I can hear my husband snoring on the babymonitor…

Sleep well!

Hope yer dreams ain’t too demented.

I wonder would that be a definition of Hamlet at some stages?

Funny you mention it. I actually thought of Hamlet earlier in terms of the TTH narrator. I didn’t mention it out of respect for the Dane. He had, after all, a far more legitimate axe to grind!

More like the Nihilists’ marmot in the Big Lebowski. That was so funny: ‘Nice Marmot’.

Funny? I nearly shat myself! You’d have to be a man, I suppose, to understand the awesome terror of a wet gnashing beastie inches from your “johnson”.

The real horror of madness is that you may not know you’re mad.

In great “mad narrator” fiction, like this and the aforementioned Crime and Punishment (though maybe the “madness” there is more of a philosophical perversion), there’s a sort of super-logic to the madman’s narrative.

It all seems to make perfect sense when looked at from a broken and twisted perspective. A madman who feels permanently in the wrong is not a very satisfying horror figure I suppose.

Interesting challenge on Poe’s part to present the story from the perspective of the unknown thing in the dark. Not that it avails the old man. Or the reader who still get the wind up them.

Exunctly. I sort of mentioned that earlier when pointing out how the story invites us to share in the terror of both the murderer/narrator and the victim.

The thing in the dark has a voice, and a disturbingly convincing one at that.

More like the Nihilists’ marmot in the Big Lebowski. That was so funny: ‘Nice Marmot’.

I so agree – if a silent figure was even standing in my darkened bedroom I’d piss myself with fear!

niall, you’re most welcome. I look forward to ‘em too – i.e the many fabulous comments of the guests. Edge in carefully now…

copernicus, will watch the James Mason ‘toon tomorrow. Can’t give it my full rheumy-eyed attention right now.

Also quite chilling that the mad may not make their madness obvious, until they jump out of a corner of your bedroom where they’ve stood for an hour, superhumanly not moving a muscle – or sanguinely watch you go to your death at the teeth of a starved and vicious rodent.