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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales
Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is a pivotal work in which Poe calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing the truth. It is an archetypal American story of escape from domesticity tracing a young man's rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. Included are eight related tales which further illuminate Pym by their treatment of persistent themes--fantastic voyages, gigantic whirlpools, and premature burials--as well as its relationship to Poe's art and life.
Contents
The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket -- (1838)
MS found in a bottle -- (1833)
Loss of breath -- (1832)
Mystification -- (1837)
How to write a Blackwood article -- (Nov 1838)
A descent into the maelström -- (Apr 1841)
The pit and the pendulum -- (1843
The balloon hoax -- (Apr 13, 1844)
The premature burial. (Jul 31, 1844)
Contents
The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket -- (1838)
MS found in a bottle -- (1833)
Loss of breath -- (1832)
Mystification -- (1837)
How to write a Blackwood article -- (Nov 1838)
A descent into the maelström -- (Apr 1841)
The pit and the pendulum -- (1843
The balloon hoax -- (Apr 13, 1844)
The premature burial. (Jul 31, 1844)
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 1844
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,088 books25.8k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 243 reviews
March 2, 2022
Poe is known for short stories and poetry, but fans who haven't read his only novel are missing out. These two-hundred pages encapsulate all there is to love about Poe. That includes chapters with alive burials, unforgettable gore, relentless anxiety and all manner of physical torture. The body count is high and the deaths are brutal. Yes, please!
The premise is that Arthur Pym and his companion are young daydreamers with fantasies of going on adventures in the open ocean. Unfortunately, Pym’s family forbids such folly. So the friend helps him stow away on a voyage. Once sufficiently out at sea, and thus too far to turn back, Pym expects to reveal his presence and enjoy the ride. This plan soon goes awry, however, with one ghastly event leading to the next until it seems unimaginable anything worse can happen. That’s exactly when things get doubly and triply worse.
Eventually the voyage reaches the South Pole, which was a source of imagination and intrigue since no one had been there. One of the theories at the time was that the poles were actually a warm, tropical paradise. Poe provides his own fantasies for what lies in that unchartered territory, which are quite fantastic and high adventure at its finest.
Many scholars consider Pym a genre-creating novel due to its direct inspiration for later sea adventures, such as Moby Dick (1851), Treasure Island (1881) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1871). Considering Poe is also credited for inventing the horror story and the detective story, this extra bullet on his résumé is impressive, and well-deserved. Jules Verne was such a fan of Poe’s novel that he wrote a sequel entitled An Antarctic Mystery (1897).
Verne's desperate need for continuation, to the point of writing his own, is not a unique reaction. Among its critics are many who complain Poe's novel is "unfinished" and thus not nearly as satisfying as his short stories.
It's true that the ending is not tidy, but rather a sudden break. When first published, Poe masqueraded the book as a non-fiction account written by the allegedly real explorer Arthur Gordon Pym. An ending note explains the abrupt conclusion to a certain degree. For those who enjoy their narratives tied up with a bow, this explanation will not be enough. It is admittedly hard to not yearn for the thrills to continue or feel cheated out of at least a dozen more pages. That said, I disagree with any claim that the novel was hastily pasted together by an exhausted Poe.
Poe generally detested novels and long poetry, feeling such length was inevitably bloated. His artistic vision was for a “singular effect” where every word propels the narrative to a specific conclusion. Pym concludes with one of the most dramatic images in Poe’s bibliography. To go on further and deliver a drawn out “happy ending” would have resulted in the kind of excessive trash writing he despised. Leaving the reader thirsty for more was, in his view, favorable to putting them through pages of resolution with no dramatic purpose.
He made the correct choice—but of course he did. Poe wasn’t an amateur.
-
This Oxford World’s Classics edition includes an additional sampling of Poe’s short stories with artistic or thematic connections to Pym. Here's my review of those:
MS Found in a Bottle
This story has obvious connections to Pym. There is a disaster at sea leaving few survivors. A huge ship appears but instead of rescue, the new vessel makes a bad situation even more unnerving. Wizened phantoms inhabit the massive ship. Our protagonist initially hides in fear, but soon discovers there's no point. They can't see him or are incapable of interacting with him if they can. There's discussion of venturing to the mysterious South Pole and the horrors/wonders that may be found there. The framework of the story suggests a "realness" to the fiction, with a protagonist who assures the reader he is of rational thought, despite the unbelievability of his narrative.
First published in 1833, it is one of Poe's earliest tales to receive acclaim. It won first prize in a writing contest hosted by the Baltimore Saturday Visiter and endured long after through various re-prints. Mindful of the success, it's no surprise that Poe returned to comfortable territory with his first and only novel. Pym is essentially an extended version of "MS. Found in a Bottle" almost to the letter.
I admire Poe's brevity in most cases, but this is one where the novel is considerably more triumphant than the short story. I don't think Poe had yet mastered his talent for singular focus yet. "MS. Found in a Bottle" has a lot of content to cram into a small package. In consequence, the numerous epic disasters feel minor. Compare this to "The Tell-Tale Heart" where the entire narration is painstakingly devoted to a singular event. That's a case where Poe makes a small canvas seem enormous rather than a big canvas feel small. Of course, even minor Poe is marvelous. Who doesn't love a creepy ghost ship?
Loss of Breath
No obvious connection to Pym but aligns with Poe's interests in suffocation and alive burial. Surprisingly, the genre of this tale is satirical comedy. The premise is that Mr. Lackobreath literally loses his breath one day during an argument with his wife. He assures readers that this is no figure of speech, he literally lost his breath.
Mr. Lackobreath searches around the house for his missing breath to no avail and soon extends his investigation to town, where he's squashed by large persons in a coach to the point of disfigurement. All manner of slapstick torture follows. This includes being sold to a surgeon for organs, where his ears are cut off, having his nose eaten by cats, being mistook for a thief and hanged—he does not die from this but convulses as if in agony to give audiences a show. Then he's buried alive. Upon escape from his coffin, he finds his missing voice among the corpses in the cemetery.
Such over-the-top hilarity almost seems to spoof Poe's own works, but the story's subheading "A Tale Neither In Nor Out of 'Blackwood" makes it clear the context was Poe writing a farce of the hyperbolic adventures found in Blackwood Magazine. He may also be poking fun at "science" texts of the day, such as The Danger of Premature Interment (1816). In this volume, there are numerous "true" stories of persons surviving hanging and being buried alive and being dismembered by surgeons after confused for dead.
Poe published this story under the pseudonym Littleton Barry, possibly to distance himself from the low-brow humor of the piece. It doesn't fit neatly into his oeuvre of grim horror tales. It is, however, a fine example of his diversity as a writer and ability to revise favorite themes for humor. A delightful discovery to find hidden among Poe's lesser-known works.
Mystification
More comedy from Poe, this time poking fun at gentlemanly arguments. Some university students with hot tempers and verbose philosophy get into a row over an arbitrary dispute of ideas. It adds up to a dramatic moment where one is accused of not being a gentleman and the other gets revenge by throwing a goblet of wine at the man's reflection in a mirror. Such an insult may have led to a duel, were it not for a de-escalation via clever letter writing.
Not an especially memorable piece by Poe, and no connection to Pym except that it was likely written while he was working on the novel. Some cute social commentary that's possibly autobiographical from Poe's own university years. Scholars note that it is an early example of Poe's interest in code writing. Also, the mirror scene establishes Poe's interest in "doubles" that would define much of his later works. Again, nice to read these lesser-known stories even if they are not as marvelous as his most iconic works.
How to Write a Blackwood Article
Poe really was funny! This is another knee-slapper. A female narrator (rare in the Poe-verse) is taught to write a successful article for Blackwood Magazine by a Dr. Moneypenny. Of course these "rules" drip with satire. Blackwood was famous for sensation stories, such as firsthand accounts of torture that go into great detail about the painful "sensations" of the situation. Dr. Moneypenny references Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) by Thomas De Quincey as an example. He also mentions presumably made-up examples, like personal accounts of being buried alive or being baked in an oven.
All this is cheeky since Poe wrote numerous sensation stories of torture and was clearly influenced by Blackwood's formulaic tales. For comparison, imagine George Saunders writing a piece that pokes fun at The New Yorker. He's someone who follows that formula, so it gives him the right to laugh at it. Roald Dahl actually wrote something similar in "The Great Automatic Grammatizator". In this story, a man uses grammar "rules" to program a machine to churn out prize-winning novels in 15 minutes. Many of Dahl's satirical suggestions are identical to Poe's, such as using giant words that no one knows the meaning of to make you look smart.
In the end, Dr. Moneypenny recommends the woman (hilariously named Signora Psyche Zenobia) find some method of torture right away and begin writing down her experience. He even offers to have nearby bull dogs rip her to shreds. The Signora politely declines, but informs the reader that by the late afternoon she found herself in a sensational scrape and was able to write a brilliant Blackwood article from the experience.
A Predicament
This is a direct sequel to "How to Write a Blackwood Article" and is meant to be the actual article, written by Signora Psyche Zenobia, using the suggested techniques by Dr. Moneypenny. For some reason the editors chose not to include it in this collection, though they are frequently published together for obvious reasons. My other Poe volume included the tale so I was able to read it. I'm sure it can also be found online.
The story is quite humorous, though it could also be read as a precursor to one of Poe's most terrifying tales, The Pit and the Pendulum. While going about town with her poodle, Zenobia spontaneously decides to explore the top floor of a Gothic cathedral. She pokes her head through a small opening to look at the countryside and discovers she's in the notch of a giant clock. She becomes stuck as the sharp, "scimitar-like" blade of the clock hands approach. Soon the minute hand cuts into her neck and creates such a strain that her eyes literally pop from their sockets. Inch by inch, minute by minute, the blade slices deeper into her tender flesh. Eventually her head is fully decapitated and, worst of all, her poodle was eaten by a rat in the meantime. Somehow she survives all this, which is another pointed jest at Blackwood articles.
A Descent into the Maelstrom
Another adventure at sea. This time describing the sensational horror of being sucked into a massive whirlpool in the middle of a hurricane. Though structured as a story-within-a-story, there's no difficulty following the adventure and the action begins right away.
