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Recently canned professor of American literature Chris Jaynes has just made a startling the manuscript of a crude slave narrative that confirms the reality of Edgar Allan Poe’s strange and only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Determined to seek out Tsalal, the remote island of pure and utter blackness that Poe describes, Jaynes convenes an all-black crew of six to follow Pym’s trail to the South Pole, armed with little but the firsthand account from which Poe derived his seafaring tale, a bag of bones, and a stash of Little Debbie snack cakes. Thus begins an epic journey by an unlikely band of adventurers under the permafrost of Antarctica, beneath the surface of American history, and behind one of literature’s great mysteries.
Hardcover
First published March 1, 2011
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About the author
Mat Johnson
42 books442 followersMat Johnson is an American writer of literary fiction who works in both prose and the comics format. In 2007, he was named the first USA James Baldwin Fellow by United States Artists.
Johnson was born and raised in the Germantown and Mount Airy communities in Philadelphia.
His mother is African American and his father is Irish Catholic. He attended Greene Street Friends School, West Chester University, University of Wales, Swansea, and ultimately received his B.A. from Earlham College. In 1993 he was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Johnson received his M.F.A. from Columbia University School of the Arts (1999).
Johnson has taught at Rutgers University, Columbia University, Bard College, and The Callaloo Journal Writers Retreat. He is now a permanent faculty member at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Johnson lives in Houston.
Johnson was born and raised in the Germantown and Mount Airy communities in Philadelphia.
His mother is African American and his father is Irish Catholic. He attended Greene Street Friends School, West Chester University, University of Wales, Swansea, and ultimately received his B.A. from Earlham College. In 1993 he was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Johnson received his M.F.A. from Columbia University School of the Arts (1999).
Johnson has taught at Rutgers University, Columbia University, Bard College, and The Callaloo Journal Writers Retreat. He is now a permanent faculty member at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Johnson lives in Houston.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 698 reviews
July 2, 2011
Read this book now.
Marvelous satire, and a post modern literary play on the life of words, Pym is the best time I've had between the covers of a book in ages. Taking on everything from Poe to Toni Morrison's Playing the Dark, Johnson writes a tale at once absurd, laugh out loud funny, ironic and broadly satirical.
And yes, it really is about a black professor who has a meltdown when he doesn't get tenure, and ends of travelling to the (literal) ends of the earth and the end of time with his best friend, some Tastycakes, an unattainable love, and every trope, insider joke and stereotype about blackness and whiteness your could pack into 320 pages. Pym visits all the 21st century racial dilemmas of Percival Everett, but does so with the playful humour (and underlying confrontational seriousness) of Slavov Žižek.
It took Johnson 8 years to finish Pym. I'm glad he never gave up. It's a novel I've been waiting for. I can't wait to read his prior novel, Hunting In Harlem.
Marvelous satire, and a post modern literary play on the life of words, Pym is the best time I've had between the covers of a book in ages. Taking on everything from Poe to Toni Morrison's Playing the Dark, Johnson writes a tale at once absurd, laugh out loud funny, ironic and broadly satirical.
And yes, it really is about a black professor who has a meltdown when he doesn't get tenure, and ends of travelling to the (literal) ends of the earth and the end of time with his best friend, some Tastycakes, an unattainable love, and every trope, insider joke and stereotype about blackness and whiteness your could pack into 320 pages. Pym visits all the 21st century racial dilemmas of Percival Everett, but does so with the playful humour (and underlying confrontational seriousness) of Slavov Žižek.
It took Johnson 8 years to finish Pym. I'm glad he never gave up. It's a novel I've been waiting for. I can't wait to read his prior novel, Hunting In Harlem.
June 28, 2012
oh god. i am almost ready to give up satire and humour entirely. i adore a good quip. i love a wag, i cheer a wit (and mat johnson fits these categories) but i don't seem to have the patience for the sustained point behind it all these days. happily, there was a lot of other filling in this little debbie cake novel which has a lot going for it in terms of voice, intertextuality, intelligence, and invention: chris jaynes, an african-american professor who wants to teach poe instead of pursuing the black cannon at his disposal is fired, and puts together an expedition to antarctica to retrace the steps of a. gordon pym, the titular hero of the only novel written by edgar a. of course, he's got reason to believe that a. gordon pym might actually have been a real live boy, based on an old letter that comes into his possession, and if that's true, perhaps the black eden, tsalal, also exists. so off he goes with the team assembled (this includes the captain, his activist cousin booker jaynes, his friend garth, former bus driver and little debbie addict, and also a videographer and his partner the on-camera talent, and wouldn't you know it? the professor's old flame and new husband). things go swimmingly until they don't, and lots of strange characters, artistic, animalistic, atavistic are found out on the ice.
i gave the book four stars, because i liked it but i *wanted* to really like it, and at the end i felt like i disappointed it, more than it disappointed me.
i gave the book four stars, because i liked it but i *wanted* to really like it, and at the end i felt like i disappointed it, more than it disappointed me.
July 4, 2022
I stumbled upon Mat Johnson a few years ago when I read his novel Loving Day. I few years later, I read his graphic novel Incognegro. Both were enjoyable, intriguing and mesmerizing. Pym is an earlier novel with an intriguing premise. Johnson takes on Edgar Allen Poe's only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales. A novel which ends abruptly with the protagonist and his friend arrived at the South Pole. Here Johnson extrapolates to amusing and poignant ends. Poe had some very unclear notions about race, but Pym is Johnson's thought exercise at filling in the blanks through some sparkling satire.
Johnson's ideas in his books stem from his life experiences as a biracial man. He often explores issues of race and colorism. The level of satire in this book is absurd, silly, a little weird and quite scholarly in a bizarre and humorous way. The poignancy of the novel sneaks up on you. I had to do some research on Poe's book to understand what Johnson was doing here. By the end of the book, I thought "what the heck", then I went and listened to the beginning chapters again. That's when the novel turned incredibly smart and clever. Johnson always weaves very thoughtful and intelligent tales with a mostly lighthearted approach that masks the seriousness and insightfulness of his books. Johnson is a very smart, interesting, engaging, upbeat and humorous writer. This was a powerful read amid the absurdity. He has become one of the more enjoyable "must read" authors for me.
4+ Stars
Listened to Audible. JD Jackson was an excellent narrator.
PS: NPR did a book review back in 2011 that was a much better representation of the book that captures the humor and cleverness of the novel much better than I do. See it here: https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134003...
Johnson's ideas in his books stem from his life experiences as a biracial man. He often explores issues of race and colorism. The level of satire in this book is absurd, silly, a little weird and quite scholarly in a bizarre and humorous way. The poignancy of the novel sneaks up on you. I had to do some research on Poe's book to understand what Johnson was doing here. By the end of the book, I thought "what the heck", then I went and listened to the beginning chapters again. That's when the novel turned incredibly smart and clever. Johnson always weaves very thoughtful and intelligent tales with a mostly lighthearted approach that masks the seriousness and insightfulness of his books. Johnson is a very smart, interesting, engaging, upbeat and humorous writer. This was a powerful read amid the absurdity. He has become one of the more enjoyable "must read" authors for me.
4+ Stars
Listened to Audible. JD Jackson was an excellent narrator.
PS: NPR did a book review back in 2011 that was a much better representation of the book that captures the humor and cleverness of the novel much better than I do. See it here: https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134003...
May 18, 2016
I thought that the first 100 pages or so of Pym were fantastic. The satire was imaginative; I felt like I was in on the joke. I, also, appreciated the irreverent, social commentary. Up until I thought that this would be one of my best books of 2015. Johnson’s use of Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is so creative that I figured that alone would put this book on my favorites list. However, at the point of , the bizarre nature of the plot overshadowed everything else. Don’t get me wrong; I wanted to know what would happen next, but this book had the potential to be extraordinary. Instead, it morphed from smart, witty satire to something cartoon-ish. Also, everyone who reads my reviews knows that there is one thing that truly gets my goat, and I simply cannot abide.
Overall I, definitely, liked Pym a lot. I wish I would have loved it, but I can easily give it four stars. I'll be looking for more from Mat Johnson.
Overall I, definitely, liked Pym a lot. I wish I would have loved it, but I can easily give it four stars. I'll be looking for more from Mat Johnson.
May 13, 2014
America is afraid to engage with it's great original sin. No surprise. Slavery tarnished the ideals of freedom and rugged individuality enshrined in our Constitution. During the time of slavery, we ignored the irony inherent in this set up. Today, we generally acknowledge the horror of that period in our history, but we're still afraid to engage with the idea of race and our slaveholding past's affect on our present. You want to unsettle people at a dinner party? Mention the Dred Scot revolt. You want alienate your African-American friends? Slap a Confederate flag sticker on the back of your Prius.
Johnson's clever Pym performs a double-edged magic trick. It explores race without bringing our American history into the equation. In this way, we're allowed to experience the goings-on without feeling the sting our complicity. Meanwhile, the book subtly slips a knife through the reader's ribs. No one who reads this book is safe. Not racists, not liberals, not zealots, not humanists, not academics.
