First Things First…
Apparently there’s a plague and a bizarre court. Sounds like Poe again trod familiar territory, but that’s okay. I really liked “Shadow—A Parable,” which felt like a precursor to “The Masque of the Red Death.” And when I eventually review “Masque…”, it’s likely to get close to a perfect score. Plus, it sounds like this story also includes drunken sailors. Should be a good time!
3 Things I Like
3. No Explanation
I’m being inconsistent here. I so often want an explanation for why things are the way they are, especially when they don’t seem to make much sense. But the fact that King Pest and his “family” of Pests are in the plague zone, basically living out a fantasy in their own little fantasy world, and there’s no mention of why they’re there or why they haven’t fled, works for me. It’s bizarre, and any background about them going crazy, or being crazy in the first place, might’ve ruined it.
2. One Prominent Feature
“His face was as yellow as saffron—but no feature excepting one alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh superadded upon the natural head.”
Narrator
When the sailors encounter the Pests, the first is described as having just one prominent physical feature worth commenting on—his forehead.
Then, as the second Pest is described, Hugh notices that all of them are in the same boat. With the woman in question, it’s her mouth. After her is a young lady whose nose is “extremely long, thin, sinuous, flexible, and pimpled,” and which hangs down so far below her lip that she can push it from side to side with her tongue!
Each Pest, in turn, has some odd body part like this. It’s grotesque, and it piggybacks off of my last point—I like that there’s no explanation. In many other cases, I’m sure I’d talk about how unrealistic it is that these people are ALL the same in having one physical deformity each, but it works here. There’s a certain symmetry in the idea that they each stand out in their own very peculiar way.
1. The Plague Zone and the Undertaker’s Shop
As soon as the sailors enter the plague zone, they realize that horrors abound. Everything is decrepit. Houses are abandoned and falling down. Grass is overgrowing the stone walkways and buildings. The air is misty and filled with “the most fetid and poisonous smells.”
And that’s before they even enter the undertaker’s shop.
Once inside, they see King Pest holding a human thigh bone. One of the Pests sits inside a mahogany coffin. And they all drink from portions of a skull, while a human skeleton dangles over them from the ceiling by one leg.
It’s the type of ambiance I’d only expect from Poe.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. Drunken Sailors
Legs and Hugh Tarpaulin don’t do much for me. I don’t mind them, but I thought they’d bring more to the table as, y’know, drunken sailors.
The Pests, though not particularly fleshed out characters either, are much more fascinating, mainly because they’re such oddities.
1 Thing I Don’t Like
1. Who Is Tim Hurlygurly?
“At the name Tim Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their seats.”
Narrator
Now here’s one thing where I feel an explanation is necessary. When they drop this name, the Pests all lose their shit and shout “treason” at the sailors. But why? This is a name that means nothing to us. I’d like to know who Timmy H. is and why his name arouses such emotion.
Tim Matassa