Consistent with Poe's desires as a writer, it provokes a singular effect without expansion. While there is a lacking narrative complexity, it succeeds—like all of Poe's best stories—in sparking the imagination and creating an unforgettable image. Funneling into the oceanic abyss, whole trees, ships, and other debris swirling nearby, there is the obvious sense of horror, but also of wonder. The depths of the ocean being so thoroughly unexplored in 1841, Poe once again provokes pre-Jules Verne fascination with unchartered depths of the planet.
Though relatively obscure among Poe's bibliography, I was surprised to discover it has such a cultural impact. Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sequel and Philip Glass composed music inspired by the story, and that's only a few examples of its enduring legacy. I wouldn't consider it a Top 10 favorite, but I do understand how it could inspire so many readers. I suspect it will be one of the many Poe stories to haunt my brain, long after reading the final page.
The Pit and the Pendulum
Doesn't get much more classic than this. Poe's pendulum is an icon of torture. Not just for its violent possibilities, but for the long and agonizing horror and watching your death come slicing toward you, inch by inch. I've read the story multiple times and its power never faulters. This reading felt extra special since discovering his prior story "A Predicament" I got a clearer image how the composition came to be.
As previously mentioned, "A Predicament" was a spoof story making fun of sensation stories found in Blackwood magazine. It is about a woman being slowly decapitated by the minute hand of a giant clock. Originally, this story was published as "The Scythe of Time" with the overt thematic premise of being murdered slowly by time. In "The Pit and the Pendulum" Poe recycles many aspects of his joke story, including the image of Father Time utilizing a swaying pendulum "in lieu of" his traditional scythe.
Time is the essential villain of the story, since as every minute goes by fear and danger increases. The torture of the pendulum is not just the brutal slicing death it can provide, but the drawn-out agony of knowing what is to come. There's metaphorical weight in this theme since we are all facing the "scythe of time" through our daily lives. We may not be strapped to a torture device, but it is only a matter of time before Death finds us. Every minute he gets closer and closer.
Outside of thematic and visual similarities, even Poe's word choices are recycled. In "A Predicament" he describes the clock's sharp minute hand as "scimitar-like" and here he compares the pendulum to the "the sweep of the fearful scimitar."
Then, if there's any doubt that Poe sought to revise his previous joke story, there are the rats. In "A Predicament" there is the memorable rat who eats a small poodle. In "Pendulum" there are, of course, hordes of rats who swarm the protagonist and ultimately become his savior.
A brief investigation into these two stories yields little direct knowledge of their composition, but it seems obvious that either one of Poe's friends suggested he re-write his parody tale as a legitimate horror story, or he himself drew this conclusion while ruffling through his papers. It wasn't unusual for Poe to borrow from his own ideas. "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" are essentially the same story, told in different ways. These, at least, are both horror stories, however. It's particularly interesting to see Poe spin a slapstick story into one of his most iconic macabre works.
Arguably because he was re-working such an over-the-top hyperbolic tale, it encouraged him to pursue heightened intensity that went beyond even what he would normally write. This is perhaps the secret to creating something iconic. Crank the drama up to max level, and then push it beyond even that.
The Balloon Hoax
Another Poe hijinks. Originally formatted as a newspaper article, complete with the buzz-worthy headline "ASTOUNDING NEWS...THE ATLANTIC CROSSED IN THREE DAYS!" He even managed to get it printed in New York City's reputable newspaper The Sun as a legitimate story. It didn't take long for the hoax to be revealed, when readers from South Carolina—where the flying balloon allegedly landed—reported no such event. In only two days, a tepid redaction was printed with the editors claiming they were "inclined" to believe the story false but retained that the premise was "by no means...impossible." By then, of course, the story had already generated top sales.
Though fiction, Poe's meticulous descriptions of the balloon mechanics certainly come across plausible. Being of a scientific mind, he likely spent considerable time imagining such a contraption and believed it could actually work. The overall message, and mass appeal of the story, is the value of scientific progress and imagining what accomplishments can be achieved. This appeal remains today, though it was especially attractive to its original 1840s audience.
Poe deliciously describes the balloon cresting mountaintops and hovering over ships as admiring seamen wave to the airborne explorers. The joyous greeting received as the balloon rests upon South Carolina's beaches is all but a calling card to inventors across the country to get to work. I'm sure nothing would have made Poe happier than for someone to build a balloon following his mechanical directions and prove him a genius.
Jules Verne, being the Poe superfan that he was, references this story in one of his novels and likely borrowed the majestic aspects for his classics Around the World in Eighty Days and Five Weeks in a Balloon. I haven't read much Verne, to be honest, but based on how much I enjoyed this story I'm excited to give him a try.
The Premature Burial
Poe writing an entire story on being buried alive seems like a match made in heaven, and it is good. But not as delicious as expected. Most of the story is devoted to rehashing tabloid tales of persons who were buried alive and survived to talk about it. Eventually we finally met our protagonist: a man with a rare disease that occasionally gives him the appearance of death. He's so terrified that someone unfamiliar with his condition will mistake him for dead that he rarely leaves the house and remodeled his family vault with exit options. He gets so paranoid that he even distrusts his friends, thinking they will use his condition as an excuse to bury him early.
To be sure, this is marvelous premise. Poe masterfully extracts social anxieties into a realistic scenario that many can relate to. He even has the chance to flex his scientific muscle by imagining an inventive coffin that's even more friendly to alive persons than the real "life-preserving coffins" which were available for sale at a premium.
The finale, however, is a missed opportunity. Our narrator wakes up to find himself surrounded by darkness. Inches above his head is pure wood. He's cramped on all sides. Unlike the 'buried alive' scenes in Pym, which go on for pages and terrify the reader, Poe spends only a few sentences describing this nightmare scenario. The twist is soon revealed, extinguishing all tension, and a bizarrely happy outcome is achieved. Had Poe extended the anxiety scene for at least a full page longer, it might deserve masterpiece status. As is, it's a stellar premise with a less-superior than usual execution.
The premise is that Arthur Pym and his companion are young daydreamers with fantasies of going on adventures in the open ocean. Unfortunately, Pym’s family forbids such folly. So the friend helps him stow away on a voyage. Once sufficiently out at sea, and thus too far to turn back, Pym expects to reveal his presence and enjoy the ride. This plan soon goes awry, however, with one ghastly event leading to the next until it seems unimaginable anything worse can happen. That’s exactly when things get doubly and triply worse.
Eventually the voyage reaches the South Pole, which was a source of imagination and intrigue since no one had been there. One of the theories at the time was that the poles were actually a warm, tropical paradise. Poe provides his own fantasies for what lies in that unchartered territory, which are quite fantastic and high adventure at its finest.
Many scholars consider Pym a genre-creating novel due to its direct inspiration for later sea adventures, such as Moby Dick (1851), Treasure Island (1881) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1871). Considering Poe is also credited for inventing the horror story and the detective story, this extra bullet on his résumé is impressive, and well-deserved. Jules Verne was such a fan of Poe’s novel that he wrote a sequel entitled An Antarctic Mystery (1897).
Verne's desperate need for continuation, to the point of writing his own, is not a unique reaction. Among its critics are many who complain Poe's novel is "unfinished" and thus not nearly as satisfying as his short stories.
It's true that the ending is not tidy, but rather a sudden break. When first published, Poe masqueraded the book as a non-fiction account written by the allegedly real explorer Arthur Gordon Pym. An ending note explains the abrupt conclusion to a certain degree. For those who enjoy their narratives tied up with a bow, this explanation will not be enough. It is admittedly hard to not yearn for the thrills to continue or feel cheated out of at least a dozen more pages. That said, I disagree with any claim that the novel was hastily pasted together by an exhausted Poe.
Poe generally detested novels and long poetry, feeling such length was inevitably bloated. His artistic vision was for a “singular effect” where every word propels the narrative to a specific conclusion. Pym concludes with one of the most dramatic images in Poe’s bibliography. To go on further and deliver a drawn out “happy ending” would have resulted in the kind of excessive trash writing he despised. Leaving the reader thirsty for more was, in his view, favorable to putting them through pages of resolution with no dramatic purpose.
He made the correct choice—but of course he did. Poe wasn’t an amateur.
-
This Oxford World’s Classics edition includes an additional sampling of Poe’s short stories with artistic or thematic connections to Pym. Here's my review of those:
MS Found in a Bottle
This story has obvious connections to Pym. There is a disaster at sea leaving few survivors. A huge ship appears but instead of rescue, the new vessel makes a bad situation even more unnerving. Wizened phantoms inhabit the massive ship. Our protagonist initially hides in fear, but soon discovers there's no point. They can't see him or are incapable of interacting with him if they can. There's discussion of venturing to the mysterious South Pole and the horrors/wonders that may be found there. The framework of the story suggests a "realness" to the fiction, with a protagonist who assures the reader he is of rational thought, despite the unbelievability of his narrative.
First published in 1833, it is one of Poe's earliest tales to receive acclaim. It won first prize in a writing contest hosted by the Baltimore Saturday Visiter and endured long after through various re-prints. Mindful of the success, it's no surprise that Poe returned to comfortable territory with his first and only novel. Pym is essentially an extended version of "MS. Found in a Bottle" almost to the letter.
I admire Poe's brevity in most cases, but this is one where the novel is considerably more triumphant than the short story. I don't think Poe had yet mastered his talent for singular focus yet. "MS. Found in a Bottle" has a lot of content to cram into a small package. In consequence, the numerous epic disasters feel minor. Compare this to "The Tell-Tale Heart" where the entire narration is painstakingly devoted to a singular event. That's a case where Poe makes a small canvas seem enormous rather than a big canvas feel small. Of course, even minor Poe is marvelous. Who doesn't love a creepy ghost ship?
Loss of Breath
No obvious connection to Pym but aligns with Poe's interests in suffocation and alive burial. Surprisingly, the genre of this tale is satirical comedy. The premise is that Mr. Lackobreath literally loses his breath one day during an argument with his wife. He assures readers that this is no figure of speech, he literally lost his breath.
Mr. Lackobreath searches around the house for his missing breath to no avail and soon extends his investigation to town, where he's squashed by large persons in a coach to the point of disfigurement. All manner of slapstick torture follows. This includes being sold to a surgeon for organs, where his ears are cut off, having his nose eaten by cats, being mistook for a thief and hanged—he does not die from this but convulses as if in agony to give audiences a show. Then he's buried alive. Upon escape from his coffin, he finds his missing voice among the corpses in the cemetery.
