Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe (1835): A Review

Title: Berenice

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Publication Year: 1835

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Horror, Gothic

Source: Ebook @everand_us

I just finished re-reading this short story, and it's still a wild ride of beauty and creepiness—like a haunted carousel that you can't get off! Edgar Allan Poe is really settling into his gothic groove, moving away from his earlier humorous tales to something much more sinister. Who knew he had it in him to evolve from a jokester to the king of gloom? Well, everyone probably already knew!

If you thought "Morella" was eerie, brace yourself! Our narrator (Egaeus)—who has the surprisingly rare distinction of having a name—offers us a glimpse into his peculiar psychological state and his love life. Spoiler alert: things take a bizarre turn, and I was definitely not prepared for this level of wrongness!

So, our guy is grappling with an obsessive disorder, a monomania fixating on… wait for it… his wife's teeth! Yes, you read that right. At this point, I thought, "Okay, creepy factor achieved; we can stop here." But nope! Poe takes it up a notch, leading our narrator to possess those pearly whites! That's where things get genuinely terrifying, especially when the narrator realizes what has happened just as we, the readers, are discovering it.

Honestly, Poe threw everything at us: mental quirks, a slightly unhinged man, an unfortunate wife, and an obsession that would make any dentist shudder. It's as if he had a checklist for horror and made sure to hit every point!

Quotation 1. Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform.

Quotation 2. But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

Quotation 3. My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself.

Quotation 4. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind.