Play Book Tag discussion

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe - 3* - My Review

Billed as Poe’s only novel and published in 1838, this story starts as a maritime adventure. Arthur Gordon Pym, assisted by his friend Augustus, stows away on a whaling ship captained by Augustus’s father. They eventually travel toward the South Pole and discover a number of islands. They are subjected to mutiny, starvation, sharks, storms, shipwrecks, and all sorts of perils one might meet on a long exploratory voyage in the 19th century. One of the most vivid scenes is an encounter with a ship of the dead.

These action-oriented (and mostly gruesome) episodes are supplemented with long passages about nautical terms, sea currents, locations of islands, and descriptions of flora and fauna, in the format of a ship’s journal. I liked reading this from the perspective of sampling the writings of the 1800s, and in particular, the segments that discuss the state of Antarctic knowledge of the time. But overall, it was an uneven reading experience. The encounters with “savages” are full of racial stereotypes. I enjoyed the first half, which focuses on the maritime adventure, but feel like it loses its way in the second half.

PBT Comments: Those who have read Melville and Verne will notice the influences. Also, Yann Martel named Richard Parker in Life of Pi after a character in Poe's novel.

I read this some years back along with the modern Pym by Mat Johnson.

I am pretty sure I wouldn't appreciate them as much now.

I had not heard of Pym but it sounds intriguing. I think it is really interesting that people back in the 1800s thought that Antarctica was surrounded by warmer currents once you got past the ice. They thought something similar about the North Pole, too, before it was fully explored.