Such over-the-top hilarity almost seems to spoof Poe's own works, but the story's subheading "A Tale Neither In Nor Out of 'Blackwood" makes it clear the context was Poe writing a farce of the hyperbolic adventures found in Blackwood Magazine. He may also be poking fun at "science" texts of the day, such as The Danger of Premature Interment (1816). In this volume, there are numerous "true" stories of persons surviving hanging and being buried alive and being dismembered by surgeons after confused for dead.
Poe published this story under the pseudonym Littleton Barry, possibly to distance himself from the low-brow humor of the piece. It doesn't fit neatly into his oeuvre of grim horror tales. It is, however, a fine example of his diversity as a writer and ability to revise favorite themes for humor. A delightful discovery to find hidden among Poe's lesser-known works.
Mystification
More comedy from Poe, this time poking fun at gentlemanly arguments. Some university students with hot tempers and verbose philosophy get into a row over an arbitrary dispute of ideas. It adds up to a dramatic moment where one is accused of not being a gentleman and the other gets revenge by throwing a goblet of wine at the man's reflection in a mirror. Such an insult may have led to a duel, were it not for a de-escalation via clever letter writing.
Not an especially memorable piece by Poe, and no connection to Pym except that it was likely written while he was working on the novel. Some cute social commentary that's possibly autobiographical from Poe's own university years. Scholars note that it is an early example of Poe's interest in code writing. Also, the mirror scene establishes Poe's interest in "doubles" that would define much of his later works. Again, nice to read these lesser-known stories even if they are not as marvelous as his most iconic works.
How to Write a Blackwood Article
Poe really was funny! This is another knee-slapper. A female narrator (rare in the Poe-verse) is taught to write a successful article for Blackwood Magazine by a Dr. Moneypenny. Of course these "rules" drip with satire. Blackwood was famous for sensation stories, such as firsthand accounts of torture that go into great detail about the painful "sensations" of the situation. Dr. Moneypenny references Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) by Thomas De Quincey as an example. He also mentions presumably made-up examples, like personal accounts of being buried alive or being baked in an oven.
All this is cheeky since Poe wrote numerous sensation stories of torture and was clearly influenced by Blackwood's formulaic tales. For comparison, imagine George Saunders writing a piece that pokes fun at The New Yorker. He's someone who follows that formula, so it gives him the right to laugh at it. Roald Dahl actually wrote something similar in "The Great Automatic Grammatizator". In this story, a man uses grammar "rules" to program a machine to churn out prize-winning novels in 15 minutes. Many of Dahl's satirical suggestions are identical to Poe's, such as using giant words that no one knows the meaning of to make you look smart.
In the end, Dr. Moneypenny recommends the woman (hilariously named Signora Psyche Zenobia) find some method of torture right away and begin writing down her experience. He even offers to have nearby bull dogs rip her to shreds. The Signora politely declines, but informs the reader that by the late afternoon she found herself in a sensational scrape and was able to write a brilliant Blackwood article from the experience.
A Predicament
This is a direct sequel to "How to Write a Blackwood Article" and is meant to be the actual article, written by Signora Psyche Zenobia, using the suggested techniques by Dr. Moneypenny. For some reason the editors chose not to include it in this collection, though they are frequently published together for obvious reasons. My other Poe volume included the tale so I was able to read it. I'm sure it can also be found online.
The story is quite humorous, though it could also be read as a precursor to one of Poe's most terrifying tales, The Pit and the Pendulum. While going about town with her poodle, Zenobia spontaneously decides to explore the top floor of a Gothic cathedral. She pokes her head through a small opening to look at the countryside and discovers she's in the notch of a giant clock. She becomes stuck as the sharp, "scimitar-like" blade of the clock hands approach. Soon the minute hand cuts into her neck and creates such a strain that her eyes literally pop from their sockets. Inch by inch, minute by minute, the blade slices deeper into her tender flesh. Eventually her head is fully decapitated and, worst of all, her poodle was eaten by a rat in the meantime. Somehow she survives all this, which is another pointed jest at Blackwood articles.
A Descent into the Maelstrom
Another adventure at sea. This time describing the sensational horror of being sucked into a massive whirlpool in the middle of a hurricane. Though structured as a story-within-a-story, there's no difficulty following the adventure and the action begins right away.
Consistent with Poe's desires as a writer, it provokes a singular effect without expansion. While there is a lacking narrative complexity, it succeeds—like all of Poe's best stories—in sparking the imagination and creating an unforgettable image. Funneling into the oceanic abyss, whole trees, ships, and other debris swirling nearby, there is the obvious sense of horror, but also of wonder. The depths of the ocean being so thoroughly unexplored in 1841, Poe once again provokes pre-Jules Verne fascination with unchartered depths of the planet.
Though relatively obscure among Poe's bibliography, I was surprised to discover it has such a cultural impact. Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sequel and Philip Glass composed music inspired by the story, and that's only a few examples of its enduring legacy. I wouldn't consider it a Top 10 favorite, but I do understand how it could inspire so many readers. I suspect it will be one of the many Poe stories to haunt my brain, long after reading the final page.
The Pit and the Pendulum
Doesn't get much more classic than this. Poe's pendulum is an icon of torture. Not just for its violent possibilities, but for the long and agonizing horror and watching your death come slicing toward you, inch by inch. I've read the story multiple times and its power never faulters. This reading felt extra special since discovering his prior story "A Predicament" I got a clearer image how the composition came to be.
As previously mentioned, "A Predicament" was a spoof story making fun of sensation stories found in Blackwood magazine. It is about a woman being slowly decapitated by the minute hand of a giant clock. Originally, this story was published as "The Scythe of Time" with the overt thematic premise of being murdered slowly by time. In "The Pit and the Pendulum" Poe recycles many aspects of his joke story, including the image of Father Time utilizing a swaying pendulum "in lieu of" his traditional scythe.
Time is the essential villain of the story, since as every minute goes by fear and danger increases. The torture of the pendulum is not just the brutal slicing death it can provide, but the drawn-out agony of knowing what is to come. There's metaphorical weight in this theme since we are all facing the "scythe of time" through our daily lives. We may not be strapped to a torture device, but it is only a matter of time before Death finds us. Every minute he gets closer and closer.
Outside of thematic and visual similarities, even Poe's word choices are recycled. In "A Predicament" he describes the clock's sharp minute hand as "scimitar-like" and here he compares the pendulum to the "the sweep of the fearful scimitar."
Then, if there's any doubt that Poe sought to revise his previous joke story, there are the rats. In "A Predicament" there is the memorable rat who eats a small poodle. In "Pendulum" there are, of course, hordes of rats who swarm the protagonist and ultimately become his savior.
A brief investigation into these two stories yields little direct knowledge of their composition, but it seems obvious that either one of Poe's friends suggested he re-write his parody tale as a legitimate horror story, or he himself drew this conclusion while ruffling through his papers. It wasn't unusual for Poe to borrow from his own ideas. "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" are essentially the same story, told in different ways. These, at least, are both horror stories, however. It's particularly interesting to see Poe spin a slapstick story into one of his most iconic macabre works.
Arguably because he was re-working such an over-the-top hyperbolic tale, it encouraged him to pursue heightened intensity that went beyond even what he would normally write. This is perhaps the secret to creating something iconic. Crank the drama up to max level, and then push it beyond even that.
The Balloon Hoax
Another Poe hijinks. Originally formatted as a newspaper article, complete with the buzz-worthy headline "ASTOUNDING NEWS...THE ATLANTIC CROSSED IN THREE DAYS!" He even managed to get it printed in New York City's reputable newspaper The Sun as a legitimate story. It didn't take long for the hoax to be revealed, when readers from South Carolina—where the flying balloon allegedly landed—reported no such event. In only two days, a tepid redaction was printed with the editors claiming they were "inclined" to believe the story false but retained that the premise was "by no means...impossible." By then, of course, the story had already generated top sales.
Though fiction, Poe's meticulous descriptions of the balloon mechanics certainly come across plausible. Being of a scientific mind, he likely spent considerable time imagining such a contraption and believed it could actually work. The overall message, and mass appeal of the story, is the value of scientific progress and imagining what accomplishments can be achieved. This appeal remains today, though it was especially attractive to its original 1840s audience.
Poe deliciously describes the balloon cresting mountaintops and hovering over ships as admiring seamen wave to the airborne explorers. The joyous greeting received as the balloon rests upon South Carolina's beaches is all but a calling card to inventors across the country to get to work. I'm sure nothing would have made Poe happier than for someone to build a balloon following his mechanical directions and prove him a genius.
Jules Verne, being the Poe superfan that he was, references this story in one of his novels and likely borrowed the majestic aspects for his classics Around the World in Eighty Days and Five Weeks in a Balloon. I haven't read much Verne, to be honest, but based on how much I enjoyed this story I'm excited to give him a try.
The Premature Burial
Poe writing an entire story on being buried alive seems like a match made in heaven, and it is good. But not as delicious as expected. Most of the story is devoted to rehashing tabloid tales of persons who were buried alive and survived to talk about it. Eventually we finally met our protagonist: a man with a rare disease that occasionally gives him the appearance of death. He's so terrified that someone unfamiliar with his condition will mistake him for dead that he rarely leaves the house and remodeled his family vault with exit options. He gets so paranoid that he even distrusts his friends, thinking they will use his condition as an excuse to bury him early.
To be sure, this is marvelous premise. Poe masterfully extracts social anxieties into a realistic scenario that many can relate to. He even has the chance to flex his scientific muscle by imagining an inventive coffin that's even more friendly to alive persons than the real "life-preserving coffins" which were available for sale at a premium.
The finale, however, is a missed opportunity. Our narrator wakes up to find himself surrounded by darkness. Inches above his head is pure wood. He's cramped on all sides. Unlike the 'buried alive' scenes in Pym, which go on for pages and terrify the reader, Poe spends only a few sentences describing this nightmare scenario. The twist is soon revealed, extinguishing all tension, and a bizarrely happy outcome is achieved. Had Poe extended the anxiety scene for at least a full page longer, it might deserve masterpiece status. As is, it's a stellar premise with a less-superior than usual execution.
