Deep Dive
Poe's Profanity: The Mystery of "The Grackle"
All right, then, onto another deep dive. And wow, this one, even for us, is a little out there. You sure know how to pick 'em. Edgar Allan Poe, yeah, we all know the name, the master of macabre, but the crackle. - Hi, Jeremy intrigued. I'll admit that one's even got me stumped. - Yeah, it's interesting, right, how a writer can be so famous for a particular thing like Poe and, like you said, the macabre, the darkness, all that. But still have these little shadowy corners nobody really talks about. Like finding, I don't know, a hidden trapdoor in a house you thought you knew every inch of. So what's the deal with the crackle? I mean, you send this over and, well, it's not exactly the raven, is it? - Well, no, not exactly. See with the crackle. Okay, imagine you sit down with this, right? You're expecting, I don't know, the gothic atmosphere, the poetry, all that post stuff. - All right, right, set the scene. And then, bam, it's just, well, I'm not even sure you can call it poetry, really. It's more like, have you actually had a chance to look at the text itself yet? - Oh, I have, I have. And let's just say, it's not exactly subtle, is it? For those listening, we're talking about the word fuck, folks. And I do mean, like, a lot of fuck. - Hundreds of times, hundreds, repeated, no variation, no punctuation, just fuck. That's pretty much the whole thing, the crackle in its entirety. - And that, my friends, is why we do these deep dives. Because where else are you gonna find this kind of literary curveball? I mean, Edgar Allan Poe, king of the spooky, and it drops this on us. So the big question is, did he actually write it? You'd think it'd be obvious, right? But that is the million dollar question. It's debated like crazy in the Poe world. Some folks, they say flat out, no way, it's a hoax. And honestly, hard to argue when you look at Poe's style, the way he crafts stuff, like you said, the atmosphere, the language, always so deliberate. This, this is not that. - Yeah, the telltale fuck doesn't quite have the same ring to it, so what's the other side say? The ones who think it eyes legit Poe, there's gotta be something, right? - Oh, there are theories. One is the repetition thing. Poe, he loved using repetition to build up that feeling of unease, you know, the bells, for example. But the Grackle, if it is him, takes it to like the furthest extreme. - So like if that's his exploration of repetition, while he's certainly committed, it'll give him that. What else do they say? What are the other arguments? - The other main one is that maybe, just maybe, it's a fragment, like a draft, something he was working on, never finished. Maybe it was a way for him to get those raw motions out, frustration or something, who knows? He might've planned to make something more of it, but never did. - So we're stuck with this, what if, what if this is like a peek behind the curtain of Poe's brain? Not the polished, creepy stuff we know, but just a guy yelling fuck at the page. They kinda love it. - It's definitely a possibility you can't ignore. But then if we accept that, if we say, yeah, this is Poe and all is messed up glory, well, that just opens up a whole other can of worms. 'Cause then you have to ask, what the heck was he trying to do with it? What does it even mean? - And that's the, I don't know, the million dollar question, right? Assuming, like we said, assuming this is Poe, what do you even do with that? How do you analyze something that feels like it's almost anti-analysis? - It's a challenge, that's for sure. I mean, it throws everything we think we know about literature out the window. Normally with Poe, there'd be symbols to unpack, the language itself, the rhythm, even if it's dark and twisty, there's a structure. - Right, right, you expect the hidden meanings, the word play. - Exactly, here, there's none of that. Just raw, repeated, well, you know. - It's like he's saying, yeah, you and your fancy literary theories, fuck 'em. - In a way, yeah. It's almost like he's daring us to find meaning when there's on the surface, nothing bid tea, that one word over and over. - You know, it's making me think about what you were saying earlier about Poe and repetition, how he'd use it to build this feeling in his other work. But there, it was always so controlled. Like this word, this sound, it means something specific, but this, the grackle. This feels way more instinctive somehow. - Yes, exactly, like he stripped language down to this base element, almost primal. It's not pretty or poetic, it's just IS. - So, okay, if we're not looking for, I don't know, metaphors or secret codes, what are we supposed to do with it? Is it just pure anger, frustration, or does it go even beyond that? - That's the interesting part, isn't it? It's almost like a, I don't know, a mirror he's holding up. But instead of reflecting us, it's reflecting just this one word, this one idea. - Yeah. - And we're forced to look at it, deal with it. - We figure out what it means to US, not to Poe, necessarily, but what it brings up for each person reading it. - I think that's where the true power of the grackle lies, yeah. It's not about figuring out what Poe was thinking, because who knows if even HE knew? It's about the experience of sitting with that discomfort, that rawness, and letting it spark something in you. - Like a literary rorschach test, right? Everyone sees something different, or maybe nothing at all. It's about the reaction. - Exactly, and that makes it a dialogue, not just between the reader and Poe, but between the reader and themselves, and how they approach language and meaning itself. - So I guess the metaphor we're working with here is, we go looking for Poe's secret basement, right? Expecting cobwebs, maybe a creepy poem about a heart. And instead, it's just wall to wall, the word fuck, which I mean, knowing the guy, not the weirdest thing, honestly, but it does make you wonder what's the point. - It does make you think, yeah. About what we expect from art, from literature. We want the darkness from Poe, sure, but with a side of, I don't know, elegance, even as creepy as stuff, it's crafted. But the Grackle, that's him going straight for the jugular, no messing around. - And honestly, that might be more disturbing than any ghost story. It's like, you know when you get that phantom phone vibration, but this is your brain, and it's not a phone, it's just this raw thing he's uncovered in you. - I like that, yeah, it's that lack of polish that makes it so effective. No pretense, no trying to be clever, it's just IS. And that bypasses all their usual defenses, you know, 'cause right to some base level of, like you said, discomfort. - Yeah, well, now if we're gonna bring this back around, what are we as readers supposed to get out of an experience like the Grackle, if they're even IS supposed to? - I think the takeaway is the experience. Just the fact that we sat with this text, this thing, that doesn't play by the rules, and maybe we'll never know if Poe meant anything by it. But by even asking that question, by wrestling with it, it forces us to think about language differently, about art, even with ourselves. - Like he gave us a puzzle box, but there's no solution, it's just the act of turning it over and over that matters. - Yeah, exactly. And sometimes it's the mysteries without answers that stick with us the longest. So if the Grackle leaves you feeling a little unsettled, good, that means it worked. It got into your skin in a way only Poe could pull off. It reminds you that art doesn't always have to be neat and tidy. Sometimes the most powerful stuff is also the most, I don't know, the most open to interpretation. - Absolutely. And who knows, maybe that was Poe's intention all along. To leave us with more questions than answers. - Maybe, or maybe like the Grackle itself, the answer's a lot simpler. A and D, more complicated than we can wrap our heads around. - Couldn't have said it better myself. - Well, on that note, this has been one for the books. Thanks for taking us down this very strange, very swary path. - Anytime. Always up for a good literary mystery. - And to everyone listening, keep those thinking caps on and we'll see you at the next deep dive.