not so much because I dislike them, but more because I’m not so interested in them either. Because of the mania associated with the product, I’ve just stayed away. But, we had a long drive and it seemed like a good idea to listen to something, and Harry Potter was as good as anything.
The ferry was very nice (on the way out, anyways). It wasn’t too crowded and, while it was a slow mode of transport, it was nice to be able to walk around, get some food and drink (there was a bar on board) and play ping pong. I pretty much sucked at ping pong, but the last game I played, I eeked out a victory (more due to my opponent choking than any real skill on my part). The photo is the sunset from the boat over the water.
Speaking of enjoying ourselves, the food overall was very good. Not only the cafeteria, but also the local restaurants. One night, we went to a Basque Bistro. While no one there was Basque (except me, perhaps), the food was very good. I had squid in its own ink, another guy had grilled sardines, and everyone was happy. Another night, we went out to the B&B that Kurt was staying at and had a very nice meal. I had a special local menu in which every course was paired with a local cider (the region, Normandy, is known for its ciders). It started off with duck meatballs, went on to pork filets, had an intermediate course of local cheeses, and ended with dessert (which I can’t remember at this moment).
The most notable thing about Caen is the church steeples that fill the city line. And they are all nearly identical, again, a consequence of the bombing: all of the churches were rebuilt after the war. William the Conquerer, who conquered much of Britain from Normandy, is buried in one of the churches, the Men’s Abbey. His wife is buried on the other side of town in the Women’s Abbey. Interesting how the sexes were separated like that.
Caen is very close to the D-Day beaches and, after the conference finished, we spent an afternoon exploring the American Cemetary. It would have been nice to have more time to see the others, but even that much was worth it. Around 9000 Americans died during the Normandy invasion, and you get a sense of that cost in human life by visiting the cemetary. It is amazing to think that almost 3 times as many Americans died during that invasion than have died in Iraq. Maybe that says something about war becoming just a little bit humane (though, that doesn’t consider the cost in Iraqi life). There is a little museum there too, trying to give a sense of how difficult the task of taking those beaches was. Not that I’m in any kind of shape, but just hiking around the hills surrounding the beach winded me slightly. I can’t imagine trying to take the beach and the hills, carrying a bunch of equipment and being shot at.
to stop screaming. But, we survived and made it back to London, where there was a metro strike, so we had to deal with that. The next day, we had some meetings with collaborators at Imperial College. That night, we were all exhausted from the travel, so we just grabbed some dinner at a local pub and called it a night. The next day, we flew home.
This year, Lisa and I decided to drive instead of fly. We put the Prius to the test on a very long road trip — nearly 2000 miles each way. On the way there, we passed through the Vegas area, driving across the Hoover Dam. I’d never been there before and it was a pretty impressive site. Unfortunately, it was too hot for us to linger much, so we didn’t visit the visitor’s center or anything, but just stopped and looked around. It is an amazing engineering marvel. The water line was significantly lower than normal, as we could see the normal water line etched in the rocks. We could also see that they were building a new bridge to bypass the entire dam. We figured it was so people couldn’t just drive up to the dam as the dam is likely considered a terrorist target. But, the bridge they are working on looks to be pretty damn amazing itself. It is high above the dam, seemingly just coming out the side of the mountain. It will be cool to see the dam from the bridge once it is finished.
We stopped at the Paris Hotel that night. We got in a bit later than we wanted (partially because it took us forever to crawl down the strip to our hotel), so we didn’t do too much site seeing. We did look around the hotel itself. It was made up to look like a small French village, with the slot machines, of course. There were some things you might expect from anything French that was missing. There wasn’t a simple creperie. The only thing available served humongous Americanized crepes rather than the simple lemon ones you would get in Paris. And there weren’t any clothing shops, something you see in Paris a lot. These were all things Lisa noticed while we wandered around. But, overall, it was alright. We had a nice view of the Eiffel Tower outside our bedroom window.
