Watery Hell

I'm cat sitting for my old boss in Harrogate and he has so many books. He's the manager at Oxfam books and a Penguin Classics nerd. SO MANY BOOKS. I knew I could count on his collection to have some of the authors I'm looking for!

So no Leonora this time, but one more Kafka book (ready to give him yet another chance, look at this gorgeous book cover too), and a collection of Poe stories.

Everything, everywhere is leading me to Poe.

Moody weather. Crows, ravens and magpies everywhere I go. I just feel an affinity of some sort towards him, the grumpy goth, I feel like I need to mother him. He's crying in his writing and I'm there as the reader to soothe him and stroke his goth mophead.

Deep words from the old chap:

(MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE)

'The sun arose with a sickly yellow lustre'  

'At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the albatross - at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some kind of watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sounds disturbed the slumber of the kraken.'

'Inspector of Cemeteries'

(THE TELL-TALE HEART)

'The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?'

'It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.'

'A new anxiety seized me'

'It is the beating of his hideous heart!'

(THE BLACK CAT)

He killed the goddam cat and it's horrible. Nope.

'Its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed me'

THEMES:

Madness/Insanity

Death

The Afterlife/Underworld

Women

Love and Heartbreak

Animals (Raven, Gold Bug, Kraken, The Black Cat)

Planets (Jupiter, Pluto)

Superstition

Mystery and Murders