May 30, 2017
What an odd and wonderful book! A sea voyage unlike any other I've read about (and I've read about a lot of them). The story really pulled me in, even as it got stranger and more outlandish. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
November 4, 2012
The only novel written by Edgar Allan Poe and for me, this is one of the most satisfying. What can you say to a book that inspired Herman Melville to write his masterpiece Moby-Dick? I am still to read it but based on the positive feedbacks that are coming from my friends here in Goodreads who are reading that book this month, I will definitely be reading that in the next few months. It so happened that The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings is my first Halloween read this month and this novel is included in that book.
This book is a narrative of a young man Arthur Gordon Pym and it tells about his sea and land, but mostly sea, adventures. The latter includes a shipwreck, a mutiny, death and even cannibalism. The former includes encounters with tribal black people who are savages. I particularly enjoyed the first person narration because of that distinct voice that only EAP had. I have never encountered a writer who writes flawlessly, easy to understand yet it feels old. And that archaic tone does not alienate (bore) the reader because his words and lyrical tune are classy and his plot is nicely crafted. This characters are like men who you can visualize in black and white or like moving human being in sepia yet they can be the next young man standing with you when you get on to a cruise or at the pier while waiting for the dispatcher for you to ride on a motorboat to an island.
Almost from the beginning of the novel, what might be a straightforward sea-faring adventure is revealed to be anything but. With the help of the captain's son, Pym stows away on a whaling ship, the Grampus and is entombed without food and water in the hold for two weeks. From then on murder follows mutiny, with shipwreck and cannibalism in close succession. The pace of the narrative and the horror were subdued yet it the story is not boring. It is in the form of a journal that traces Pym's gradual desensitization to the horrors that beset him, from terror early in the book to casual curiosity towards the end.
The ending is not satisfying but because of what Pym has went through, it is enough for me. It could be that EAP felt that having a whooping denouement would be an overkill because all the hardships have been experienced by the young man and sailing to the South Pole somehow gives the readers something positive to look forward to. I can live with that thought instead of having one last backbreaking tryst with danger that would look like a forced and artificial ending.
I really liked this book.
This book is a narrative of a young man Arthur Gordon Pym and it tells about his sea and land, but mostly sea, adventures. The latter includes a shipwreck, a mutiny, death and even cannibalism. The former includes encounters with tribal black people who are savages. I particularly enjoyed the first person narration because of that distinct voice that only EAP had. I have never encountered a writer who writes flawlessly, easy to understand yet it feels old. And that archaic tone does not alienate (bore) the reader because his words and lyrical tune are classy and his plot is nicely crafted. This characters are like men who you can visualize in black and white or like moving human being in sepia yet they can be the next young man standing with you when you get on to a cruise or at the pier while waiting for the dispatcher for you to ride on a motorboat to an island.
Almost from the beginning of the novel, what might be a straightforward sea-faring adventure is revealed to be anything but. With the help of the captain's son, Pym stows away on a whaling ship, the Grampus and is entombed without food and water in the hold for two weeks. From then on murder follows mutiny, with shipwreck and cannibalism in close succession. The pace of the narrative and the horror were subdued yet it the story is not boring. It is in the form of a journal that traces Pym's gradual desensitization to the horrors that beset him, from terror early in the book to casual curiosity towards the end.
The ending is not satisfying but because of what Pym has went through, it is enough for me. It could be that EAP felt that having a whooping denouement would be an overkill because all the hardships have been experienced by the young man and sailing to the South Pole somehow gives the readers something positive to look forward to. I can live with that thought instead of having one last backbreaking tryst with danger that would look like a forced and artificial ending.
I really liked this book.
June 30, 2012
Poe himself summed up my thoughts about this novel when he said it is "a very silly book".
The prologue sets up the work as being written by two authors, Poe ghostwriting the first two parts and Pym himself finishing the rest. The work is split into a preface and 25 chapters.
* First 14 chapters:
This is a rousing narration following Pym as he stows away on a vessel which is taken by mutineers and eventually (with Pym's help) retaken. Poe gives a resounding description of terrible circumstances which befall Pym. Horrors including entrapment, captivity, near drowning, nightmares, brutality, grief, starvation and subsequent cannibalism, and many others befall our protaganist. This part of the story is well paced and rates with some of my favorite Poe stories.
* Chapters 15, 16, and 17:
Pym and a comrade are rescued from their first ship and take spots upon another vessel under Captain Guy. These chapters are a slog of technical information and bland, overdetailed descriptions of various sights in the southern seas. Poe's descriptions, especially related to parts of a ship, are minute but unelpful to the layman. Often times when talking about the ship Poe would string together so many unexplained technical ship-related terms that it became a complete mess (this would not be so severe to a reader with more knowledge of ships and sails).
Poe admittedly borrows long (generally boring) excerpts from other authors related to technical information - such as the nesting of various birds.
* Chapter 18 - end:
Pym has become, with no explanation given, a great influence on Captain Guy and encourages an exploration of the antarctic ocean. A mysterious set of islands is discovered, in what appears to be an out of place temperate climate. The crew sets about to ravage the resources of the land, "paying" the natives with trinkets brought south. The natives end up being more resourceful and end up ambushing all but Pym and his original comrade. Pym is very mad at the "savages" for this duplicity.
Pym, his comrade, and a single native hostage, escape in a large canoe and continue south. The novel ends with a series of strange anomalies of the supernatural variety.
* Overall Thoughts:
I was quite excited by the beginning of this novel. Poe's writing about fear generally shines. The whole story is disjointed and a bit mad. Character development is wonky or nonexistent and the depiction of the fictional natives in the latter portion is nothing but a racist caricature.
In trying to understand this novel I have come upon the theory that:
But, the other half of my brain says that Poe just wasn't a novellist. The prologue requires a different ending, or an epilogue, as the novel's abrupt conclusion defies any explanation regarding how the story came to be told to Poe. In the end, I am glad to have read this novel because the horror filled gems found throughout the beginning (and less so in the end) are exquisite.
The prologue sets up the work as being written by two authors, Poe ghostwriting the first two parts and Pym himself finishing the rest. The work is split into a preface and 25 chapters.
* First 14 chapters:
This is a rousing narration following Pym as he stows away on a vessel which is taken by mutineers and eventually (with Pym's help) retaken. Poe gives a resounding description of terrible circumstances which befall Pym. Horrors including entrapment, captivity, near drowning, nightmares, brutality, grief, starvation and subsequent cannibalism, and many others befall our protaganist. This part of the story is well paced and rates with some of my favorite Poe stories.
* Chapters 15, 16, and 17:
Pym and a comrade are rescued from their first ship and take spots upon another vessel under Captain Guy. These chapters are a slog of technical information and bland, overdetailed descriptions of various sights in the southern seas. Poe's descriptions, especially related to parts of a ship, are minute but unelpful to the layman. Often times when talking about the ship Poe would string together so many unexplained technical ship-related terms that it became a complete mess (this would not be so severe to a reader with more knowledge of ships and sails).
Poe admittedly borrows long (generally boring) excerpts from other authors related to technical information - such as the nesting of various birds.
* Chapter 18 - end:
Pym has become, with no explanation given, a great influence on Captain Guy and encourages an exploration of the antarctic ocean. A mysterious set of islands is discovered, in what appears to be an out of place temperate climate. The crew sets about to ravage the resources of the land, "paying" the natives with trinkets brought south. The natives end up being more resourceful and end up ambushing all but Pym and his original comrade. Pym is very mad at the "savages" for this duplicity.
Pym, his comrade, and a single native hostage, escape in a large canoe and continue south. The novel ends with a series of strange anomalies of the supernatural variety.
* Overall Thoughts:
I was quite excited by the beginning of this novel. Poe's writing about fear generally shines. The whole story is disjointed and a bit mad. Character development is wonky or nonexistent and the depiction of the fictional natives in the latter portion is nothing but a racist caricature.
In trying to understand this novel I have come upon the theory that:
But, the other half of my brain says that Poe just wasn't a novellist. The prologue requires a different ending, or an epilogue, as the novel's abrupt conclusion defies any explanation regarding how the story came to be told to Poe. In the end, I am glad to have read this novel because the horror filled gems found throughout the beginning (and less so in the end) are exquisite.
December 10, 2016
The majority of this novella is a rollicking sea adventure that seems to include many of the elements that I rightly or wrongly associate with Poe. In the first chapter (helpfully marked with the Roman numeral I, as was required in 19th century literature), the narrator’s friend, with a strange enthusiasm, gets him up in the middle of the night to go sailing. It isn’t until the two are a good distance from land that the narrator, Arthur Gordon Pym, who knows nothing about sailing, realizes that his friend, now almost unresponsive and with a vacant look in his eyes, is stone drunk, and that by morning they’ll be out of sight of land. I think this novella, the only one Poe ever wrote, may be an example of the exact opposite of Aristotle’s advice about the unity of action, time and place, but it does maintain a psychic unity: characters- due to drink, confinement (or “entombment”, as Poe would say), starvation or interior compulsions- seem to be in various states of intoxication, hallucination or madness.
There are no real scenes, no character development; one crisis simply leads to another. The story passes like a strange dream: four men draw straws to determine which one of them will be cannibalized by the others; an incredibly muscular dwarf appears; there are mutinies and counter-mutinies; someone is thrown overboard minus a leg, and devoured hungrily by waiting sharks below; the narrator discourses on the ‘singular friendship’ between penguins and albatross…
The ending is strange and moving. I don’t understand it. Some reviewers complain that we don’t learn ‘what happens’, but I’m glad that the story finally abandons the ‘will they escape or won’t they?’ episodic structure, which is not the sort of thing I ever remember about books.
PS- my brother informs me that there’s a German ‘funeral doom metal’ band called Ahab, and that one of their albums is a concept album about this novella:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P_US...
Apparently all of their albums have nautical themes, or are based on works of nautical literature, as of course is their name. I’m glad they exist.
November 25, 2020
Edgar Allan Poe's only novel-length story never really grabbed me. It was quite obviously a serial, with no idea where it was headed for most of the time, and this lack of a coherent plotline ended up hurting it a lot even if from time to time there were some exciting moments and good prose. And what happened to the dog, anyway?
