Book Club - Halloween Reading

 

The Premature Burial

The story starts more as a collection of events in which the narrator is setting up the fear, and the actual occurrences, of being buried alive.

He then tells us he suffers from catalepsy, and therefore has a very real fear of being found in such a state and presumed dead.  He starts staying in, close to people who know of his condition.  He has renovations done to his family tomb, just in case.  Death haunts his dreams.

As he explains the way in which he "awakens" from a cataleptic fit, I can imagine how horrifying the experience must be...slow to move, slow to think and remember, slow to be aware...

And then he finds that he has been buried alive, not in his tomb, but in "some common coffin."  He's finally able to get a yell out and he hears voices - suddenly he remembers the events that led to here, and he's actually been asleep in a sloop.

This experience, this perceived realization of all his fears, causes a change in him though.  His obsession fed his condition, and once he threw out the books and whatnot, the catalepsy ceased.

The grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful, but....they must sleep, or they will devour us - they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish.

In the next few days I intend to read a couple of his poems as well - any recommendations?

Happy Halloween, friends!