{"id":85486,"date":"2015-05-06T17:03:04","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T21:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=85486"},"modified":"2015-05-06T17:12:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T21:12:41","slug":"if-i-should-die-before-i-wake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/06\/if-i-should-die-before-i-wake\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Should Die Before I Wake"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"edisondoll\"<\/a>

The Edison Talking Doll, prepared to shatter whatever fragments of inner peace you\u2018d once believed to be infrangible.<\/p><\/div>\n

Even doll partisans\u2014those of us who defend doll life from slander and prejudice and unfair film portrayals\u2014have to admit that they\u2019re sometimes terrifying. Indeed, I think it would be fair to say that the Edison Talking Doll is one of the scariest things ever made by man or demon. You have been warned.<\/p>\n

The Edison Talking Doll is just what it sounds like: a doll, with a small phonograph in its body, mass-produced by Thomas Edison\u2019s lab in the 1890s. Although it was a progenitor of Chatty Cathy and a hundred other loquacious toys, the Edison Doll didn\u2019t catch on, for the simple reason that it opened a howling portal to hell. (Well, they claimed the relatively high price was a factor.) While we may assume that the poor sound quality is a result of wear and tear on the original wax cylinders, apparently that\u2019s not the case; as the Thomas Edison National Historical Park\u2019s site<\/a> explains,\u00a0\u201cEven with a brand-new, unplayed record, the sound emitted by the talking doll was always distorted and unnatural.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s putting it kindly. The doll \u2026 shrieks. It\u2019s like an unearthly Carol Kane screaming in a wind tunnel, trapped in the body of a lifeless totem. Listen at your own risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n