November 8, 2014
De cuando en cuando, me cruzo con gente a la que le gustan las creaciones del maestro Poe, lo cual siempre me resulta gratificante ya que no hay nada más hermoso que compartir gustos en el campo literario. Lo malo es que, cada vez que consulto por este libro, solamente un bajo porcentaje lo ha leído. ¿La razón? Tienen miedo de no entenderlo, que sea complejo, que sea monótono o aburrido, que no cumpla con sus expectativas, y miles de excusas más. Si alguien esta pensando así y lee esta reseña, por favor, no se nieguen la oportunidad de disfrutar de este maravilloso libro porque no tiene desperdicio alguno. No es ni de lejos lo "light" que algunos creen que es, cuenta con las sorprendentemente gráficas descripciones de situaciones hórridas y macabras tan típicas del autor. Podría releer este libro mil veces más y no cansarme, y en cada una de esas mil veces recordarme por qué admiro tanto a este hombre.
June 16, 2008
This book is fun but flawed. It's far from a consistent work and feels somewhat fragmentary and exploratory at times, but any novel that includes mutiny, shipwreck, cannibalism, strange and threatening natives (especially ones with black teeth), fascinating creatures (from identifiable animals like sharks, polar bears, and penguins to unidentifiable ones like the white creature with red teeth that they come across late in the book), and a healthy dose of adventure, horror, and mystery is worth reading.
This is in some ways a shorter, more interesting Moby Dick; both texts include lightly disguised philosophical ideas and quite a few details and digressions apparently unrelated to the narrative, both take place at sea, and both end with images of whiteness (the white whale itself at the end of Moby Dick and, at the end of Pym "a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men" [217]). Each novel also leaves us with at least one survivor of the carnage (someone has to tell the story, after all).
This is in some ways a shorter, more interesting Moby Dick; both texts include lightly disguised philosophical ideas and quite a few details and digressions apparently unrelated to the narrative, both take place at sea, and both end with images of whiteness (the white whale itself at the end of Moby Dick and, at the end of Pym "a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men" [217]). Each novel also leaves us with at least one survivor of the carnage (someone has to tell the story, after all).
April 17, 2024
In the past I have only read Poe's very popular short stories. I am sure you know the ones I mean. In fact I had never known he had actually written anything longer until I stumbled across this book by accident one day. And after reading this I can see very clearly why he is considered one of the masters of horror. There is truly some horrible and disturbing scenes in here. The characters suffer too, especially the poor main character of Arthur Gordon. He never should have trusted his friend Augustus - not that the actual issue was caused by Augustus. But I would certainly be leary of the kind of situation that poor Arthur found himself in.
So when I first started this book I had no idea what to expect. Due to its age I had thought it would be slow or maybe hard to read. But to my utter shock I was totally drawn in. Hooked! There was actual suspense! And a huge mystery. I just had to keep reading to find out the truth about what was going on and what would happen to poor Arthur. Would he survive? Would he ever get home and off of that ship? I wanted to know!
I certainly didn't expect all of that from such an old book but there it was. More suspense in the beginning of this book than in many modern novels! And the tension was high too. Life or death. Multiple times. This is basically a disaster at sea story. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong. And the sea is trying to kill you. Man really doesn't belong out at sea when he doesn't have gills as wooden ships are way too fragile in tossing waves.
There are some ghastly scenes in here. A few of the details of those scenes totally caught me off guard. Never expected that. And then I felt how horrid that stuff actually is. Most things in books generally don't bother me at all..but these scenes I think will stick in my memory for a long time. Especially that ship that passed them by. Now that was truly clever!
I do feel the author made a few mistakes in here. Like about the tortoises. But I guess he didn't know any better. And yes there are a few tortoises in here.
So why didn't I rate this a full 5 stars? Because I feel the end of the book is weird. Its like its almost two separate books? I mean the story about Arthur Gordon continues but its almost like a totally different story? And I thought that it was out of place? It just felt so bizarre. Its almost like the beginning of a sequel.
So when I first started this book I had no idea what to expect. Due to its age I had thought it would be slow or maybe hard to read. But to my utter shock I was totally drawn in. Hooked! There was actual suspense! And a huge mystery. I just had to keep reading to find out the truth about what was going on and what would happen to poor Arthur. Would he survive? Would he ever get home and off of that ship? I wanted to know!
I certainly didn't expect all of that from such an old book but there it was. More suspense in the beginning of this book than in many modern novels! And the tension was high too. Life or death. Multiple times. This is basically a disaster at sea story. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong. And the sea is trying to kill you. Man really doesn't belong out at sea when he doesn't have gills as wooden ships are way too fragile in tossing waves.
There are some ghastly scenes in here. A few of the details of those scenes totally caught me off guard. Never expected that. And then I felt how horrid that stuff actually is. Most things in books generally don't bother me at all..but these scenes I think will stick in my memory for a long time. Especially that ship that passed them by. Now that was truly clever!
I do feel the author made a few mistakes in here. Like about the tortoises. But I guess he didn't know any better. And yes there are a few tortoises in here.
So why didn't I rate this a full 5 stars? Because I feel the end of the book is weird. Its like its almost two separate books? I mean the story about Arthur Gordon continues but its almost like a totally different story? And I thought that it was out of place? It just felt so bizarre. Its almost like the beginning of a sequel.
July 14, 2013
The legend that is Poe as well as perfecting the detective-story and the horror tale originated another unique, though little acknowledged, artform that of the 'weird novel'.
The titular narrator, smuggled aboard a brig by a friend, on a journey to the (then) unknown South Seas, falls victim to mutiny, recapturing the vessel, wreckage in storms and starvation (prevented by cannibalism), as well as an encounter with an all-corpse-crewed vessel, on the drifting, slowly sinking hulk.
Eventually escaping with fellow survivor Dirk Peters, they are rescued by a British schooner and continue on to Antarctic mystery.
Proceeding beyond the ice bergs - finding the carcass of a new weird animal species indicating warmer climes - they come to the all-black and all-black peopled isle of Tsalal.
The natives appear friendly at first, then ambush and slaughter the schooner's crew as soon as confidence is gained.
Pym and Peters hide in the surrounding mountains, in gorges (apparently artificially carved hieroglyphs for "Shaded", "White" and "Region to the South" as revealed in the epilogue) and eventually escape Tsalal, whose people mortally fear white animals and objects; with the terrorized shriek of "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!".
At the oneiric climax Pym's narrative is cut short, and Poe's longest tale ends.
But his influence began. Inspiring two 'fan-boy' sequels from Jules Verne's "An Antarctic Mystery" (1897) and Charles Romeyn Dake's "A Strange Discovery" (1899), as well as inspiring and templating great originals from M.P. Shiel's apocalypic "The Purple Cloud" (1901) and William Hope Hodgson's maritime-horror opus "The Boats of 'Glen Carrig'" (1907) through the overlooked "Medusa: A Story of Mystery, and Ecstasy, & Strange Horror" (1928) by E.H. Visiak to H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (1930) and Basil Copper's "The Great White Space" (1975).
The titular narrator, smuggled aboard a brig by a friend, on a journey to the (then) unknown South Seas, falls victim to mutiny, recapturing the vessel, wreckage in storms and starvation (prevented by cannibalism), as well as an encounter with an all-corpse-crewed vessel, on the drifting, slowly sinking hulk.
Eventually escaping with fellow survivor Dirk Peters, they are rescued by a British schooner and continue on to Antarctic mystery.
Proceeding beyond the ice bergs - finding the carcass of a new weird animal species indicating warmer climes - they come to the all-black and all-black peopled isle of Tsalal.
The natives appear friendly at first, then ambush and slaughter the schooner's crew as soon as confidence is gained.
Pym and Peters hide in the surrounding mountains, in gorges (apparently artificially carved hieroglyphs for "Shaded", "White" and "Region to the South" as revealed in the epilogue) and eventually escape Tsalal, whose people mortally fear white animals and objects; with the terrorized shriek of "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!".
At the oneiric climax Pym's narrative is cut short, and Poe's longest tale ends.
But his influence began. Inspiring two 'fan-boy' sequels from Jules Verne's "An Antarctic Mystery" (1897) and Charles Romeyn Dake's "A Strange Discovery" (1899), as well as inspiring and templating great originals from M.P. Shiel's apocalypic "The Purple Cloud" (1901) and William Hope Hodgson's maritime-horror opus "The Boats of 'Glen Carrig'" (1907) through the overlooked "Medusa: A Story of Mystery, and Ecstasy, & Strange Horror" (1928) by E.H. Visiak to H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (1930) and Basil Copper's "The Great White Space" (1975).
April 3, 2008
Part sea story, part adventure story, part horror story. A young man who runs away to sea and gets more than he bargained for. Mutiny, shipwreck, cannibalism, and that’s just for starters. It’s really in some ways a tall tale – the indirect way Poe tells the story, in the form of a story told to him by Pym, draws attention to the fact that it is a story and that the reader has no way of knowing how true it is. As the tale progresses it gets weirder, as Pym finds himself exploring the Antarctic, which turns out to be stranger than anyone had expected. I believe this novel inspired Lovecraft’s choice of an Antarctic setting for his own novel At the Mountains of Madness. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is in some ways a lost world story, with a strange Antarctic civilisation. What I like most about the book is that Poe doesn’t try to explain everything – he reports strange and mysterious events and hints of things that may be even stranger, but they’re left ambiguous. There’s also some intriguing use of colour symbolism, with white being very significant – as you’d expect in a story about the Antarctic, but not in the way Poe uses it. I didn’t like this novel as much as I’ve liked some of his short stories but it’s still a fascinating little book.
