‘The Caul’ by Russell Banks

The Caul by Russell Banks, 1978

The magic trick:

Playing on and off a historical figure’s celebrity

I really don’t like fictional stories about real people. So when I started reading this one and realized early on that the protagonist was Edgar Allan Poe, I have to say I was out on the story. Call me crazy. Tell me I’m missing the point. Whatever. That’s just how I feel. It’s not my bag.

Nevertheless, the story is worth breaking down and recommending for those who don’t share my standoffish attitude.

The story plays on Edgar Allan Poe’s celebrity. The reader, of course, knows him as a literary genius. The people in the story do too, apparently, We meet him just finishing up a reading of “The Raven.” His audience holds him in awe. So it’s a neat thing when the heart of the story lies in the Poe character dealing with issues of insecurity, self-loathing and fear. We get a stark contrast between the public’s perception and the man himself.

And that’s quite a trick on Baxter’s part.

The selection:

You hold your head in your cool palms. Oh my! Oh my! To aspire to purge one’s mind and all its manifestations of every taint of unreason – such an aspiration must be blasphemy! For to be pure reason is to be self-generating, is to be unable to remember your mother – is to be a god! Is that why you can’t remember your mother’s face, her smell, her touch, her voice? Is this painful absence the necessary consequence of your o’er-vaunting ambition?

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