That's not to say the book is a drag. Pym's wide-eyed, but intelligent protagonist, Jaynes, is too funny to make Pym anything except charming and engaging.
I imagine that Pym will generate discussion among scholars and laypeople for decades to come. I also believe that some writer will be moved to answer this extraordinary work in the same manner in which Johnson answered the original work by Edgar Allan Poe.
Johnson's clever Pym performs a double-edged magic trick. It explores race without bringing our American history into the equation. In this way, we're allowed to experience the goings-on without feeling the sting our complicity. Meanwhile, the book subtly slips a knife through the reader's ribs. No one who reads this book is safe. Not racists, not liberals, not zealots, not humanists, not academics.
That's not to say the book is a drag. Pym's wide-eyed, but intelligent protagonist, Jaynes, is too funny to make Pym anything except charming and engaging.
I imagine that Pym will generate discussion among scholars and laypeople for decades to come. I also believe that some writer will be moved to answer this extraordinary work in the same manner in which Johnson answered the original work by Edgar Allan Poe.
January 17, 2016
What a strange book. I wasn't sure what to make of Pym when I finished it earlier today, but after thinking it over for a while, I'm pretty sure I like it. I read it for a book club at work, and let's just say it was NOT a popular choice. The general consensus was that Pym was offensive and ridiculous, the protagonist was angry, and the characters were obnoxious. At the beginning of the meeting I was inclined to agree with many of the criticisms, but as the discussion went on, I found myself defending the book. Yes, the characters were thinly veiled stereotypes, but they were sincere and quite funny and THAT IS HOW SATIRE WORKS. Yes, the protagonist was angry, but justifiably so. And yes, the story was ridiculous, but so was Poe's original novel. Plus, this one featured the phrase "Ice Honkies," a dog named White Folks, and a merciless parody of "Painter of Light" Thomas Kinkade, so it's better by default. I wouldn't call it a favorite, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but there were enough moments of brilliance to warrant a 3 star rating in my book.
January 30, 2019
How can any novel manage to be so smart and so ridiculous at the same time? In this novel, Johnson tells a story even more incoherent and open-ended than his source of inspiration, Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. But within his chosen framework of comedic satire, Johnson also makes intellectually exuberant arguments, a cascade of them, about literature, race, identity, feminism, love, and the historical inheritance of slavery. He even manages to explore the conditions under which genocide might be morally justified. It's a wonderful social satire, and a very enjoyable read, as long as you allow it to sweep you along, instead of permitting it to make you cranky for the way it never really acts like a novel is supposed to act. I would recommend reading Poe's novel immediately before this one as the passages of 'literary analysis' in Johnson's novel are priceless and many of the plot lines run parallel to Poe's, where an immediate experience of Poe's story, missing dog and all, will make Johnson's sendup all the more delightful.
March 16, 2011
I bought this book because it got such rave reviews on Salon and Fresh Air. The concept was great and the passages quoted were hilarious. I love academic satires and fiction about fiction and Poe (and Lovecraft) and critical theory about race ... So I was set to LOVE this book, and for the first 150 pages I did love it. I was snickering and giggling and tipping with laughter at the dry humor and footnotes and gentle mockery of academic language.
Then something happened. I don't know what exactly. The plot started taking over ... But it's not really a plot, more just a situation and some action. Like a series of scenes designed to be adapted into movie.
The Antarctic exploration party are I guess supposed to be a microcosm of African-American society (but oops 6 men and only 1 woman?) but they aren't very sharply delineated as types, and most don't get enough airtime to be full-fledged characters. Except for the narrator, they're more like action figures.
The 2nd, artificial paradise of whiteness that they encounter is kind of a one-joke gag that never made me laugh. And the ending of the book is a total anticlimax, which is disappointing even though the author has been preparing us for it all the way by setting up parallels with the baffling unfinished and unresolved end of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Something tells me the reviewers didn't read the whole book.
Then something happened. I don't know what exactly. The plot started taking over ... But it's not really a plot, more just a situation and some action. Like a series of scenes designed to be adapted into movie.
The Antarctic exploration party are I guess supposed to be a microcosm of African-American society (but oops 6 men and only 1 woman?) but they aren't very sharply delineated as types, and most don't get enough airtime to be full-fledged characters. Except for the narrator, they're more like action figures.
The 2nd, artificial paradise of whiteness that they encounter is kind of a one-joke gag that never made me laugh. And the ending of the book is a total anticlimax, which is disappointing even though the author has been preparing us for it all the way by setting up parallels with the baffling unfinished and unresolved end of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Something tells me the reviewers didn't read the whole book.
April 12, 2011
There are just some books that have the power to take you out of the real world for a while so that all there is is the story in front of you, and Pym is one of those. This book fits the bill of that old phrase "a rollicking good yarn," while simultaneously offering its readers the author's ruminations on the issue of race. Trying to pigeonhole this metafictional novel is not a simple task: it's got it all -- alternative history, fantasy, adventure, satire, and above all, comedy. I think there were only a few moments when I didn't laugh while reading this book.
The story begins when Christopher Jaynes fails to gain tenure at the university where he's teaching. Jaynes is the only black male professor on campus, and was hired to teach African American Literature. But he would rather teach American lit., and because he believed that early American literature (including his favorite, Edgar Allan Poe) held the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness," and "the twisted mythic underpinnings of modern racial thought." He offered a course called "Dancing With the Darkies: Whiteness in the Literary Mind" to explore his ideas. He believes his work is helping to discover why America has not yet become a postracial society, and also that his work is helping to find a cure. As he explains to the bow-tied university president, "If we can identify how the pathology of Whiteness was constructed, then we can learn how to dismantle it." And Jaynes believed that Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (and some of his other works, but he is somewhat obsessed with Poe's Pym) was a key source in understanding the source of the assumptions of Whiteness. But these classes were poorly attended, one of the reasons given to him for denial of tenure, as well as the unspoken reason that Jaynes refused to sit on the school's diversity committee.
Jaynes also collects antiquarian texts, and one day shortly after leaving the university, finds an item in a catalog for a "Negro Servant's Memoir," from 1837. As it turns out, it's not really a slave narrative, but rather a major find: an African American work written before the Civil War. As he begins reading, to his very great surprise, he finds that what he has is nothing less than the autobiography of Dirk Peters, the "half-breed" companion of Arthur Gordon Pym from Poe's novel. Jaynes has an OMG moment where it comes to him that Pym's narrative may not have been fiction after all, and the proof is in his hands. So if The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is true, then Jaynes realizes that
" ...Tsalal, the great undiscovered African Diasporan homeland, might still be out there, uncorrupted by Whiteness. That there was a group of our people who did achieve victory over slavery in all its forms, escaping completely from the progression of Westernization and colonization to form a society outside of time and history. And that I might find them."
Jaynes decides to go to Antarctica, using his cousin Booker and a crew completely composed of African Americans to get him there. And this is where the story really takes off, so I won't add any more of the plot to avoid spoiling it for anyone who might be interested.
Pym is one of the best novels I've read this year. The author's writing comes off naturally so there's no contrived feeling in his prose. His characterizations are what make this book -- you will instantly recognize various character types as you read, making it all the more real. Jaynes' best friend Garth is enamored of paintings done by an artist named Thomas Karvel (think Kinkade), and loves Little Debbie Snack Cakes, which he packs by the caseload for the stay in Antarctica. His cousin Booker is a civil rights activist, and constantly spouts off about white people and the system when it suits him. There's also a gay videographer who runs a video website, along with his partner; even in the worst of spots the camera is rolling. Another character is an entertainment lawyer, who often stops the Antarctic action in debates about what they'll find and who will have the rights to it. And along the way, the author provides his insights and commentary on other works that followed The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, for example, Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness and a sequel to Poe's work by Jules Verne, besides delving into Poe's novel itself.
The action gets a little odd toward the end, but overall, if you're up for a great read, Pym is it. It satisfied my reading thirst for quirkiness, for comedy and satire and for a good story. Keep in mind though that it veers toward the fantastical, so if you can't suspend your disbelief, this isn't the book for you. You don't have to read Poe's original work to get it, as the author does a great job of presenting the story in his novel, but on a personal level, I'd suggest doing so. I got a lot more out of Johnson's novel having read Poe's first -- the style is purposefully similar to the original and there are little nuances from Poe that Johnson also captures in his book without explanation to the reader. It's definitely not a mainstream read -- and even though it's part fantasy, it's also an excellent commentary on race and human nature all wrapped up in one of the funniest stories I've ever read. While you're laughing, you're also learning.
