Edgar Allan Poe/Headscratchers


 * When is C. Auguste Dupin going to get his film adaptation? Hollywood is long overdue for giving Sherlock Holmes' predecessor some credit.
 * In fairness, Dupin is a less cinematic than Holmes. And "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is the only mystery that involves much physical action; "The Purloined Letter" has minimal action and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" has absolutely none, being no more than Dupin staring at newspapers and making educated guesses. Note also that Dupin is not described physically in the tales, because Poe wanted to stress that he is essentially pure intellect. It could be argued that a video adaptation of Dupin would be the nec plus ultra of Misaimed Fandom. And there are, of course, far fewer source tales to use in the first place. You'd essentally have to write entirely new material to make Dupin a film character.
 * True, but they created an entirely new villain and new plot for the 2009 Holmes film. With the right actors, great music, It Will Never Catch On jokes, and nice helpings of Dupin/No Name Given Sidekick Ho Yay, you could make a really entertaining adaptation of "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (the murderer is -- how much better can it get?) and easily add some more action to it. They could make the "murderer" more violent when they catch up to it for a good (if weird, therefore even better) fight scene, and even make him the creative weapon of a particularly devious villain, which would not be far off for an author whose characters could kill with, for example, a poisoned candle. "The Purloined Letter" could be used in the first act to show off Dupin's genius. Not that they would want to skip over Dupin and his Watson meeting and moving in together -- Dupin would provide time for some origin story that there's rarely any room for in Sherlock Holmes adaptations.
 * In all likelyhood, he'd be dismissed as a Sherlock Homes ripoff by a public that doesn't know any better.
 * Holmes is far more interesting and a more defined character than Dupin. Even though Dupin debuted over half a century earlier, he reads as a much shallower version of Holmes.
 * Some of Poe's works are irritatingly hard to read. I myself have a vast knowledge about really long and difficult words, but some of Poe's sentences are so damn long (One memorable one was about half a page) and complex that it sometimes takes even four times, before I even understand what he is saying. No offence to Poe, but he should have really leaned, how to cut sentences so they would be easier to understand.
 * Somewhat justified. A lot of his character are rambling crazies.
 * Bit hypocritical, aren't you? You're abusing commas in a very confusing fashion there.
 * And that makes the original poster's point any less valid how?
 * See, whenever I see an author get like that in his or her writing, I always just assume it's intentionally ridiculous.
 * Well, it depends. During Poe's time period, perhaps, but less than a century prior we have some fairly wacky ways of using spelling and grammar before it was completely set in stone. Look no further than Ben Franklin's Autobiography; the guy's brilliant but he brutalizes the language to no end. No way that was tongue in cheek.
 * Poe fancied himself an intellectual and a gentleman. In reality, he was trying to show off his supposed intellectual superiority, even though he himself didn't know what he was saying part of the time. Whenever Poe sticks in some foreign language without translation, that's him trying to flaunt his knowledge to the reader.