Have you ever stopped to think about an author, I mean really think about them? Most likely not, you just want to have a great time reading don’t you? The writer is not all that important anyway, they are just here for your amusement; After all the most common thought of a writer is some middle aged man sitting in his mother’s basement writing all day and night or a woman sitting in her house filled with cats and pitching her writing ideas to her furry companions. It may be true that most authors enjoy a cat or a dog as a pet, but the truth is that most of them have great lives and alluring tales; but once in a while I stumble over an author like Edgar Allan Poe or Avi.
We expect authors to be robots or great explorers and some of them are, but others just seem to waste your time. Okay so I believe that authors are real people made for more than just are amusement but, couldn’t they in just a smallest way be kind of fascinating. Now just because they are real people does not mean that they are all great people, or even the least bit enthralling, but we feel compelled to listen to them. By reading them we are following some unwritten reading rule or manner, after all aren’t we?
Now before I begin to ramble, I must tell you about an author and not just any writer: Edgar Allan Poe; Edgar Allan Poe was one of the greatest writers in America, but that didn’t make him the best guy ever. He often drank and was diagnosed with depression, bi-polar disease, and insanity, He found that drinking was a way to cure his depression, mood swings, and blackouts from the real world and his writings; so he self medicated. When I was done reading The Man Who Was Poe I concluded that Mr. Poe might have been paranoid and might have had OCD; but in the book Avi certainly didn’t use Poe’s qualities to his best interest.
His paranoia comes from when in the middle of the book, while Poe/Mr. Dupin goes to a tea party and imagines that everyone around him is a demon. I also didn’t like the fact that Poe didn’t know the difference between the world and his fiction. Poe makes a horrible detective, and because of his OCD he notices things that most people wouldn’t notice; the book can often become confusing if you don’t concentrate on literally EVERYTHING that happens. “Everything you know is a key” which is a hint Poe gives the main character Edmund meaning that everything in the book no matter how small the detail is involved in the ending. I must admit I started to feel enraged at the author halfway through the book, because Edmund’s voice wasn’t spoken until the far end of the book; Edgar Allan Poe either didn’t listen or just used Edmund for buying himself liquor at times.
The Man who was Poe was a very confusing book, partly because Poe often switched personalities with himself and one of his many characters. This lead to many different emotions, at times there would be lots of hope for the characters and then in a furious fit, Poe would say that the person had no hope or had to die no matter what. He was a killjoy often throughout the book. At one point I thought about not reading it at all, but still continued to read which proved to be a waste of time in this world of great literature; I prefer not to be bothered by any bad authors ever again. If you like challenge and think this is great book, please take my advice do not hesitate to leave that area of the library as soon as you see it or run from the bookstore that recommends this book. If it’s the last thing you do please read a book worth reading; not The Man who was Poe by: Avi.