Order is a wonderful thing, there is a genuine joy to waking up on a morning and knowing there will be breakfast in the cupboard, because there is always breakfast in the cupboard. There is a safety and some would say satisfaction in knowing tomorrow will be much like today, and today will follow the pattern of yesterday and all the yesterdays before it. Lives are built on order, societies are build on order. Without order, civilisation falls.
Except of course, that is all very well if your little slice of the world is a pleasant one. If you are happy and those around you are happy. If everything rolling along nicely in a linear steady clockwork like way holds joy for you. But not everyone life if a happy one, not everyone wants tomorrow to be like yesterday. Some people need a brighter tomorrow, for yesterday was one of darkness and hunger. Order is not always a wonderful thing, because while some ride in the carriage, others grease the wheels, and some get rolled over. To extend the analogy the men on the deck of the royal barge have a different view to those who sit on the very bottom row of oars, pulling the barge along, down in the bilges. Order may seem wonderful, but the shit is always dropping down on someone...
Sometimes what order needs most, is a dose of chaos. This at least would seem to be the view our dear Edgar took in this satirical tale 'The Devil in the Belfry.' The story first saw the light of day in the somewhat ponderously titled publication 'Saturday Chronicle, and Mirror of the Times' A weekly Philadelphia newspaper that ran for less than 5 years. This was to be Poe's only contribution to this erstwhile journal, submitted to its editors not long after he and Virginia moved to the city in which they were to reside for the next 6 years. Poe's drinking was under control and his tenure as assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine was about to begin. In all this was probably one of the happiest times of Poe's life, which was also marked by the publication of his first novel 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordan Pyn of Nantucket.' a few scant months after this tale first was put down in ink.
Given the Poe's domestic bliss and the up swing in his literary and publish careers, you would have thought him much in favour of order at this point in his life. Thus it seems a little odd he chose to write a story about its destruction, or perhaps its not. Dear Edgar always had a penchant for self destruction. But in any regards let me bid you welcome to Vondervotteimittiss...
The Devil in the Belfry
Vondervotteimittiss, is an isolated little dutch village laid out in a very orderly fashion. If viewed from above, by hot air -balloon or some other contraption, its appearance would not be dissimilar to that of a clock face, which given the nature of the hamlet is just as it should be. There is a house at each hour, with a segment of kitchen garden planted with cabbages, that leads to the village green , in the centre of which, like the central pivot of a clock there stands the towns great clock tower, with 7 clock faces facing outward to the twelve houses of the hour where the menfolk of the town sit on there little benches watching the clock and checking it against their own watches. While the cabbages grown in their gardens are boiled in the kitchens by the womenfolk, and serve in small bowls of sauerkraut. Meanwhile the children play, in serous manner with their own watches, and all the clocks of the town are carefully set to the time as marked by the great clock.
The most important man of Vondervotteimittiss is of course the belfry-man who looks after the great clock tower. All the young boys dream of ascending to his lofty position one day and all the old men of the tower hold him in respect while being thankful the task falls to another's hand.
There is every chance this tale was a shot across the bows of President Van Buren, the eighth and at the time of this tales publication current president of the US. Van Buren, a New-Yorker of dutch descent, was one of the principal founders of the democratic party, and is often credited as the architect of the two party state. The political model that has served american politics ever since... Given the lampoonish caricatures of the dutchmen in this story it is probably not unreasonable to assume Poe was less than fond. Certainly that was the impression made of the story by many of its earlier readers, particularly as it was framed as satire. Poe however always claimed the story was a satire in general terms hitting out in all directions at ordered societies stagnation, rather than any single political figure...
In any regard to the orderly stagnation of Vondervotteimittiss one noon, comes a devil playing an fiddle and he runs down the hill into the town and straight to the belfry where he attacks the belfry-man brutally and causes the great clock to strike thirteen. All to the horror of the inhabitants.
But here in lays issue, Poe's devil is problematic, not because of his actions, but in his description. The order in the town of Vondervotteimittiss is disrupted by a devil described as a small black man. This in a dutch town, an orderly town of tall blonde people, that has it harmony destroyed by a rampaging black devil... This in the pre-civil war america where slavery was the great decisive issue of the day. Which brings us back to Van Buran, the Democrat president elected by the political strength of the slave owning 'southern democrats'. Which side of the slavery debate Poe sat upon is an open question, and Poe was ever a product of his time. But there is something very uncomfortable about reading this story as a satire in the light of the politics of the day.
If you disregard the issues of the modern eye, this story is a fun little satire on order and stagnation, but little more than that. It is far from the most interesting of Poe's work. Yet despite this it is one of surprising success. There are not one but two operas based upon it. It has been illustrated many times, and has been the title of several Poe collections. Francis Ford Coppola referenced the story in his admittedly less than successful horror movie Twixt, while Black Rebel Motorcycle Club took the name of their album 'Beat the Devils Tattoo' from a liner in the story. All of which is rather surprising for what is a workaday satire that is mostly forgettable and at times a bit of a trawl to get through as the first half spends a long time directing the various facets of life in Vondervotteimittiss in great if somewhat dull detail.
Personally I an not sure where the lasting appeal lays...
NOT QUITE ENOUGH RAVENS TO BE A MURDER...
SHOULD YOU READ IT: The story has its merits and has enjoyed a surprising impact for what it is, I sit somewhat on the fence about it because it is dull to start with, then itchy in all the wrong ways due to the description of the devil. There is however no denying it has lasted the course and has a place in Poe's cannon.
Bluffers fact: Vondervotteimittiss, if you want to be literal is more or less Dutch for 'Wonder what time is it'. Which possibly explains the towns obsession with orderly timekeeping.
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