The story begins when Christopher Jaynes fails to gain tenure at the university where he's teaching. Jaynes is the only black male professor on campus, and was hired to teach African American Literature. But he would rather teach American lit., and because he believed that early American literature (including his favorite, Edgar Allan Poe) held the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness," and "the twisted mythic underpinnings of modern racial thought." He offered a course called "Dancing With the Darkies: Whiteness in the Literary Mind" to explore his ideas. He believes his work is helping to discover why America has not yet become a postracial society, and also that his work is helping to find a cure. As he explains to the bow-tied university president, "If we can identify how the pathology of Whiteness was constructed, then we can learn how to dismantle it." And Jaynes believed that Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (and some of his other works, but he is somewhat obsessed with Poe's Pym) was a key source in understanding the source of the assumptions of Whiteness. But these classes were poorly attended, one of the reasons given to him for denial of tenure, as well as the unspoken reason that Jaynes refused to sit on the school's diversity committee.
Jaynes also collects antiquarian texts, and one day shortly after leaving the university, finds an item in a catalog for a "Negro Servant's Memoir," from 1837. As it turns out, it's not really a slave narrative, but rather a major find: an African American work written before the Civil War. As he begins reading, to his very great surprise, he finds that what he has is nothing less than the autobiography of Dirk Peters, the "half-breed" companion of Arthur Gordon Pym from Poe's novel. Jaynes has an OMG moment where it comes to him that Pym's narrative may not have been fiction after all, and the proof is in his hands. So if The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is true, then Jaynes realizes that
" ...Tsalal, the great undiscovered African Diasporan homeland, might still be out there, uncorrupted by Whiteness. That there was a group of our people who did achieve victory over slavery in all its forms, escaping completely from the progression of Westernization and colonization to form a society outside of time and history. And that I might find them."
Jaynes decides to go to Antarctica, using his cousin Booker and a crew completely composed of African Americans to get him there. And this is where the story really takes off, so I won't add any more of the plot to avoid spoiling it for anyone who might be interested.
Pym is one of the best novels I've read this year. The author's writing comes off naturally so there's no contrived feeling in his prose. His characterizations are what make this book -- you will instantly recognize various character types as you read, making it all the more real. Jaynes' best friend Garth is enamored of paintings done by an artist named Thomas Karvel (think Kinkade), and loves Little Debbie Snack Cakes, which he packs by the caseload for the stay in Antarctica. His cousin Booker is a civil rights activist, and constantly spouts off about white people and the system when it suits him. There's also a gay videographer who runs a video website, along with his partner; even in the worst of spots the camera is rolling. Another character is an entertainment lawyer, who often stops the Antarctic action in debates about what they'll find and who will have the rights to it. And along the way, the author provides his insights and commentary on other works that followed The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, for example, Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness and a sequel to Poe's work by Jules Verne, besides delving into Poe's novel itself.
The action gets a little odd toward the end, but overall, if you're up for a great read, Pym is it. It satisfied my reading thirst for quirkiness, for comedy and satire and for a good story. Keep in mind though that it veers toward the fantastical, so if you can't suspend your disbelief, this isn't the book for you. You don't have to read Poe's original work to get it, as the author does a great job of presenting the story in his novel, but on a personal level, I'd suggest doing so. I got a lot more out of Johnson's novel having read Poe's first -- the style is purposefully similar to the original and there are little nuances from Poe that Johnson also captures in his book without explanation to the reader. It's definitely not a mainstream read -- and even though it's part fantasy, it's also an excellent commentary on race and human nature all wrapped up in one of the funniest stories I've ever read. While you're laughing, you're also learning.
November 17, 2017
Whiteness
[Review from 2011]
Chris Jaynes has just been fired from his position as the token black professor at a prestigious liberal arts college. A few pages later, he has a barroom encounter with the suspiciously-named man brought in to replace him, "Mosaic Johnson, Hip-Hop Theorist," who shakes a black power fist in the air (to the delight of the self-proclaimed white-liberal patrons) and exclaims "I'm down for the fight, know what I'm saying?" The tone of satire is set, but not yet the likability of the protagonist or the intellectual seriousness of the debate. Johnson turns the subject of race inside out, standing it on its head, looking at race with an outrageous accuracy whose aim falls on black and white alike.
Much of the debate concerns the nature of blackness itself, beginning with the protagonist's own racial identity. Jaynes, like the author himself, is a mulatto, "so visibly lacking in African heritage that I often appear to some uneducated eyes as a random, garden-variety white guy. But I'm not. My father was white, yes. But it doesn't work that way. My mother was a woman, but that doesn't make me a woman either." Jaynes refuses to be confined within the expectations placed upon his race, but insists on defining himself in reference to white society. He boycotts the college Diversity Committee as a meaningless sham. He declines to teach the canonical black texts, looking instead to authors like Poe and Melville to discover "the intellectual source of racial Whiteness," that "odd and illogical sickness" which he is convinced is the true source of the problem.
When the college lets him go, Jaynes is immersed in a study of Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. You do not need to know the text (I think), because Jaynes summarizes it brilliantly, making hilarious fun of its weaknesses, but also deconstructing its codes and showing why it is worth further study. Poe's protagonist enlists on a whaler out of Nantucket. After surviving imprisonment, mutiny, shipwreck, and cannibalism, he reaches the Antarctic Ocean where he is washed up on an incongruously-sited tropical isle inhabited only by stunted natives so dark that even their teeth are black. But their hospitality is deceptive; the rest of the party is killed in a treacherous ambush, with only Pym and a friend escaping to set sail once more and reach the Antarctic ice-shelf. "But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow." These are Poe's last sentences, whose enigma, with its strong racial overtones, Jaynes finds more interesting than anything else in the book. By sheer luck (by no means the only authorial license in this splendidly tall tale), Jaynes comes across a crumbling manuscript written in a semi-literate hand that makes him believe that Poe's story was based upon true accounts, Jaynes enlists the help of a seafaring cousin called Booker and recruits five other black people to accompany him on an expedition to Antarctica in search of Poe's race of ultra-white giants, dismissed by Booker as "super ice honkies."
The rest is a fantasy-adventure in the manner of Rider Haggard or Jules Verne (who also wrote his own sequel to the Poe). Jaynes and his crew do encounter this mysterious race, whom they call the Tekelians, living in ice-tunnels underground. What follows is a re-enactment of racial history—cautious trading, capture, enslavement, and eventual escape. The actual story becomes a little tedious during the long sojourn underground, but Johnson's observation of the changing dynamics among the black characters never palls. In a brilliant twist, Jaynes and his best friend eventually escape this world of literal whiteness only to encounter a metaphorical one, a huge bio-dome built by the painter Thomas Karvel (clearly Kincade), landscaped inside to replicate the perfect sunset world of one of his paintings. But you do not read this book for the plot or even its fantastic environments, so much as for comic acuity of the author's observations. And for the thrilling experience of watching a master of deconstruction transforming a minor text of a past century into something of major relevance to our own time.
I am amazed by how much this book ties in with my other recent [2011] reading. Most particularly, Huckleberry Finn, which Johnson now makes me see as both a statement and a critique of the American Whiteness myth. Or satires such as Ian McEwan's Solar and Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question ; the latter (which does for English Jews what Pym does for American Blacks) has the more attractive protagonist, but Johnson's Chris James beats them both on that score. I am also struck by what seems to have become a major recent trend: the use of existing texts as a jumping-off point to address contemporary concerns. In the last year alone, I have read The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Scott, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd, and—older, but the most significant of the lot— Foe by J. M Coetzee, a reworking of Robinson Crusoe from the perspectives of gender and racial equality. Crusoe lies behind Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym also, giving Mat Johnson's reworking a literary heritage that underscores the basic seriousness of his intent. You may read the book for laughs, read it for its shamelessly non-PC shock tactics, read it for social insights, but what will remain in your mind is its ability to frame the dialogue on race in a new and useful way.
[Review from 2011]
Chris Jaynes has just been fired from his position as the token black professor at a prestigious liberal arts college. A few pages later, he has a barroom encounter with the suspiciously-named man brought in to replace him, "Mosaic Johnson, Hip-Hop Theorist," who shakes a black power fist in the air (to the delight of the self-proclaimed white-liberal patrons) and exclaims "I'm down for the fight, know what I'm saying?" The tone of satire is set, but not yet the likability of the protagonist or the intellectual seriousness of the debate. Johnson turns the subject of race inside out, standing it on its head, looking at race with an outrageous accuracy whose aim falls on black and white alike.
Much of the debate concerns the nature of blackness itself, beginning with the protagonist's own racial identity. Jaynes, like the author himself, is a mulatto, "so visibly lacking in African heritage that I often appear to some uneducated eyes as a random, garden-variety white guy. But I'm not. My father was white, yes. But it doesn't work that way. My mother was a woman, but that doesn't make me a woman either." Jaynes refuses to be confined within the expectations placed upon his race, but insists on defining himself in reference to white society. He boycotts the college Diversity Committee as a meaningless sham. He declines to teach the canonical black texts, looking instead to authors like Poe and Melville to discover "the intellectual source of racial Whiteness," that "odd and illogical sickness" which he is convinced is the true source of the problem.