November 18, 2008
A grand macabre 19th century adventure that inspired Melville and a league of sequels/tributes including:
H.P. Lovecraft-At the Mountains of Madness (which Charles Stross gave a sequel with “A Colder War”
Jules Verne- Sphinx on the Ice Field: an Antarctic Mystery (which I’m sad to report is pretty boring)
Howard Waldrop and Steve Utley-“Black as Pitch from Pole to Pole”
Rudy Rucker-Hollow Earth
H.P. Lovecraft-At the Mountains of Madness (which Charles Stross gave a sequel with “A Colder War”
Jules Verne- Sphinx on the Ice Field: an Antarctic Mystery (which I’m sad to report is pretty boring)
Howard Waldrop and Steve Utley-“Black as Pitch from Pole to Pole”
Rudy Rucker-Hollow Earth
November 25, 2019
In Poe's only novel the structure and pacing are frustratingly all over the place compared to the best of his short pieces (Usher, Masque and Ligeia), even if the the structure actually adds to the 'anything could happen' sense of wonder as we veer wildly from mutiny to cannibalism to endless details about penguins and tortoises.
Were this all there was to Pym I wouldn't consider it a major work of Poe's, but for all its myriad flaws and questionable racism, what seals this as a great work of his is the grand, visionary cosmic terror of its final act, which is a soaring peak of his masterfully weird horror genius. Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!
Were this all there was to Pym I wouldn't consider it a major work of Poe's, but for all its myriad flaws and questionable racism, what seals this as a great work of his is the grand, visionary cosmic terror of its final act, which is a soaring peak of his masterfully weird horror genius. Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!
November 26, 2020
An interesting collection of tales following the adventures of Pym, with intensive elements of gore, suspense, and too much in-depth nautical knowledge.
Critics have said his abrupt and unsatisfying ending is an intentional act of suspense. I believe it was instead his inability to think of an ending. It seems Poe really found his stride with the short stories, not the novel.
Still, worth the read.
Critics have said his abrupt and unsatisfying ending is an intentional act of suspense. I believe it was instead his inability to think of an ending. It seems Poe really found his stride with the short stories, not the novel.
Still, worth the read.
February 15, 2017
Really phenomenal, very detailed, pseudo realism enhanced by scientific-sounding descriptions.
May 13, 2022
This 1838 novel is actually two novellas and a couple of short stories. Poe seems to have cobbled together rather disparate stories involving the adventures at sea of the title character, but they proceed which such markedly different tone and content as to make one wonder why he combined them into one work.
First, there is a harrowing adventure of two drunken youths who decide for no apparent reason to take a boat out into the ocean even though it is late at night and the weather is looking anything but propitious.
This is followed by the central, most terrifying part of the work detailing events pursuant on a mutiny aboard a ship, wholesale slaughter of innocents, murderous interactions before those remaining alive, and then the slow, inexorable onslaught of thirst and famine consequent on their losing all the masts off their vessel in a storm. Drifting for over a month, Poe’s penchant for riveting detail of suffering comes to the fore in brilliant descriptions of their futile attempts to get into the storage facilities which are both locked and under water, the issue of possibly adopting cannibalistic actions to stay alive, harassment by a school of sharks which follow their hulk and eventual meeting with another vessel. Totally unconnected both with what proceeded and followed it, this story would have made an integral novel or novella on its own.
The final main portion of the work is basically a travelogue of which any eighteenth century chronicler of sojourns in exotic locales would have been proud. Using for the most part a journal-entry method of proceeding, the author describes the efforts of a boat to get as close as it can to the South Pole, eventually reaching a point south of 85 degrees of latitude. This is actually almost impossible, as the overwhelming majority of the landmass of the continent extends north of the 70 degree mark. And the detail in this section is as extensive as it is seemingly unnecessary. The flora and fauna of Kergueland’s Islands in the southern Indian Ocean and are listed, as well as its major bays, inlets and interior topography. Then, several other ocean islands in the southern oceans are listed as they are visited, always making sure to detail the history of their discovery, use, current populations and latitude and longitude statistics.
An inconsistent and inconclusive encounter with a tribe of ‘savage’ islanders later occurs. The very existence of a tribe of people living at such extreme latitudes as well as the later experience that the ocean got warmer the further south they proceeded both stretched credulity. While more interesting than the preceding travelogue, the entire tenor of the work again changed during this section.
Due to the highly incongruous nature of the work, I believe Poe really didn’t work out his initial plan cogently enough before beginning to write, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had sort of made it up as he went along.
Only hesitatingly recommended.
First, there is a harrowing adventure of two drunken youths who decide for no apparent reason to take a boat out into the ocean even though it is late at night and the weather is looking anything but propitious.
This is followed by the central, most terrifying part of the work detailing events pursuant on a mutiny aboard a ship, wholesale slaughter of innocents, murderous interactions before those remaining alive, and then the slow, inexorable onslaught of thirst and famine consequent on their losing all the masts off their vessel in a storm. Drifting for over a month, Poe’s penchant for riveting detail of suffering comes to the fore in brilliant descriptions of their futile attempts to get into the storage facilities which are both locked and under water, the issue of possibly adopting cannibalistic actions to stay alive, harassment by a school of sharks which follow their hulk and eventual meeting with another vessel. Totally unconnected both with what proceeded and followed it, this story would have made an integral novel or novella on its own.
The final main portion of the work is basically a travelogue of which any eighteenth century chronicler of sojourns in exotic locales would have been proud. Using for the most part a journal-entry method of proceeding, the author describes the efforts of a boat to get as close as it can to the South Pole, eventually reaching a point south of 85 degrees of latitude. This is actually almost impossible, as the overwhelming majority of the landmass of the continent extends north of the 70 degree mark. And the detail in this section is as extensive as it is seemingly unnecessary. The flora and fauna of Kergueland’s Islands in the southern Indian Ocean and are listed, as well as its major bays, inlets and interior topography. Then, several other ocean islands in the southern oceans are listed as they are visited, always making sure to detail the history of their discovery, use, current populations and latitude and longitude statistics.
An inconsistent and inconclusive encounter with a tribe of ‘savage’ islanders later occurs. The very existence of a tribe of people living at such extreme latitudes as well as the later experience that the ocean got warmer the further south they proceeded both stretched credulity. While more interesting than the preceding travelogue, the entire tenor of the work again changed during this section.
Due to the highly incongruous nature of the work, I believe Poe really didn’t work out his initial plan cogently enough before beginning to write, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had sort of made it up as he went along.
Only hesitatingly recommended.
June 21, 2021
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (which I read in the 1965 AMS Press edition of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe) is two books in one: a survival at sea story and a tale of Antarctic exploration. Actually, it’s one and a half books in one, as the latter epic becomes a survival story and ends abruptly.
The writing is as over-articulate and replete with nautical terms as Melville’s, but Poe’s themes of terror and the macabre frequently raise their horrifying heads, as in:
And what would a Poe story be without living inhumation.
The writing is as over-articulate and replete with nautical terms as Melville’s, but Poe’s themes of terror and the macabre frequently raise their horrifying heads, as in:
It was not until some time after dark that we took courage to get up and throw the body overboard. It was then loathsome beyond expression, and so far decayed that, as Peters attempted to lift it, an entire leg came off in his grasp. As the mass of putrefaction slipped over the vessel’s side into the water, the glare of phosphoric light with which it was surrounded plainly discovered to us seven or eight large sharks, the clashing of whose horrible teeth, as their prey was torn to pieces among them, might have been heard at the distance of a mile. We shrunk within ourselves in the extremity of horror at the sound. (p. 140)Perhaps the most obvious imprint of Poe’s signature is his exploration of the ideas of confusion and irrationality, his suggestion that our minds may fail us and become our enemies, as in:
I found my imagination growing terribly excited by thoughts of the vast depth yet to be descended, and the precarious nature of the pegs and soap-stone holes which were my only support. It was in vain I endeavored to banish these reflections, and to keep my eyes steadily bent upon the flat surface of the cliff before me. The more earnestly I struggled not to think, the more intensely vivid became my conceptions, and the more horribly distinct. At length arrived that crisis of fancy, so fearful in all similar cases, the crisis in which we begin to anticipate the feelings with which we shall fall – to picture to ourselves the sickness, and dizziness, and the last struggle, and the half swoon, and the final bitterness of the rushing and headlong descent. And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact. I felt my knees strike violently together, while my fingers were gradually yet certainly relaxing their grasp. There was a ringing in my ears, and I said, ‘This is my knell of death!’ And now I was consumed with the irrepressible desire of looking below. I could not, I would not, confine my glances to the cliff; and with a wild, indefinable emotion, half of horror, half of a relieved oppression, I threw my vision far down into the abyss. For one moment my fingers clutched convulsively upon their hold, while, with the movement, the faintest possible idea of ultimate escape wandered, like a shadow, through my mind – in the next my whole soul was pervaded with a longing to fall; a desire, a yearning, a passion utterly uncontrollable. (pp. 229-230)“Crisis of fancy” is genius. “Violently” is Poe’s favorite adverb.
And what would a Poe story be without living inhumation.
February 4, 2024
Arthur Gordon Pym may not seem very lifelike, and his story certainly is sprawling with contradictions and unlikely events, but this book sure inspired a long list of prominent literary figures, including the likes of Melville, Verne and Lovecraft. This may not be very surprising; Poe has always written captivating stories, albeit this is the only novel that was published. Also, Poe loved to explore the weird and the occult, and while he eventually became specialized in mysteries that take place in the middle of towns of the modern world, the Antarctic and the mysteries of the seas provided a dramatic scene his readers will have been drawn to, the poles of the earth not having been explored in his time – at least, there were no written records, only myths, which left lots of space for speculation.
The story has it all, storms, mutinies, manslaughter, cannibalism and tribes of savages and other hardships; it has more nautical terms in it than Moby Dick I would venture to say. And while these elements all possess a shocking quality of their own, it is the poetic phrasing that inspires awe and terror.
Maybe even more important is the way the work was published. Poe first published two parts of the story, but when the book came out, his name was left out and the story was presented as a real life testimony; an obituary of Arthur Gordon Pym was published in the newspapers. This sort of subterfuge is nowadays not uncommon as a media campaign, but I cannot help but thinking that Poe – possibly alongside his editors – must have been daring and avantgarde in using these techniques.
The version I read included comments and excerpt of books inspired by the story, closing with a part of Verne’s “Antarctic mystery”, and it is hard not to see the roots of Moby Dick originate from this novel. A pleasure to read.
The story has it all, storms, mutinies, manslaughter, cannibalism and tribes of savages and other hardships; it has more nautical terms in it than Moby Dick I would venture to say. And while these elements all possess a shocking quality of their own, it is the poetic phrasing that inspires awe and terror.
