Transcript of Laura Lippman on Edgar Allan Poe
Laura Lippmann: Poe is exceptional at creating an atmosphere of dread. And when he chooses to, he plunges us into a world where you know something horrible is going to happen; you simply don’t know what it is. And you made the observation earlier in the interview [that] Poe leaves a lot of blank spaces. Poe is a subtle enough writer that he lets the reader project so much onto the text. And the primary thing that we project onto Poe’s work is whatever we fear the most. In reading “The Fall of the House of Usher,” I tried very hard to read it, this time, as neutrally as possible. Don’t project your own ideas. Don’t project your own themes. And yet, I couldn’t help but read it as a story about a woman somehow being dominated, held down, damaged by an unhealthy relationship with a man. I found myself reading it that way. I was like, “What is he doing to Madeline?” That clearly comes from my framework. It's something that I write about a lot in my own work. I write about the relationships between men and women. Somewhat to my surprise, I realize that my work returns again and again to the theme of how dangerous relationships are between men and women, how much rage there is, and how violence is often just below the surface. And so there I am. That’s just one example. And this is what I have projected onto the story. Another reader will project something completely different. If you’re a hypochondriac, do not read Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe who, I think because he himself had health issues obviously, had a very young wife, who died early from ill health. He was clearly obsesses with medical conditions. And I think Poe is just a nightmare for hypochondriacs. And when I read Poe, I’m glad I’m not a hypochondriac, because another way to read “The Fall of the House of Usher” is "What is Roderick suffering from?" And you can look at Roderick and Madeline and think, "What is going on in this house?" If a reader came to Poe’s work with a predisposition to believe that family is dangerous, that families are dysfunctional, then there you have the proof. It’s the closeness, it’s the intimacy of family that somehow destroys Roderick and Madeline. I mean, there are as many ways to read this story as there are people who will read it.