When the college lets him go, Jaynes is immersed in a study of Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. You do not need to know the text (I think), because Jaynes summarizes it brilliantly, making hilarious fun of its weaknesses, but also deconstructing its codes and showing why it is worth further study. Poe's protagonist enlists on a whaler out of Nantucket. After surviving imprisonment, mutiny, shipwreck, and cannibalism, he reaches the Antarctic Ocean where he is washed up on an incongruously-sited tropical isle inhabited only by stunted natives so dark that even their teeth are black. But their hospitality is deceptive; the rest of the party is killed in a treacherous ambush, with only Pym and a friend escaping to set sail once more and reach the Antarctic ice-shelf. "But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow." These are Poe's last sentences, whose enigma, with its strong racial overtones, Jaynes finds more interesting than anything else in the book. By sheer luck (by no means the only authorial license in this splendidly tall tale), Jaynes comes across a crumbling manuscript written in a semi-literate hand that makes him believe that Poe's story was based upon true accounts, Jaynes enlists the help of a seafaring cousin called Booker and recruits five other black people to accompany him on an expedition to Antarctica in search of Poe's race of ultra-white giants, dismissed by Booker as "super ice honkies."
The rest is a fantasy-adventure in the manner of Rider Haggard or Jules Verne (who also wrote his own sequel to the Poe). Jaynes and his crew do encounter this mysterious race, whom they call the Tekelians, living in ice-tunnels underground. What follows is a re-enactment of racial history—cautious trading, capture, enslavement, and eventual escape. The actual story becomes a little tedious during the long sojourn underground, but Johnson's observation of the changing dynamics among the black characters never palls. In a brilliant twist, Jaynes and his best friend eventually escape this world of literal whiteness only to encounter a metaphorical one, a huge bio-dome built by the painter Thomas Karvel (clearly Kincade), landscaped inside to replicate the perfect sunset world of one of his paintings. But you do not read this book for the plot or even its fantastic environments, so much as for comic acuity of the author's observations. And for the thrilling experience of watching a master of deconstruction transforming a minor text of a past century into something of major relevance to our own time.
I am amazed by how much this book ties in with my other recent [2011] reading. Most particularly, Huckleberry Finn, which Johnson now makes me see as both a statement and a critique of the American Whiteness myth. Or satires such as Ian McEwan's Solar and Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question ; the latter (which does for English Jews what Pym does for American Blacks) has the more attractive protagonist, but Johnson's Chris James beats them both on that score. I am also struck by what seems to have become a major recent trend: the use of existing texts as a jumping-off point to address contemporary concerns. In the last year alone, I have read The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Scott, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd, and—older, but the most significant of the lot— Foe by J. M Coetzee, a reworking of Robinson Crusoe from the perspectives of gender and racial equality. Crusoe lies behind Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym also, giving Mat Johnson's reworking a literary heritage that underscores the basic seriousness of his intent. You may read the book for laughs, read it for its shamelessly non-PC shock tactics, read it for social insights, but what will remain in your mind is its ability to frame the dialogue on race in a new and useful way.
March 29, 2024
Interesting book that made for a quick read. It is filled with Mat Johson's trademark humor regardless of the seriousness of topic at hand. The plot revolves around a recently fired African American Literature professor. Why was he fired? Because his primary focus was on examining a novel by Edgar Allan Poe, the only full length novel written by the brilliant but definitely not African American author. The name of the book is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I had never heard of Poe's lone novel before reading Johnson's Pym. The narrator studies and teaches this book to his detriment because he believes it holds the key to understanding White-Black race relations. After being fired, the professor and his also unemployed best friend (who has his own obsession with a painter of landscapes, specifically, with finding the precise physical vantage point that each of his paintings are based on) end up on a quest that takes them along with the narrator's cousin and ex-girlfriend and her current husband among others to Antarctica. It is on this frozen terrain that they discover a lost race of creatures representing Whiteness. This means its opposite, a tropical island representing Blackness that Poe also wrote about in his novel, is possibly out there as well. When the world as we know it seemingly comes to an end, the narrator and his motley crew perhaps being the lone survivors of Armageddon only to have become slaves of the primitive creatures in Antarctica, the search is on for whatever paradises (whether man-made or otherwise) may still exist. That's about as well as I can describe Pym's quirky plot. Best to read this enjoyable book for yourself.
March 8, 2016
I have got to read more satire - I haven't had this much fun since James Morrow's Towing Jehovah! The only reason I couldn't give Pym five stars is that it jumped the rails in the second half and got freakin' crazy (I preferred the faux-academic pastiche of the first third). But it's not easy to sustain a satire based on The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym for 300 pages, right? Yet much of the novel is hilarious and incisive and deliciously weird: funny footnotes, a Thomas Kinkaid-like painter with his own kitsch paradise in the Antipodes, a black matriarch who insists on her "Indian blood" despite DNA evidence to the contrary, a civil rights-activist/deep sea diver, a lost race of humanoid "snow honkies" ... (!)
March 27, 2011
The social satire within the pages of Mat Johnson’s latest offering, Pym, is nothing short of brilliant and extremely hilarious -- I found it to be a seriously and literally “laugh out loud” funny novel! Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Pym’s protagonist is a recently dismissed, professor Chris Jaynes, who is frustrated with his former employer’s decision to deny him tenure for what he views as insubordination. His act of defiance is refusing to join the Diversity Committee and pursuing non-African American literary interest many of which explore theories of racist pathology in popular American literature. As the title implies, Jaynes's interest lies with Poe’s only novel which contains stereotypical depictions of non-whites and a fantastic, seafaring journey.
If you are unfamiliar with Poe’s work, worry not, because the author, through Jaynes, summarizes the story quite nicely, pointing out the inconsistencies, social relevance of key passages, and cleverly ties in Jaynes’ driving passion to rediscover, Tsalal, the mythical island of blacks cited near the end of Poe’s book. Once Jaynes is convinced that Poe’s work is truly authentic (despite its many holes, flaws, and inaccuracies), the adventure begins with Jaynes’s contacting his deep-sea diving, boat-owning cousin, Booker, as captain of a motley crew which consists of Jaynes’s ex-girlfriend and her new husband (both attorneys), his unemployed best friend, and a gay thrill-seeking, documentary-making couple. Everyone has their own agenda regarding the re-discovery of Tsalal: Jayne’s being anthropological/academic in nature, the couple’s being social networking fame/reality show publicity, and Booker and the attorney’s desires are rooted in profit-making (exploitative) purposes.
Sounds humdrum, right? Wrong! The strength of the book is its quirky characters, their absurd trek to discover an unknown land/people, and the endless uncanny situations where America’s racial views, fears, stereotypes and archetypes are subtly (and sometimes overtly) reanimated on the frozen tundra. There are so many facets to this rich novel, for example, an ironic point that resurfaces repeatedly in the novel is that Jaynes is of mixed heritage. Using an antiquated term, he is a self-described “octoroon”; however, he identifies as African American, but can “pass” as white and this often puts a different spin on many of the zany, precarious situations he finds himself in.
It is highly recommended for those who enjoy satire or for anyone who wants to sample something different. No doubt, Pym is my first five-star read of 2011! I truly enjoyed every page and am looking forward to whatever Mat Johnson releases next.
This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Reviewed by Phyllis
If you are unfamiliar with Poe’s work, worry not, because the author, through Jaynes, summarizes the story quite nicely, pointing out the inconsistencies, social relevance of key passages, and cleverly ties in Jaynes’ driving passion to rediscover, Tsalal, the mythical island of blacks cited near the end of Poe’s book. Once Jaynes is convinced that Poe’s work is truly authentic (despite its many holes, flaws, and inaccuracies), the adventure begins with Jaynes’s contacting his deep-sea diving, boat-owning cousin, Booker, as captain of a motley crew which consists of Jaynes’s ex-girlfriend and her new husband (both attorneys), his unemployed best friend, and a gay thrill-seeking, documentary-making couple. Everyone has their own agenda regarding the re-discovery of Tsalal: Jayne’s being anthropological/academic in nature, the couple’s being social networking fame/reality show publicity, and Booker and the attorney’s desires are rooted in profit-making (exploitative) purposes.
Sounds humdrum, right? Wrong! The strength of the book is its quirky characters, their absurd trek to discover an unknown land/people, and the endless uncanny situations where America’s racial views, fears, stereotypes and archetypes are subtly (and sometimes overtly) reanimated on the frozen tundra. There are so many facets to this rich novel, for example, an ironic point that resurfaces repeatedly in the novel is that Jaynes is of mixed heritage. Using an antiquated term, he is a self-described “octoroon”; however, he identifies as African American, but can “pass” as white and this often puts a different spin on many of the zany, precarious situations he finds himself in.
It is highly recommended for those who enjoy satire or for anyone who wants to sample something different. No doubt, Pym is my first five-star read of 2011! I truly enjoyed every page and am looking forward to whatever Mat Johnson releases next.