Maybe even more important is the way the work was published. Poe first published two parts of the story, but when the book came out, his name was left out and the story was presented as a real life testimony; an obituary of Arthur Gordon Pym was published in the newspapers. This sort of subterfuge is nowadays not uncommon as a media campaign, but I cannot help but thinking that Poe – possibly alongside his editors – must have been daring and avantgarde in using these techniques.
The version I read included comments and excerpt of books inspired by the story, closing with a part of Verne’s “Antarctic mystery”, and it is hard not to see the roots of Moby Dick originate from this novel. A pleasure to read.
April 22, 2021
This was rather exciting-for the most part. We have shipwrecks, a mutiny, shark attacks, bear attacks, exciting fights and escapes. It would be hard to be bored with the first half of this novel. And then, after a major character dies, Arthur's voice suddenly goes away and it becomes more of a nature diary listing (mostly) bird life. I found this section to be quite a chore and then the action picked back up when they reached the island.
I love this line from the introduction (written by Jeffrey Meyers), "His Narrative starts as a juvenile adventure and ends as a horror story." That's pretty spot on.
The abrupt ending must be why no one has made a Pym movie.
I love this line from the introduction (written by Jeffrey Meyers), "His Narrative starts as a juvenile adventure and ends as a horror story." That's pretty spot on.
The abrupt ending must be why no one has made a Pym movie.
January 12, 2023
Genial librito marinero al que no le puedo poner 5/5 porque el hijo de mil chacales de Poe NO LE HA PUESTO UN FINAL.
Todo lo demás de la historia queda opacado por eso, por la cara de gilipollas que te deja (no es spoiler, te estoy diciendo lo que no tiene)
Todo lo demás de la historia queda opacado por eso, por la cara de gilipollas que te deja (no es spoiler, te estoy diciendo lo que no tiene)
April 24, 2023
Predivno napisano, Edgar Allan Poe genijalac. Nepredvidivo je, pročitajte do kraja i zaljubite se u ovog neodoljivog avanturistu koji vas vodi s jedne strane broda na drugu stranu u dvije sekunde, ni ne znate a već plutate na čamcu, pa ste ponovo na brodu. Znate dobro ko se gdje nalazi, i zašto, ali ne znate šta se može dogoditi naredno. Preporuke!
March 19, 2009
Most of us are familiar with Edgar Allen Poe's famous works. In each of these, an idiosyncratic, totalizing horror encompasses our entire experience. It was no surprise then that his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, takes the form of very loosely connected picaresque, with no narrative strand running through it from beginning to end.
The thrill of reading Pym is watching its protagonists narrowly escape one near death scenario only to be caught up immediately in another. The story follows young Arthur Gordon Pym as he stows away on a whaling ship with the help of his friend, the captain's son. After nearly dying of dehydration, starvation, and dog attack in his hiding place in the hold, he is rescued by his friend and emerges in the midst of a bloody mutiny. Pym, his friend, and a fierce mutineer sporting a bearskin toupee capture the ship from the rest of the crew, only to face a huge storm, then starvation and eventual capsize.
The story's greatest horror comes at the trio's first prospect of rescue. They spot a distant ship, its captain grinning at the helm as he makes his haphazard approach. As the ship draws close, their joy at the prospect of rescue turns to mortal terror; the unmistakeable scent of death wafts toward the survivors, and they realize the ship's deck is loaded with corpses, and its captain is lashed to the wheel, animated by the motion of a giant seabird intently devouring his innards.
Pym and the mutineer are eventually rescued by a crew hunting seal, that somehow ends up on an expedition to the South Pole, only to be ambushed by horde of deceptive natives. The story is much less interesting after the rescue, and is often interspersed with chapters of exposition on nautical subjects, in the same way that Moby Dick punishes its readers with a treatise on 19th century whaling.
The horrors of the book's first half are visceral and intense, but as the ship sails into uncharted territory, the story takes a turn toward the fantastical and loses its power. As Pym and his companion approach the pole, they seem to approach the end of the world and a luminescent divine figure. Poe then intercedes, as the editor of Pym's narrative, to tell us that the last chapters of the manuscript are missing, and that Pym, recently dead, can never finish his tale. Or that Poe, himself the actual author, had bit off more than he could chew and declined to conclude his novel because he had no idea how.
The book is short at least, at 143 pages in the back of my compilation of Poe's fiction, and it's better parts deserve a place among his more well-known horror. Altogether it's worth reading - I was never a fan of Poe before, and this at least confirmed for me what he's best at, and made me want to revisit his short stories.
The thrill of reading Pym is watching its protagonists narrowly escape one near death scenario only to be caught up immediately in another. The story follows young Arthur Gordon Pym as he stows away on a whaling ship with the help of his friend, the captain's son. After nearly dying of dehydration, starvation, and dog attack in his hiding place in the hold, he is rescued by his friend and emerges in the midst of a bloody mutiny. Pym, his friend, and a fierce mutineer sporting a bearskin toupee capture the ship from the rest of the crew, only to face a huge storm, then starvation and eventual capsize.
The story's greatest horror comes at the trio's first prospect of rescue. They spot a distant ship, its captain grinning at the helm as he makes his haphazard approach. As the ship draws close, their joy at the prospect of rescue turns to mortal terror; the unmistakeable scent of death wafts toward the survivors, and they realize the ship's deck is loaded with corpses, and its captain is lashed to the wheel, animated by the motion of a giant seabird intently devouring his innards.
Pym and the mutineer are eventually rescued by a crew hunting seal, that somehow ends up on an expedition to the South Pole, only to be ambushed by horde of deceptive natives. The story is much less interesting after the rescue, and is often interspersed with chapters of exposition on nautical subjects, in the same way that Moby Dick punishes its readers with a treatise on 19th century whaling.
The horrors of the book's first half are visceral and intense, but as the ship sails into uncharted territory, the story takes a turn toward the fantastical and loses its power. As Pym and his companion approach the pole, they seem to approach the end of the world and a luminescent divine figure. Poe then intercedes, as the editor of Pym's narrative, to tell us that the last chapters of the manuscript are missing, and that Pym, recently dead, can never finish his tale. Or that Poe, himself the actual author, had bit off more than he could chew and declined to conclude his novel because he had no idea how.
The book is short at least, at 143 pages in the back of my compilation of Poe's fiction, and it's better parts deserve a place among his more well-known horror. Altogether it's worth reading - I was never a fan of Poe before, and this at least confirmed for me what he's best at, and made me want to revisit his short stories.
May 6, 2017
“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” was an inspiration for Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” — he took the cry of “Tekeli-li” from it, and even mentions it a couple of times — and the last section of the book, set (sort of) in Antarctica, does have a proto-Lovecraftian feel to it. However, this part of the book arrives only after a macabre story of castaways adrift, a scientifically-minded travelogue of the South Seas, a bloody tale of a mutiny, a series of phantasmagorical dreams, and one or two other excursions that, like all the rest, seem to have only a limited connection to what went before. Unfortunately, it’s not only because it was the only part of the book that I was expecting that the last part is the best — it's the most interesting and original, as well as the most coherent, though, it must be said, also the most racist — and there’s a fair bit of decidedly mixed material — including, again, some that is rather racist — for the reader to make it through first, only to find at the very end that Poe has cheated by refusing to supply a solution to the mystery he creates. Insofar as this inspired Lovecraft, I suppose it would be unfair to complain, but it makes “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” rather unsatisfying reading.
Though it’s not directly germane to the book itself, my version has an appendix which gives a few excerpts from “Le Sphinx des Glaces”, Verne’s attempt to solve Pym’s mystery, which seems, if possible, even worse. Verne’s impeccably scientific late-Victorian outlook drains all the interest from the clues that Poe leaves: essentially, he picks a few and discards the remainder, including all the most inscrutable ones, to construct a vaguely scientific and wholly unsatisfying explanation. Furthermore, Verne’s scientifically-minded racism is even more offensive than Poe’s unsystematic antebellum version. Poe is at least capable of forgetting that the half-Native Dirk Peters was originally intended to be simply a grotesque: instead, Peters is promoted to the status of co-hero by the end of the book, while Pym’s friend Augustus, who was originally intended to occupy that position, turned out not to be interesting enough for it and so is killed off halfway through. Verne, on the other hand, won’t let us forget Peters’s origins, constantly referring to him as “the half-breed,” even when he is engaged in somewhat heroic endeavors. Unless the professor of American Literature who wrote the appendices to my edition of “The Narrative” is completely misrepresenting it, “Le Sphinx des Glaces” is not one of Verne’s better-known novels for good reason.
Though it’s not directly germane to the book itself, my version has an appendix which gives a few excerpts from “Le Sphinx des Glaces”, Verne’s attempt to solve Pym’s mystery, which seems, if possible, even worse. Verne’s impeccably scientific late-Victorian outlook drains all the interest from the clues that Poe leaves: essentially, he picks a few and discards the remainder, including all the most inscrutable ones, to construct a vaguely scientific and wholly unsatisfying explanation. Furthermore, Verne’s scientifically-minded racism is even more offensive than Poe’s unsystematic antebellum version. Poe is at least capable of forgetting that the half-Native Dirk Peters was originally intended to be simply a grotesque: instead, Peters is promoted to the status of co-hero by the end of the book, while Pym’s friend Augustus, who was originally intended to occupy that position, turned out not to be interesting enough for it and so is killed off halfway through. Verne, on the other hand, won’t let us forget Peters’s origins, constantly referring to him as “the half-breed,” even when he is engaged in somewhat heroic endeavors. Unless the professor of American Literature who wrote the appendices to my edition of “The Narrative” is completely misrepresenting it, “Le Sphinx des Glaces” is not one of Verne’s better-known novels for good reason.
August 3, 2016
Low 3. If I didn't know this was written by Poe, I would never have guessed it. We don't get the creepiness vibe like we do in his short stories. We don't get the overflowing emotion like we do in his poetry. This felt like a generic 19th century novel, and along with that came the long digressions on subjects not terribly relevant to the plot. Really Poe, do you have to spend a chapter each discussing cargo stowage and albatross-penguin cohabitation? You are the master of terror and suspense, but I'm not feeling it at all. It actually felt a lot like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Verne was strongly influenced by this novel) and moved just as slowly with brief moments of excitement.
