“There is reason, it is said, in the roasting of eggs, and there is philosophy even in furniture — a philosophy nevertheless which seems to be more imperfectly understood by Americans than by any civilized nation upon the face of the earth.”
I started Roberto Bolaño’s faux-encyclopedia, Nazi Literature in the Americas last night. In the first section, Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce creates a room based on Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Furniture.” I’d never read or even heard of that essay up until now, and, given Bolaño’s penchant for invention, I wondered for a moment if it even really existed. Edelmira recreates the room according Poe’s specifications and then writes Poe’s Room, her defining novel, in its rich confines. The essay exists outside of Bolaño, of course, as does the room–it’s part of the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site.
Biblioklept 