This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Reviewed by Phyllis
Read
December 17, 2012Pym is the tale of white and black and no end to the shades of grey that such binaries necessarily imply. It doesn't waste any time in telling us so either. Chris Jaynes, the novel's protagonist is a professor of black literature who isn't concerned with teaching only that anymore, and is trying to get around to understanding the conception of whiteness, specifically through the work of Edgar Allan Poe. This, however, doesn't sit well with the president of the small, white, Midwestern college who wants someone to sit on the diversity committee, and so Jaynes is fired for not being black enough; especially of note because he is a very pale black man, an octoroon who "passes" as white a number of times in the novel. Then our adventure begins as he raises an all-black crew to head to Antarctica to investigate what he believes to be the "true" story being Poe's only novel, a disaster of writing he is obsessed with, where they run into a race of giant albino man-creatures who promptly enslave the black crew.
While the novel leans heavily on the swashbuckling adventure narrative and makes ample use of romantic pursuit within the novel, it is a story about negotiating not only the white-black divide, but also the means to which we explore it. The preface begins with a note from C. Jaynes, who on arriving back has told the tale to Mr. Johnson, who has framed it as fiction. Further complicated is that Mr. Johnson, the writer, is in fact a very pale black man who also could "pass" as white. Further complicating the situation is that Jayne is replaced by another, different Mr. Johnson: Mosaic Johnson. The crew is of varying shades of blackness, especially the protagonist and when they meet the white creatures, though paler than anything else, they are, in fact, a shade of grey. The academic arguments put forward in the book further serve as not only critical commentary, but also as humor, both of the guffaw sort and of the kind serving satire. I haven't even gotten to the Thomas Kinkaid stand-in, to say the least. Nor have I illustrated the many ways in which the novel apes the structure of Poe's, how it glorifies and ironizes it, and how it both glorifies and makes ironic its own undertaking.
But let's get back to the fun of this, of the thrill of adventure, the pursuit of love, the bonds of friendship and how funny it is, how fun. It is a fun novel, full of swoops and thrills and chases and battles, and the fact that it carries within it a very clever, very indecisive examination of race; well, that's just icing.
While the novel leans heavily on the swashbuckling adventure narrative and makes ample use of romantic pursuit within the novel, it is a story about negotiating not only the white-black divide, but also the means to which we explore it. The preface begins with a note from C. Jaynes, who on arriving back has told the tale to Mr. Johnson, who has framed it as fiction. Further complicated is that Mr. Johnson, the writer, is in fact a very pale black man who also could "pass" as white. Further complicating the situation is that Jayne is replaced by another, different Mr. Johnson: Mosaic Johnson. The crew is of varying shades of blackness, especially the protagonist and when they meet the white creatures, though paler than anything else, they are, in fact, a shade of grey. The academic arguments put forward in the book further serve as not only critical commentary, but also as humor, both of the guffaw sort and of the kind serving satire. I haven't even gotten to the Thomas Kinkaid stand-in, to say the least. Nor have I illustrated the many ways in which the novel apes the structure of Poe's, how it glorifies and ironizes it, and how it both glorifies and makes ironic its own undertaking.
But let's get back to the fun of this, of the thrill of adventure, the pursuit of love, the bonds of friendship and how funny it is, how fun. It is a fun novel, full of swoops and thrills and chases and battles, and the fact that it carries within it a very clever, very indecisive examination of race; well, that's just icing.
June 29, 2015
You don't know about this, without you have read a book by the name of the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and it does matter. That book was made by Mr. Edgar Allen Poe, and like Coetzee's Foe to Robinson Crusoe, this one is so thoroughly wrapped up in its source that you won't get half the book otherwise.
That said, this is a very good book. It flips Poe's Pym around: where Poe described a group of white people conflicting with black people - and I use white and black here because Poe is binary himself: his book is about black and white, as well as blacks and whites - Mat Johnson's protagonists are black, marooned among white...things. It picks up at the all-white ending of Poe and jumps forward to the present day.
Much of the book is a mirror image, then, of Poe's, but sometimes they're parallel instead. The whites in Poe's book try to take advantage of the natives they find, and the natives respond the only way (Johnson points out) natives should ever respond to first contact with whites. That isn't flipped here: whites may be the majority in Pym, but they're still the subjugators. Johnson's making a point about white people in general here: no matter what the situation, white people always seem to be the problem.
It works on two levels: first as an action / adventure book, more like Robert Louis Stevenson than Poe, and second as metafiction. On the first level it's entirely successful, although the writing is at times a tiny bit basic. On that second level, Johnson is talking about the invention of whiteness, and what it's meant for everyone else on the planet. He has smart things to say. Poe's book is so obsessed with white vs. black that it makes sense to use it to launch a new discussion of black vs. white.
I guess it's that sporadic basicness that keeps me from giving this five stars, although I thought about it. This doesn't feel like a classic on the level of Foe or Wide Sargasso Sea. But I had a great time reading it, and it made me think, so that's a win.
That said, this is a very good book. It flips Poe's Pym around: where Poe described a group of white people conflicting with black people - and I use white and black here because Poe is binary himself: his book is about black and white, as well as blacks and whites - Mat Johnson's protagonists are black, marooned among white...things. It picks up at the all-white ending of Poe and jumps forward to the present day.
Much of the book is a mirror image, then, of Poe's, but sometimes they're parallel instead. The whites in Poe's book try to take advantage of the natives they find, and the natives respond the only way (Johnson points out) natives should ever respond to first contact with whites. That isn't flipped here: whites may be the majority in Pym, but they're still the subjugators. Johnson's making a point about white people in general here: no matter what the situation, white people always seem to be the problem.
It works on two levels: first as an action / adventure book, more like Robert Louis Stevenson than Poe, and second as metafiction. On the first level it's entirely successful, although the writing is at times a tiny bit basic. On that second level, Johnson is talking about the invention of whiteness, and what it's meant for everyone else on the planet. He has smart things to say. Poe's book is so obsessed with white vs. black that it makes sense to use it to launch a new discussion of black vs. white.
I guess it's that sporadic basicness that keeps me from giving this five stars, although I thought about it. This doesn't feel like a classic on the level of Foe or Wide Sargasso Sea. But I had a great time reading it, and it made me think, so that's a win.
July 9, 2012
Consciously or unconsciously, I'm always rating the books I read as I go along, and this one slowly made its way down the scale.
It started off a five: the preface is reminiscent of Frankenstein and other 19th-century adventure tales, and the early chapters contain laugh-out-loud lines that would feel at home in a smart, race-based stand-up routine. Johnson's observations on the strangeness of everyday American life, particularly in academia, are similarly intelligent and funny. However, when he moves from dark comedy to parody, he loses focus.
This book is an all-too obvious twist on Edgar Allen Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Though I've never read the book, Johnson (through his character Chris Jaynes) describes and analyzes it thoroughly enough to spare the reader the effort of slogging through that opium dream of a tale.
Satire is difficult to pull off. It requires the author to carefully balance moments of emulation and bastardization, the highs and lows of earnestness and inanity. Pym mostly remains mired in the middle ground, unable to find the right tone. The worst part is that the reader can sense the author's frustration, right up to the point where it seems that Johnson, the book's editor, and anyone else involved apparently gave up on the book and allowed lazy storytelling and characters as flimsy as paper dolls to reign.
I recently read a brief guide to common narrative flaws in sci-fi writing. The final section of Pym showcases a disturbing number (see especially: "Jar of Tang," "Tabloid Weird," and "You Can't Fire Me, I Quit"). It's possible that Johnson invoked these unfortunate tropes because Poe's original story failed in the same manner--but I'm not letting him off the hook that easily. Pym is an illustration of a talented writer who has a seemingly great idea for a novel, but doesn't put in the work to make it live up to its promise.
It started off a five: the preface is reminiscent of Frankenstein and other 19th-century adventure tales, and the early chapters contain laugh-out-loud lines that would feel at home in a smart, race-based stand-up routine. Johnson's observations on the strangeness of everyday American life, particularly in academia, are similarly intelligent and funny. However, when he moves from dark comedy to parody, he loses focus.
This book is an all-too obvious twist on Edgar Allen Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Though I've never read the book, Johnson (through his character Chris Jaynes) describes and analyzes it thoroughly enough to spare the reader the effort of slogging through that opium dream of a tale.
Satire is difficult to pull off. It requires the author to carefully balance moments of emulation and bastardization, the highs and lows of earnestness and inanity. Pym mostly remains mired in the middle ground, unable to find the right tone. The worst part is that the reader can sense the author's frustration, right up to the point where it seems that Johnson, the book's editor, and anyone else involved apparently gave up on the book and allowed lazy storytelling and characters as flimsy as paper dolls to reign.
I recently read a brief guide to common narrative flaws in sci-fi writing. The final section of Pym showcases a disturbing number (see especially: "Jar of Tang," "Tabloid Weird," and "You Can't Fire Me, I Quit"). It's possible that Johnson invoked these unfortunate tropes because Poe's original story failed in the same manner--but I'm not letting him off the hook that easily. Pym is an illustration of a talented writer who has a seemingly great idea for a novel, but doesn't put in the work to make it live up to its promise.
