On occasion, when you spend time in the company of dead authors, you come across an obscure little story that inspired something far more well known. Occasionally the original feels like it is a pastiche of the more famous work. That is the case with this little tale by our Dear Edgar. But before we come to that let me illustrate this point with a little story of my own.

A somewhat casual ex-girlfriend of mine, was in an equally casual relationship with younger man, she was younger than me, he was younger than her. Both relationships were a tad torrid and doomed from the outset, but none of that is important, and it was fun for a time (and quite some time ago). The reason I bring this up is because one night the two of them watched the original Mad Max, the DVD of which she had borrowed from me, which was the main reason she told me this story.

In any regard, it gets to the end where Max handcuffs ‘the toe cutter’ to his car, and gives him a hacksaw, doing the whole speech… ‘The cuffs are carbonized steel and will take you twenty minutes to cut through, but you could cut through your arm in a couple of minutes.’ then sets the car on fire, leaving the Toe Cutter with a choice. Lose an arm or be blown up and die in fiery agony…

The young boyfriends response to this was ‘Seen that before, they stole from SAW’.

Now obviously he wasn’t the brightest as the concept of Mad Max being the much older movie did not occur to him. Despite the original Mad max been a low budget Australian movie that shows its age. But he had indeed ‘seen’ the whole arm or cuffs bit ‘before’ in his own objective time line SAW was the original, not the one inspired by another movie. I suspect it would have blown his mind to point out neither movie did that scene first…

Okay, so small wander through my own past over, lets get back to Dear Edgars The Oval Portrait. The story, which is about as short as Poe ever gets, involves an injured man stumbling into an abandoned Château. How he was injured? From who is he taking refuge? Does he like cream in his coffee? Was he ever in a complex casual love triangle with a younger woman? None of this is explained in the current version of the story. But this doesn’t matter the narrator story is not the story, the story is within the story, his story merely sets a framework in which to tell the actual story.

To pass the time while he hides out, or possibly convalesces, or whatever he is doing, our narrator examines paintings on the walls of the room, and reads a reference book that talks about them. Which is a perfectly normal thing to do after you break into a house with some undisclosed injury. Eventually he sees a painting he had not seen before in an oval frame. A portrait of a beautiful young woman. A portrait so captivating he is mesmerized by its for almost an hour. It is so absolutely life like, so ‘real’ in nature, the artist had captured the young woman in such exquisite detail, he is astounded by it. (this is the era before 4k HD clearly)

Once his memorization fades he looks up the picture in the refence book and then the story within the story is revealed. The painter was the husband of the young woman in the portrait. An eccentric who cared more for his work than anything else in the world, including the subject of the painting. The paining does indeed capture the life of the young woman, who dies while sitting for the portrait he insists on painting of her. The not entirely expressed implication is the life of the young woman was captured by the painting. Which is why it is so life like. It is life, all her life.

This is all beautifully written, it is the kind of story Poe writes so well, with a structured poetic prose that draws you along and lets you feel the old leather bindings of the book, and the capturing beauty of the painting. this is one of his shortest tales, and yet the perfect length for him to tell this story in the way it is told. Oscar Wilde praised this story for its ‘Rhythmical Expression’ which is hard to argue with, even if I was inclined to argue with Oscar. Speaking of whom…

Oscar’s praise for ‘The Oval Portrait’ came a few years before ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ was published. He made no secret of aspects of the novel been inspiring by Poe. While admittedly in Oscars opus the painting shows the true face of its evil subject, the idea of a life been captured in canvas remains the same. Reading this story after having read Dorian Gray years ago, it struck me I knew this story, I had read it before… It was a hacksaw handcuffs moment…

This is, as I have said, a very short story. It is also far from the most well known in Poe’s bibliography, it is however well worth a read. It is a somewhat mesmerizing little tale, perfectly told. It is also very very Poe. A mans wreaked by obsession, the death of a beautiful woman… This has been going on since he wrote Berenice and Morella some seven years before. With his wife Virginia growing ill it was a subject very much on his mind by 1842.

A FULLY FLEDGED UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

SHOULD YOU READ IT: Its a short read but a beautiful, if dark, twisted and somewhat disturbing, read. So yes, yes you should

Bluffers fact: This story was first published under the title ‘Life in Death’, in that original version there were several opening paragraphs that tell the reader how the narrator had been wounded and that he had taken opium for the pain. Poe removed these from the later version as he felt they added nothing to the story but ambiguity. Making the paintings life like nature seem to be a hallucination.

Having sought out the original version in the dark recesses of the internet, and utterly failed to find it, I must concede he was entirely correct to do so… But it does mean I will never find out if the narrator ever in a complex casual love triangle with a younger woman…