It is almost inevitable that in any review or analysis of Fantastic Tales by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti that the stories contained within will be compared to those of the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. And therein lies the central problem facing Tarchetti in an attempt now firmly in its second century to establish his reputation within the field of fantastical short fiction. Of course, beyond the comparison to Poe, Tarchetti has also been hamstringed by the inescapable allegations of plagiarizing another legendary figure the field—Mary Shelley—thanks to the unavoidable similarities between her “The Mortal Immortal” and his own “The Elixir of Immortality.”
But back to Poe. The problem facing Tarchetti is not that it is an inappropriate comparison. Certainly, it is not as if one were comparing, say, the author of the Twilight series to a Bronte or Jane Austen. The distinction is not one of quality of composition which suggests that Tarchetti is a rank amateur overshadowed by the exemplary talents of a literary genius. The problem is that Tarchetti actual narratives—the stories which he does write with flair and conviction—seem as if they might be lost stories of a writer like Poe that were discovered after his death. Except that there is nothing exceptional in Tarchetti’s stories.
This is standard gothic style applied to standard gothic stories. The same could easily be applied to Poe, or E.F. Benson or even Edith Wharton in her ghost stories were it not for the fact that the plots they conceived usually rose to a much higher standard. Essentially, it is a question of quality. Not everything that Poe wrote was gold no matter what ruckus his most fervent fans may raise in opposition. Reading Wharton’s ghost stories in succession ultimately reveal a sense of repetition and sameness. As for Benson, he may well be the most creative and original of the three, but his actual writing style sometimes dips below Poe, Wharton and Tarchetti. Nobody always gets it right: sometimes great writing is put into the service of lackluster storytelling and sometimes a potentially great story goes unrealized because of merely competent writing.
Tarchetti is best approached and examined as a textbook case of the writer who never quite attained the level of fame he might have deserved because his story creating sensibility was not evenly matched to his storytelling abilities. Let there be no doubt that Tarchetti is worth reading because he seems to have been blessed with a natural gift. That this is true is probably best exemplified in the story “The Letter U (Manuscript of a Madman)” by virtue of how it reveals his strengths and weaknesses. It begins by naked revealing his weakness: a propensity toward imitation. What does this opening remind you of:
“U! U!
Did I write this terrible letter, this terrifying vowel? Did I delineate it exactly? Have I traced it in all its terrible exactness, with its fatal profiles, with its two detested points, with its abhorred curve? Have I written this letter well, the sound of which makes me shiver, the sight of which fills me with terror?
Yes, I wrote it.
And here it is again:”
Maybe it is just that Tarcetti was too big a fan of “The Tell-Tale Heart” help himself. Or, alternatively, maybe he purposely began this story in a way that that almost can’t help but drawn comparisons to Poe’s famous story as a way of showing that he was, in fact, no plagiarist or even mere imitator. As the story progresses, its moves farther and farther away from being a cheap knockoff of the style of the Poe’s crazed narrative to take on a definite life of its own. The creative utilization of the significance of the title letter plays a huge part in this transformation into something that is more definitely the work of Tarchetti and less definitely a riff on “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Except that, by the end, almost as though working against himself, it reverts back to exactly that. It is a case of Tarchetti almost creating something completely unique, but not quite having the imagination to pull it off.
And, unfortunately, that is the other major thematic element which unifies the collection of stories beyond their generic categorization of tales of the macabre and bizarre.