There are also some glaring inconsistencies in the book. Specifically, if Pym, the narrator, dies in the last chapter, how on earth did he ask Poe to write out his adventures, as he explains in the Prologue? Pym and company encounter an island inhabited by savages who have never before seen a white man, but they seem to speak French. ??
Maybe I set too high a standard for Poe, but come on. I didn't necessarily need swashbuckling, but a bit more tension would have been nice. The characters got themselves into plenty of life or death situations, but I never felt moved.
Please excuse me while I go read "A Tell Tale Heart."
There are also some glaring inconsistencies in the book. Specifically, if Pym, the narrator, dies in the last chapter, how on earth did he ask Poe to write out his adventures, as he explains in the Prologue? Pym and company encounter an island inhabited by savages who have never before seen a white man, but they seem to speak French. ??
Maybe I set too high a standard for Poe, but come on. I didn't necessarily need swashbuckling, but a bit more tension would have been nice. The characters got themselves into plenty of life or death situations, but I never felt moved.
Please excuse me while I go read "A Tell Tale Heart."
July 13, 2009
Crazy. What I like best is that Pym is rescued by a friend who hears him smash a glass bottle, but doesn't know that this is what saved him until the friend tells him about it years later. Except that friend dies within a few weeks! Similarly, Pym dies before finishing his story, before revealing to us what horrible fate awaits him at the bottom of the world. It's as if (similar to a short story by Jorge Luis Borges) "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" is the product of two or even three alternate timelines, and that Pym sailed to a crack in the fabric of the universe at the bottom of the world, and was simultaneously able to die there AND live on for another 10 years until, realizing that he was both dead and alive, died in the act of telling how he died. The evidence is that his friend seems to have survived AND died on the adventure, like time re-wrote itself. Borges (a big fan of Poe) wrote a similar story in which an old man spends his life regretting how he ran away from a battle as a youth but, after he dies, all traces of his life after the battle gradually disappear, and all his neighbors come to believe that he died in battle as a young man.
March 7, 2013
As much as it pains me to admit this, I absolutely LOATHED Poe's novella: The Narrative of Author Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Just stringing the words "Poe" and "Loathed" together in the same sentence feels completely wrong to me. After all, I've always considered myself to be a lover of "all things Poe". As of this evening, however, I will now have to add an * that states (except The Narrative of Author Gordon Pym of Nantucket). How bad did it get? Well...I actually contemplated "abandoning ship" halfway through his adventure on the high seas. In Poe's defense, it WAS difficult to read his 1838 novella without judging it by today's standards, but there were actually moments throughout the novella where I contemplated ramming a fingernail file under my nails thinking it would be far less painful than suffering through one more page of Author Pym's "latitude and longitude" tirades. Oh, Edgar...my dear, dear Edgar. Please forgive me and know that I still absolutely ADORE your short stories. Let's just leave this whole "novella" nonsense behind us and focus on what matters? There's a Black Cat calling and I've really, really missed him.
April 1, 2011
This novella, the only book-length for Poe, is a satire on sensational literature of the mid-C19th. It is also a mix of a statements on what it means to try to survive outside of gender-normative heterosexual male whiteness of the time.
It has a few (in)famous scenes of horror. As the book progresses, the horror/harrow becomes so common that the senses dull somewhat (this being the point).
I like the contrast between (A) Pym remembering the story in the preface when he says the only other witness is a half-breed and (B) the whitening of that 'half breed,' Peters, when Pym and he (spoiler alert) are the only 'white' survivors on the island (which would have happened before the preface.) (Spoiler) The key here is in the very end, when the fantastical actual whiteness/patriarchy reabsorbs the emergent-non-gender normative one (Pym) (evidenced because he is ever-unable to kill anyone and requires catching) and the suddenly-white one (Peters), thrusting them back into society as closeted and half-breed, respectively.
It has a few (in)famous scenes of horror. As the book progresses, the horror/harrow becomes so common that the senses dull somewhat (this being the point).
I like the contrast between (A) Pym remembering the story in the preface when he says the only other witness is a half-breed and (B) the whitening of that 'half breed,' Peters, when Pym and he (spoiler alert) are the only 'white' survivors on the island (which would have happened before the preface.) (Spoiler) The key here is in the very end, when the fantastical actual whiteness/patriarchy reabsorbs the emergent-non-gender normative one (Pym) (evidenced because he is ever-unable to kill anyone and requires catching) and the suddenly-white one (Peters), thrusting them back into society as closeted and half-breed, respectively.
Read
July 28, 2012OK, so Poe was a bit of a racist. Let's address that elephant in the room before we move on to the rest of the review.
There are only a handful of works I know that express the sheer horror that's found in Arthur Gordon Pym... Heart of Darkness is up there, along with House of Leaves, and a few others. In the life of Arthur Gordon Pym, there are no wins. Facing the cruelty and savagery of his fellow sailors, the unforgiving sea, and a hostile and utterly alien indigenous society, he survives albeit barely. It starts realistically, and gets progressively weirder and weirder.
I will not say anything about the ending. Actual shivers.
There are only a handful of works I know that express the sheer horror that's found in Arthur Gordon Pym... Heart of Darkness is up there, along with House of Leaves, and a few others. In the life of Arthur Gordon Pym, there are no wins. Facing the cruelty and savagery of his fellow sailors, the unforgiving sea, and a hostile and utterly alien indigenous society, he survives albeit barely. It starts realistically, and gets progressively weirder and weirder.
I will not say anything about the ending. Actual shivers.
September 15, 2011
I had no idea Poe was such a science fiction writer! I always thought he was super into horror but apparently he's got another side to him. He gets really scientific in this terrific nautical tale. The ending is fantastic and I'm sure had he been in more recent times, it would have been even wilder. The scientific and really objective perspective of this novel lends it some real credibility as a true story, which is what Poe was shooting for. Good stuff if you're a Poe fan.
July 15, 2022
I've done a bit of a deepdive into Edgar, "A Poe-t" over the last few weeks, and decided to log whatever Goodreads book had a similar amount of pages to what I'd read. From his stories and poems, I've read:
Poems
—The Raven
—To Helen (both of them)
—The City in the Sea
—The Bells
—The Haunted Palace
—Annabel Lee
—Dream-Land
—A Dream Within a Dream
—Sonnet to Science
—Israfel
Prose
—The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
—The Fall of the House of Usher
—The Cask of Amontillado
—The Murders in the Rue Morgue
—The Purloined Letter
—The Tell-Tale Heart
—The Gold-Bug
—The Pit and the Pendulum
—The Masque of the Red Death
A tragic figure of no small talent, one wanders what Poe could have achieved had he lived for longer than 40 years, and/or in possession of enough wealth or income to comfortably subsist; the quantity and quality of his output is admirable simply for the circumstances he was born into. Poe's stories can, at their best, evoke a hair-raising thrill, and draw you into unknown, cosmic-psychologic territories. At their worst, they're monotonous, predictable, and bogged down by the pretentious inner and outer lives of Poe's pitiful protagonists and deuteragonists. The major works to consider are Arthur Gordon Pym, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Purloined Letter (at the very least in order to read Lacan and Derrida's accounts of it), The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Raven. These are all great psychological tales underpinned by comic absurdity and engrossing storylines, easy to pick up and hard to put down. There's also a strong biographical throughline in all of his work, but I'm not sure if that makes it more or less interesting. Many of his stories are haunted by a dead female relation, of which Poe encountered many in his short time of earth, and Arthur Gordon Pym is convincingly read as an allegory for Poe's loss of his brother.
That said, reading Poe's short stories has made me wonder whether I'm ever going to enjoy a non-Borges short story ever again. Of course, Borges has cited Poe as one of his primary influences, but it feels a bit misguided to believe that someone as well-read as Borges could even have primary influences. In any case, reading Poe has only made me realise how thoroughly Borges has overwritten his master's work. He altogether extends upon the ingenuity of Poe's plots, which are typically just short of a thought experiment, while relieving himself of any burden of influence through his superior style and depth of knowledge. In all, Poe's work feels like just one shelf of Borges' Babelesque Library, totally contained by the work of his pupil.
Poems
—The Raven
—To Helen (both of them)
—The City in the Sea
—The Bells
—The Haunted Palace
—Annabel Lee
—Dream-Land
—A Dream Within a Dream
—Sonnet to Science
—Israfel
Prose
—The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
—The Fall of the House of Usher
—The Cask of Amontillado
—The Murders in the Rue Morgue
—The Purloined Letter
—The Tell-Tale Heart
—The Gold-Bug
—The Pit and the Pendulum
—The Masque of the Red Death
A tragic figure of no small talent, one wanders what Poe could have achieved had he lived for longer than 40 years, and/or in possession of enough wealth or income to comfortably subsist; the quantity and quality of his output is admirable simply for the circumstances he was born into. Poe's stories can, at their best, evoke a hair-raising thrill, and draw you into unknown, cosmic-psychologic territories. At their worst, they're monotonous, predictable, and bogged down by the pretentious inner and outer lives of Poe's pitiful protagonists and deuteragonists. The major works to consider are Arthur Gordon Pym, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Purloined Letter (at the very least in order to read Lacan and Derrida's accounts of it), The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Raven. These are all great psychological tales underpinned by comic absurdity and engrossing storylines, easy to pick up and hard to put down. There's also a strong biographical throughline in all of his work, but I'm not sure if that makes it more or less interesting. Many of his stories are haunted by a dead female relation, of which Poe encountered many in his short time of earth, and Arthur Gordon Pym is convincingly read as an allegory for Poe's loss of his brother.
That said, reading Poe's short stories has made me wonder whether I'm ever going to enjoy a non-Borges short story ever again. Of course, Borges has cited Poe as one of his primary influences, but it feels a bit misguided to believe that someone as well-read as Borges could even have primary influences. In any case, reading Poe has only made me realise how thoroughly Borges has overwritten his master's work. He altogether extends upon the ingenuity of Poe's plots, which are typically just short of a thought experiment, while relieving himself of any burden of influence through his superior style and depth of knowledge. In all, Poe's work feels like just one shelf of Borges' Babelesque Library, totally contained by the work of his pupil.
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