I was inspired to pen reviews for short stories selected by a certain book club, as I had an interest in joining them but could never work up the courage to either talk with my own voice, or even attend their live meetings. I decided that writing my opinions on my blog would serve as a fine alternative, and additionally provide the advantage of being viewable for posterity, barring extreme circumstances.
With that in mind, let's look at the first entry(that I'm reviewing in depth), The Black Cat.
The story starts with the author trying to convince people that this is a real account of events that seem extraordinary, which, yeah, whatever. I get it, you want to sell us on the horror, now show us the story.
The protagonist, who is also the narrator, then goes on to wax about his love for pets. He specifically starts focusing on a cat - a black cat named Pluto. He briefly talks about his blossoming friendship with him, but really, this is Poe, and he already warned about this being a real account of horrifying events. You just know things are going to get sour soon. And to make the point even more obvious, he makes a brief mention of how black cats were generally regarded as witches in disguise - a bit of obvious foreshadowing that the characters dismiss as superstitious nonsense. Oh, to be trapped in the realm of fiction...
For whatever reason, the protagonist narrates about how he became an ill tempered drunk, started beating his wife, neglecting his pets etc. We're never told why he suddenly had this change of personality, it's just a thing that happens for the sake of the story. Well, there's merit in being honest? I guess? Predictably, he starts turning his raging side onto his cat, and goes so far as to cut one of its eyes! Way to go, protagonist, way to go.
Naturally, this is when things start to fall apart, and the horror begins to set in. The protagonist briefly has an epiphany, which he sadly drowns in booze. Then, his feelings for Pluto change quickly, for the worse. He writes a long paragraph trying to justify how humans feel a "natural" inclination to break laws and morals for the sake of it, which, okay buddy. Whatever makes you feel better, haha.
All of that is just buildup to him hanging the cat. For, err, reasons. Annnnd this is where everything truly goes down the drain. First his house abruptly burns down that night. Then one of the few surviving walls has an image of the dead cat mysteriously painted onto it. The protagonist tries to reason that it could be the dead cat somehow being baked into the plaster of the wall by the fire, but we know better than that.
By some miracle, the protagonist finds yet another black cat and befriends it. Only to then inexplicably feel disgust towards it again. Thankfully, the protagonist isn't completely dumb and restrains himself from killing it...for a while. When he finally attempts to, though, his wife stops him, and in turn becomes a victim. He buries her behind a loosely bricked wall, and for a while, he even enjoys some solitary time, as the cat seemingly abandons him.
But you know quite well that things wouldn't just end there. And soon enough, the cat's spirit takes its revenge, as the protagonist, in a fit of bravado, outright pokes the fake wall behind where lay his dead wife. Some frightening shrieks immediately arise, and when the police dig it up, they found his wife's corpse erect, with the cat on her head!
So, what was that story, overall? Well there's certainly a rather obvious message of retribution and how being needlessly cruel often backfires badly. Besides that, it tries to play with the mental state of the protagonist themselves, who also conveniently happens to be the narrator, to attempt to get the reader invested into their perspective. Unfortunately, this protagonist's turn of personality is rather abrupt to get invested in, but Poe's writing does a decent job selling his mental condition throughout regardless.
Really, the biggest downfall of this story is how many of its events happen arbitrarily. The protagonist becomes a raging drunk for no real reason. He decides to kill his cat for no real reason. Then, when he finds another cat, he again starts hating it, inexplicably. Before inexplicably killing his wife and finally finding peace, briefly. I suppose an argument could be made that this is indeed the point, that Poe is trying to denounce unwarranted cruelty by showing its consequences on the protagonist. Yet, the way the events are laid out, this fails to make for a compelling narrative.
This is not to say that the events had to make perfect sense to be impactful, especially given that this is the realm of horror. Rather, they would be much more compelling if there was a plausible purpose to them, at least from the protagonist's point of view. As it is, things mostly happen for the sake of plot, and it's hard to get invested into either the characters involved, or the sequence of events itself.
Overall, I think this is mainly a case of a decent premise being wasted by poor narration. A shame too, as Poe clearly has the capacity to create strong, morbid atmosphere, always well suited to a horror tale. The end result is not bad per se, but certainly disappointing, especially considering what the author is capable of.
Final Rating: 4.5/10
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