August 24, 2015
This novel is more sort of two novels that meet in the middle, one a cutting social satire, and one a strange, eerie, tale of exploration and adventure that tries to squeeze humor and significance out of places where the well has run a bit dry. As many reviewers have said, the first half of the novel promises greatness, with its humor, intertextuality and relationship situations, setting the stage for a powerfully narrative and comic experience. But the second half gets a little too caught up in the adventure aspect and relies on some strained metaphors and flimsy humor. It's not that the two halves don't come together. They do. But by the time the novel ends I feel adrift, which I suppose s apropos, but also not terribly emotionally engaged and only a little intellectually engaged. I'm still making connections, piecing things together and taking things apart, and that's a nice feeling, but I get a strong sense that the second half of the book kind of got lost in the snowy caverns along with all the snack cakes. I am definitely curious about Mat Johnson's other work. I think he's done the writing for a graphic novel and I'm hoping to read it soon (if the public library has it). Do I recommend this one? Yes and no. To be honest, I don't know.
November 19, 2023
"Or rather, why is the white dove so highly regarded because of its lack of pigmentation? How is it that something so minor as the color of a bird’s feathers can make the difference between being regarded as the international symbol for peace and [the pigeon] being the urban symbol of filth and nuisance? … Why are albino mice deemed worthy to be kept as pampered pets while their nearly identical darker brothers are viewed completely as pests? Does whiteness hold so much value for us that its presence is a wealth in itself?"
This book managed to be ludicrous, hilarious, insightful, and quite entertaining. I actually bought it off a friend more than a decade ago because he was downsizing and needed some cash, but just last month got around to finally reading it. Johnson deconstructs racism and racial identity by using Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, as a stepping stone into a satirical adventure/fantasy. I can vouch for getting a lot out of this book without the need for reading Poe's work, although I suspect it only gets better if one is familiar with Poe's lone novel.
Main character, Chris Jaynes, is a professor of literature fired for refusing to stick to the Black canon (choosing instead to search for the origin of "Whiteness" in the historic/accepted white lit texts). His firing kicks off an all-Black expedition headed for Antarctica to seemingly pick up where Poe's narrative left off. They find a race of giant albino brutes and what follows is a comedy with life or death consequences.
The narrative is laced with Johnson's acerbic wit and keen insights as he toys with stereotypes and expectations, and gifts the reader a memorable menagerie of characters.
July 27, 2018
An amazing, surreal, well-written story that flips and reverses the symbols of Poe's
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
, addressing the racial issues of both Narrative and of society in general. Highly recommended, especially if you're like me and enjoyed the novella but were concerned with the ending.
March 27, 2012
I had great fun with this novel, for a variety of reasons. For one, I was already a fan of Johnson's work--Incognegro was one of the best graphic novels of 2008 and I still recommend it friends who are willing to read anything other than long underwear comics, for example, and I've been spending a lot of time lately tracking down his other writing, both in and out of print.
I'm also a fan of Poe, however, and of his spiritual and literary descendants in the Weird Tales generation, in particular H.P. Lovecraft. And I recognize the problem that the corpus of work left behind by these Fine White Gentleman represents to modern readers and authors. (Let's just say that the acronym FWG allows you to replace "Gentlemen" with "Guys" and "Fine" with some other adjective that starts with F.) To put it bluntly, these FWG's are virulently racist bastards; they are sometimes virulently racist bastards in the midst of their finest work. Black people in particular take the worst of their foaming-rabies rhetoric and imagery. So if you are a writer of African-American descent--how do you respond?
There are a lot of answers to this question: Pym is one of them. In this novel, Johnson has taken one of Poe's most famous and influential works--The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a serialized novel which influenced both Jules Verne and Lovecraft to write works that were equally influential on succeeding generations--and he has eviscerated it with a posthumous collaboration. And please do not think for a moment that I choose the verb "eviscerate" lightly; in the opening pages of Chapter II he spills old Edgar's guts on the floor, with a devastating summary of the plot, themes and imagery of the original novel which rips away every shred of doubt that the book is not only a monumentally racist screed, but also pretty badly and sloppily written.
It's a thoroughly punishing attack, and it is neither the first nor the last. Johnson is throwing brutal punches throughout this book, knocking out the FWG's so fast that you'd think his name was Jack.
This laconic summary of the White Man's Contribution to World Art is not Johnson's final word, of course. There are several white characters in this book, and most of them serve in one way or another to expand on this theme. This early glimpse of the view up a Care Bear's ass will certainly not be our last; indeed, you might say that the second half of the novel represents an extended proctological expedition up the rainbow glitter rectum of the White Aesthetic, with Johnson in the boat beside you blasting away at the polyps on either shore.
If there is a downside to this novel, it's the fact that it genuinely IS funny, more often than not. Humor is often unkind, and this book is no exception. The few white characters in the novel, for example, including a stand-in for Poe himself, are not spared the lash. It's both deeply personal and wholly impersonal; none of these people are really human beings in any but the broadest sense of the word. What they are instead are caricatures of Whiteness in general, like the countless black characters in literature who are caricatures of Blackness in general. Their lines and actions serve to forward a general thesis and move the plot rather than to explore the humanity any real human being.
There is no aspect of Whiteness which is not open to ridicule in this book. White art, White literature, White power, White physicality, White cuisine, White marriage, inter-racial sex and love, the White ancestral climate--they all come under fire here. It's a barrage, and it can't even be said that the only people hurt when Whiteness is attacked are White. When any two peoples meet on hostile terms, the ones who are willing to enter the liminal zone and make a separate peace are always caught in the cross-fire, and soonest to be hurt.
In short, this book is what I call a "Turn-About Test", a reversal of standard procedure which lets you really see how far off-balance the system has been. The method usually works quite well with gender, and produces hilarious results; Johnson here proves that it can also be done effectively with race. He hasn't done anything for Whiteness in this book which hasn't been done to Blackness in countless books. It's a highly instructive read to see the dynamic reversed, to see Whiteness simultaneously made the epitome of the monstrous, the mad, the stupid, the weak, the ugly and the uncivilized. Quite frankly I'd recommend the book to anyone on that basis alone.
What puts the icing on the snack cake is that this is also a beautifully paced and well-written little novel. It bounces right along without any parts that drag, its images are clear and beautiful, it's always entertaining, and most of the major characters have at least a moment or two of genuine charm or sympathy in the course of the book. What's more, the novel is not so mean-spirited that you can't the joke.
I'd give it the full five stars, but I can't.
'Cause, you know.
The man called me a snow monkey.
I'm also a fan of Poe, however, and of his spiritual and literary descendants in the Weird Tales generation, in particular H.P. Lovecraft. And I recognize the problem that the corpus of work left behind by these Fine White Gentleman represents to modern readers and authors. (Let's just say that the acronym FWG allows you to replace "Gentlemen" with "Guys" and "Fine" with some other adjective that starts with F.) To put it bluntly, these FWG's are virulently racist bastards; they are sometimes virulently racist bastards in the midst of their finest work. Black people in particular take the worst of their foaming-rabies rhetoric and imagery. So if you are a writer of African-American descent--how do you respond?
There are a lot of answers to this question: Pym is one of them. In this novel, Johnson has taken one of Poe's most famous and influential works--The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a serialized novel which influenced both Jules Verne and Lovecraft to write works that were equally influential on succeeding generations--and he has eviscerated it with a posthumous collaboration. And please do not think for a moment that I choose the verb "eviscerate" lightly; in the opening pages of Chapter II he spills old Edgar's guts on the floor, with a devastating summary of the plot, themes and imagery of the original novel which rips away every shred of doubt that the book is not only a monumentally racist screed, but also pretty badly and sloppily written.
It's a thoroughly punishing attack, and it is neither the first nor the last. Johnson is throwing brutal punches throughout this book, knocking out the FWG's so fast that you'd think his name was Jack.
"Garth pulled out this print of a painting, all scrolled up, and dropped it in my lap. I unraveled it and saw a syrupy sweet landscape of the Catskills, the kind of vista painted on how-to shows in half and hour. The kind of painting Garth adored, done by that artist he idolized.
'It's called Stock of the Woods,' he said. 'It's a Thomas Karvel Hudson Valley School Edition. A tribute to the painters they used to have here. I have an original signed print. That's part of my nest egg, and you're they laughing at it. Look at it. Really look at it, you need to. Don't it make you all peaceful just looking into that world?
'Looks like the view up a Care Bear's ass.'"
This laconic summary of the White Man's Contribution to World Art is not Johnson's final word, of course. There are several white characters in this book, and most of them serve in one way or another to expand on this theme. This early glimpse of the view up a Care Bear's ass will certainly not be our last; indeed, you might say that the second half of the novel represents an extended proctological expedition up the rainbow glitter rectum of the White Aesthetic, with Johnson in the boat beside you blasting away at the polyps on either shore.
If there is a downside to this novel, it's the fact that it genuinely IS funny, more often than not. Humor is often unkind, and this book is no exception. The few white characters in the novel, for example, including a stand-in for Poe himself, are not spared the lash. It's both deeply personal and wholly impersonal; none of these people are really human beings in any but the broadest sense of the word. What they are instead are caricatures of Whiteness in general, like the countless black characters in literature who are caricatures of Blackness in general. Their lines and actions serve to forward a general thesis and move the plot rather than to explore the humanity any real human being.
