This is my jam: Rhymed couplets about visitors to an Evil Garden being picked off, one at a time, with circumspect yet detailed illustrations. This is exactly the kind of thing I love as a Christmas present. I also received an Edward Gorey calendar to hang up at work. I really hope light verse makes a comeback one day.

In the spring I have been invited to come up and visit the Offspring at college and take her off to visit The Edward Gorey House museum. Other book-related tourist inducements: the Eric Carle museum, The Yiddish Book Center, Antonio's Pizza (from The Penderwicks!), the inflatable polar bear from Iver & Ellsworth, and numerous used book stores.

Yes, it would be a very simple thing to lead me into a trap.

Personal copy

Since I read Edward Gorey's biography, I thought it would be a good idea to immerse myself in his books which led me to Amphigorey, Amphigorey Too, and Amphigorey Again. These are collections of his illustrated works and I have to be honest that I don't think I'm intellectual enough to get the 'deeper meaning' behind his grotesque little tales. While I found some of them amusing, I wasn't overly impressed or blown away. Also, I have to agree with Gorey's biographer that his books do best in their tiny format instead of lumped together like this. Reading fatigue hit me HARD while I was trying to get through these (and they really didn't capture my imagination) so it's going to be a 4/10 from me. 

What I'm Currently Reading: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Who hasn't read Sherlock Holmes?  Why haven't you?  Get thee hence.

Gorey selects mysteries and ghost stories.  What's not to fear?

Dracula - the real vampire who would kill Edward.

The Daughter of Time - look, it's just awesome, okay?

Red Lights - Simenon's Noir period.

Black Wings Have My Angel - the only Noir not by Simenon that I like.

I have been a casual fan of Edward Gorey for quite some time and hoped to learn more about him by reading Born to be Posthumous The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery. While much is known about his work there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the man himself. He didn’t keep a diary and there’s not much in the way of correspondence. Was he a confirmed bachelor because of choice as an asexual man or was he a closeted man who never found time for love? Were his affectations symptomatic of a fake persona or was it the real him? Gorey was tested and judged to have a high IQ but his turbulent home life saw him uprooted often and he ended up delaying entry to Harvard to join the Army. Sporting long fur coats, white sneakers, lots of rings on both hands, and a big bushy beard insured that he stood out wherever he went. He compartmentalized his friendships, had no known romantic relationships, and spent inordinate amounts of time going to the ballet, watching silent movies, and reading copious amounts of books (specifically mysteries). [A/N: He once stated that he read 21,000 books and watched 1,000 movies a year.] At the end of his life he had moved into a dilapidated house on Cape Cod where he lived among lots of cats and a variety of knickknacks and curios. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and diabetes before finally suffering a heart attack. Not quite the ignominious fate that his characters tended to suffer; it was nevertheless the end of an iconic literary figure.

Dery spent a large chunk of the book talking about the 'hidden meaning' in Gorey's work but honestly I don't see it. I think on the fact of it they were fun little illustrated stories that captured (and continue to ensnare) the imagination of anyone who reads them. You can look forward to a masterpost of some of that work coming up in the (hopefully) not too distant future. Overall, this wasn't quite the eyeopening biography that I had hoped it would be and the reach that the author tried to make kind of put me off so that it took me way longer to finish than it should have done. 5/10

What I'm Currently Reading: Stranger in the House: Women's Stories of Men Returning from the Second World War by Julie Summers

Have to say Buck Me and the Con Artist I didn't enjoy as much as the other two - but the covers are cool.