Fallen Angels of Your Memory: A Psychological Portrait of Edgar Allan POE

A Review of Arjeta Hyska's, Fallen Angels of Your Memory: A Psychological Portrait of Edgar Allan POE

Arjeta has created a dark and mysterious journey through the psychology of the famous and somber poet, Edgar Allan Poe. Throughout the book, the background colors of the pages are always in flux. In so doing, the images create a collage of sorts within each spread. She has kept the pace of the book, ever changing, giving the reader a sense of how Arjeta believes Poe's psychology was like. With the spreads always changing, the reader is not bored, however, the inclusions of some of Poe's poetry, the reader is forced to take her/his time and sit back, to really decode the author’s intent.

The book is laid out almost as a mystery, a novel that we need to piece together and reorder. But, the beauty of the arrangement of the images and texts is that there can be many understandings on his psychology, and many different conclusions can be interpreted and drawn about what the photographer and what she is trying to tell the readers. With this book we are left with a puzzle that is forcing and asking us to solve it.

Also incorporated through out the book, are a few color images, which surprisingly, sit very well with the other stark, black and white images. There is also a darker sepia toned photograph, made to look like the man walking down the cobbled, wide street was Poe himself, in 1800's America. Which seems to truly embody the atmosphere as a fake portrait of Poe.

This book overall achieves a great balance between the surreal imagery that is used to represents Poe’s psyche, and the incorporation of Poe’s poems. Alongside the added bonus of giving the reader a sense that something needs to be discovered with this book, the book actively seeks this participation.