There is no aspect of Whiteness which is not open to ridicule in this book. White art, White literature, White power, White physicality, White cuisine, White marriage, inter-racial sex and love, the White ancestral climate--they all come under fire here. It's a barrage, and it can't even be said that the only people hurt when Whiteness is attacked are White. When any two peoples meet on hostile terms, the ones who are willing to enter the liminal zone and make a separate peace are always caught in the cross-fire, and soonest to be hurt.
In short, this book is what I call a "Turn-About Test", a reversal of standard procedure which lets you really see how far off-balance the system has been. The method usually works quite well with gender, and produces hilarious results; Johnson here proves that it can also be done effectively with race. He hasn't done anything for Whiteness in this book which hasn't been done to Blackness in countless books. It's a highly instructive read to see the dynamic reversed, to see Whiteness simultaneously made the epitome of the monstrous, the mad, the stupid, the weak, the ugly and the uncivilized. Quite frankly I'd recommend the book to anyone on that basis alone.
What puts the icing on the snack cake is that this is also a beautifully paced and well-written little novel. It bounces right along without any parts that drag, its images are clear and beautiful, it's always entertaining, and most of the major characters have at least a moment or two of genuine charm or sympathy in the course of the book. What's more, the novel is not so mean-spirited that you can't the joke.
I'd give it the full five stars, but I can't.
'Cause, you know.
The man called me a snow monkey.
July 9, 2024
3.5 I liked this story, as strange as it was. I went into this one intrigued by such a unique plot-driven storyline and it was about what I expected, in that I got the story I came here to read. It flips the narrative of the discovering an indigenous race and profiting of its resources on its head, taking such a serious subject from a somewhat lighter and entertaining angle.
November 2, 2012
http://wineandabook.com/2011/09/01/re...
First person narration can be tricky, but Mat Johnson has a sense of voice that rivals Junot Diaz. So clear, so compelling. As I read, I wanted to follow Johnson's main character, Chris Jaynes, anywhere he went. Until he decided to leave the States (and reality) far, far behind...
The premise of this book is really quite genius: the self-described token black professor at a small, predominately white liberal arts college finds himself without tenure after favoring teaching Edgar Allen Poe to authors of color. The object of Jaynes' fascination is Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Johnson does an amazing job of allowing us into Jaynes' psyche as deconstructs Poe's novel, which he sees as part of the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness." In this part of the book, Johnson soars and Jaynes takes us through Poe's work and explains its literary and institutional significance. Strong voice, compelling argument and raw social commentary. Near perfect. Up until this point in the narrative, I was in love with this book.
Then we go to Antarctica. Through a turn of events (which I won't cheat you out of discovering on your own), Jaynes is lead to believe that the events outlined in Poe's novel may not be so fictitious after all. Given the opportunity to, in part, retrace Pym's journey and go to Antarctica, he accepts in hopes of finding the island of Tsalal, an island of pure blackness (which Poe described with much terror) which Jaynes imagines to be the "last untouched bastion of the African diaspora." Unfortunately, once the ship docks, Johnson loses me a bit.
My problem is not with the journey; my problem is not even with the sequence of events that border on science-fiction/disaster porn. My problem is with the way the characters react (or don't) to these events. Typically, when an author decides to dive into the realm of science fiction or adventure, as Johnson absolutely does in the last half of his book, either:
the story takes place in a world where a specific set of magical/heightened/supernatural/etc rules and conditions are consistent and we, as readers accept them as the reality of the story OR
the story takes place in reality as we know it and something unusual/strange/supernatural/world-shattering happens, and the characters react accordingly.
A beautiful example of this is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: when the house starts shifting and changing, people freak out, then adapt, then re-approach their new reality. In Johnsons' story, when reality as Jaynes' knows it is turned on its head, the characters just seem to keep moving through the plot without much reflection, except in terms of potential profit. In addition, some pretty major occurrences are mentioned and then never reacted to thoroughly or revisited...which I think, in the end, is not a problem of story as much as a issue with characterization.
Jaynes is a wonderful character. Consistent. Complex. Evolving. But he was the only one flushed out and developed to that extent. The rest of the cast of characters seemed to be more like different sized shadows of people rather than fully realized individuals, with only 2-3 defining characteristics, as opposed to the dynamic, compelling personality given to Jaynes. When they stand side by side as the same bizarre events unfold, it's hard to completely give yourself to the world Johnson creates given their reactions (or lack thereof).
But back to Johnson's genius: he crafts the story utilizing the same structure as Poe's Narrative. As I read, I kept noticing how Johnson took some of the most salient story elements from Poe's piece and reappropriated them for Jaynes' journey (if you're curious as to which story elements he chose, message me, as I don't want to give away any major plot points here!). Super clever, and done in such a subtle way that it's in no way gimmicky or forced.
Rubric rating: 7. I would love to read more by Johnson...as long as it's set north of Antarctica.
First person narration can be tricky, but Mat Johnson has a sense of voice that rivals Junot Diaz. So clear, so compelling. As I read, I wanted to follow Johnson's main character, Chris Jaynes, anywhere he went. Until he decided to leave the States (and reality) far, far behind...
The premise of this book is really quite genius: the self-described token black professor at a small, predominately white liberal arts college finds himself without tenure after favoring teaching Edgar Allen Poe to authors of color. The object of Jaynes' fascination is Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Johnson does an amazing job of allowing us into Jaynes' psyche as deconstructs Poe's novel, which he sees as part of the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness." In this part of the book, Johnson soars and Jaynes takes us through Poe's work and explains its literary and institutional significance. Strong voice, compelling argument and raw social commentary. Near perfect. Up until this point in the narrative, I was in love with this book.
Then we go to Antarctica. Through a turn of events (which I won't cheat you out of discovering on your own), Jaynes is lead to believe that the events outlined in Poe's novel may not be so fictitious after all. Given the opportunity to, in part, retrace Pym's journey and go to Antarctica, he accepts in hopes of finding the island of Tsalal, an island of pure blackness (which Poe described with much terror) which Jaynes imagines to be the "last untouched bastion of the African diaspora." Unfortunately, once the ship docks, Johnson loses me a bit.
My problem is not with the journey; my problem is not even with the sequence of events that border on science-fiction/disaster porn. My problem is with the way the characters react (or don't) to these events. Typically, when an author decides to dive into the realm of science fiction or adventure, as Johnson absolutely does in the last half of his book, either:
the story takes place in a world where a specific set of magical/heightened/supernatural/etc rules and conditions are consistent and we, as readers accept them as the reality of the story OR
the story takes place in reality as we know it and something unusual/strange/supernatural/world-shattering happens, and the characters react accordingly.
A beautiful example of this is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: when the house starts shifting and changing, people freak out, then adapt, then re-approach their new reality. In Johnsons' story, when reality as Jaynes' knows it is turned on its head, the characters just seem to keep moving through the plot without much reflection, except in terms of potential profit. In addition, some pretty major occurrences are mentioned and then never reacted to thoroughly or revisited...which I think, in the end, is not a problem of story as much as a issue with characterization.
Jaynes is a wonderful character. Consistent. Complex. Evolving. But he was the only one flushed out and developed to that extent. The rest of the cast of characters seemed to be more like different sized shadows of people rather than fully realized individuals, with only 2-3 defining characteristics, as opposed to the dynamic, compelling personality given to Jaynes. When they stand side by side as the same bizarre events unfold, it's hard to completely give yourself to the world Johnson creates given their reactions (or lack thereof).
But back to Johnson's genius: he crafts the story utilizing the same structure as Poe's Narrative. As I read, I kept noticing how Johnson took some of the most salient story elements from Poe's piece and reappropriated them for Jaynes' journey (if you're curious as to which story elements he chose, message me, as I don't want to give away any major plot points here!). Super clever, and done in such a subtle way that it's in no way gimmicky or forced.
Rubric rating: 7. I would love to read more by Johnson...as long as it's set north of Antarctica.
December 23, 2020
A highly entertaining, farcical examination of U.S. race relations through a story loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It's as clever as it is entertaining, though I think anyone who reads it without first having read Poe's original will be leaving a lot of enjoyment on the table.
My main criticism is with the tone. It's not quite funny enough (and its theme is too serious) to work as pure farce, but because of its farcical leanings it fails at times with typical conventions of fiction such as realism and character development. It's also too glib to reach a state of poignance, which given the subject matter and certain tragic ironies it very well could have exploited. Then again, there's a dalmatian named White Folks, which is pretty damn funny, so that makes up for a lot.
What Johnson has created, however, is a fairly innocuous vehicle to discuss the quite sensitive issues of blackness, exploitation, self-loathing, and racial justice. To make it more earnest would also have made it vitriolic, so the fact that our protagonist Chris Jaynes is a mildly insecure, witty, biracial academic allows him to point out the faults in many different racial perspectives while also frequently reminding us how full of shit he is himself. In other words, Johnson has doled out an extremely generous scoop of sugar to go with our medicine.
I liked it enough to keep Johnson on my radar for future readings. The irreverent tone and rambling asides (including snarky footnotes) reminds me pleasantly of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, though this one isn't as schizophrenic. All in all I would recommend it highly to just about anyone, though fans of Poe will certainly get a lot more out of it than most others.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
My main criticism is with the tone. It's not quite funny enough (and its theme is too serious) to work as pure farce, but because of its farcical leanings it fails at times with typical conventions of fiction such as realism and character development. It's also too glib to reach a state of poignance, which given the subject matter and certain tragic ironies it very well could have exploited. Then again, there's a dalmatian named White Folks, which is pretty damn funny, so that makes up for a lot.
What Johnson has created, however, is a fairly innocuous vehicle to discuss the quite sensitive issues of blackness, exploitation, self-loathing, and racial justice. To make it more earnest would also have made it vitriolic, so the fact that our protagonist Chris Jaynes is a mildly insecure, witty, biracial academic allows him to point out the faults in many different racial perspectives while also frequently reminding us how full of shit he is himself. In other words, Johnson has doled out an extremely generous scoop of sugar to go with our medicine.
I liked it enough to keep Johnson on my radar for future readings. The irreverent tone and rambling asides (including snarky footnotes) reminds me pleasantly of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, though this one isn't as schizophrenic. All in all I would recommend it highly to just about anyone, though fans of Poe will certainly get a lot more out of it than most others.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
April 18, 2022
I have been waiting to get to this book since it was published! Now is the time! 'Pym' is the last book in the four book project that covers almost 200 years. I first had to read the inspiration of the other three books- Edgar Allan Poe's 'Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym' and then Jules Verne's 'Antarctic Mystery'. If I hadn't already read H.P. Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness', I would have read that before reading Mat Johnson's book. But I had already read the Lovecraft and loved it years ago. Reading all four was a PROJECT but a fun project. I love that Johnson mentions all of the books featured in this interesting bookish saga within his own book, not only Edgar Allan Poe's original mess, but the other two books as well, making my reading of all four books in this journey completely worth it for me. And Johnson's is the best by far! Really updating these others, giving a freshness to that mysterious Poe ending, not to mention making it a satire. I loved every page here and all the twists and turns. Much like Edgar Allan Poe's original featured Whiteness, whether a subconscious side affect of Poe being a supporter of slavery, Mat Johnson also has interesting things here to say about Whiteness. With a Black main character that sometimes can pass for white, he is trying to use books like Poe's to find why society hasn't moved past the sickness of Whiteness. Anything I say about this book won't do it justice. It's a gem! Pick it up! It's one of those things emanating greatness that I just knew I would love before delving into it and I wasn't wrong. I would fit this on a shelf in between 'Cat's Cradle' by Kurt Vonnegut and 'Parasites Like Us' by Adam Johnson. All three books have the same spirit.
June 9, 2011
I must admit, hesitantly, that I was not keen on reading this book when I initially heard about it. When I read the description of the book, I thought it sounded a bit boring. It was not until I took a Saturday afternoon to spend in the bookstore, that I actually sat down and gave this novel a chance. What initially was supposed to be just the first few pages read, turned to be the devouring of the first four chapters. I was obviously proved wrong. This is the perfect example of how one must not judge a book by its cover.
Published March 1, 2011, Pym is a thrilling and intriguing story of the main character and narrator Chris Jaynes, and his quest to find the island of Tsalal, which author Edgar Allan Poe described in horror as utter blackness in his only written novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Chris believes that the secluded island is the last surviving area that embodies the African Diaspora in every form, and remains untouched by American “whiteness”. Chris gathers a crew of six members to endure an adventurous journey to the South Pole, in search of this island. What they discover will truly prove to be astonishing and epic.
I cannot emphasize enough how truly remarkable this novel has proven to be. It has become one of the best novels that I have read this year. This is the first literary work that I have read by Mat Johnson, and his scholarly talent unequivocally impresses me. I plan to read more of his work in the future. Witty, brilliant, and incisive, Pym will take the reader on an exhilarating ride, which will continue to echo past the last page. I highly recommend this book to others.
Published March 1, 2011, Pym is a thrilling and intriguing story of the main character and narrator Chris Jaynes, and his quest to find the island of Tsalal, which author Edgar Allan Poe described in horror as utter blackness in his only written novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Chris believes that the secluded island is the last surviving area that embodies the African Diaspora in every form, and remains untouched by American “whiteness”. Chris gathers a crew of six members to endure an adventurous journey to the South Pole, in search of this island. What they discover will truly prove to be astonishing and epic.
I cannot emphasize enough how truly remarkable this novel has proven to be. It has become one of the best novels that I have read this year. This is the first literary work that I have read by Mat Johnson, and his scholarly talent unequivocally impresses me. I plan to read more of his work in the future. Witty, brilliant, and incisive, Pym will take the reader on an exhilarating ride, which will continue to echo past the last page. I highly recommend this book to others.
November 25, 2015
And to think I almost didn't read this.
A fabulous and funny (and serious) read about a fired black English professor who, because of a manuscript he finds, mounts an all-black crew to travel to Antartica to look for the places mentioned in Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Yes, it sounds crazy, and what they find sends the story off in the realm of speculative fiction. And I can't tell you why, because that would spoil it.
But the characters!
Chris Jaynes, English professor who believes he has been fired because 1)he doesn't want to be on the diversity committee because he is confident it is a load of crap and 2) he wants to teach Poe, not African American lit
his best friend, Garth, unemployed bus driver who is obsesses with the paintings of Thomas Karvel (Thomas Kincaid), and eats a diet largely based on Little Debbie snack cakes
Jeffree and Carlton Damon Carter--husbands, engineers, and filmmakers who run a blog about their "adventures".
Chris's ex-wife (former girlfriend?) Angela and her 2nd husband Nathaniel
Captain Jaynes, Chris's cousin and...the expedition's captain
And more.
In this crazy story and with these great characters, Johnson manages to discuss modern academia, race relations, and reflects on American expectations, the nature of slavery, consumption and waste, exploration, and more.
Fascinating, this would be a great book to read in a book club. The discussions!
A fabulous and funny (and serious) read about a fired black English professor who, because of a manuscript he finds, mounts an all-black crew to travel to Antartica to look for the places mentioned in Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Yes, it sounds crazy, and what they find sends the story off in the realm of speculative fiction. And I can't tell you why, because that would spoil it.
But the characters!
Chris Jaynes, English professor who believes he has been fired because 1)he doesn't want to be on the diversity committee because he is confident it is a load of crap and 2) he wants to teach Poe, not African American lit
his best friend, Garth, unemployed bus driver who is obsesses with the paintings of Thomas Karvel (Thomas Kincaid), and eats a diet largely based on Little Debbie snack cakes
Jeffree and Carlton Damon Carter--husbands, engineers, and filmmakers who run a blog about their "adventures".
Chris's ex-wife (former girlfriend?) Angela and her 2nd husband Nathaniel
Captain Jaynes, Chris's cousin and...the expedition's captain
And more.
In this crazy story and with these great characters, Johnson manages to discuss modern academia, race relations, and reflects on American expectations, the nature of slavery, consumption and waste, exploration, and more.
Fascinating, this would be a great book to read in a book club. The discussions!
May 24, 2018
Falling somewhere between the witty insouciance of Percival Everett and the cool intellectualism of Colson Whitehead's quasi-allegories, Mat Johnson's satirical and metafictional novel Pym takes on American literature, American culture, identity and the construction of "whiteness" and "blackness." Johnson's protagonist, Chris Jaynes, is an American literature professor who is obsessed with white American authors, namely Edgar Allan Poe. Because he doesn't fit the university's idea of diversity, he is let go. After discovering a here-to-fore unknown travel narrative that confirms his suspicion that Poe's only novel is not fictional, but real, Jaynes embarks on a surreal journey, tracing the path of Poe's protagonist, Arthur Pym. Voyaging to Antarctica (the whitest place on Earth) with an all-black crew (and a dog named White Folks), Jaynes quickly discovers of a race of albino yeti and the utopian stronghold of American painter Thomas Karvel (a thinly veiled Thomas Kincaid, painter of light). Through his hapless characters, Johnson focuses on identity -- the roles we craft or accept for ourselves and the roles we create -- and self-determination, in world both alien and strangely familiar. Perhaps the best fictional representation of race and identity since Everett's I Am Not Sidney Poitier. Hilarious.
June 12, 2012
Chris Jaynes is the only black professor (he considers himself the token black) at a predominantly white liberal arts college where he has been hired to teach Black Studies. But he has a fascination with Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which Jaynes believes exemplifies the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness". Since he is untenured, and since his class size has dwindled due to his refusal to teach anything other than Pym, he soon finds himself out of a job.
He stumbles upon a manuscript that makes him believe that Poe's novel is, in reality, a fictionalized account of a real voyage and Jaynes decides he will retrace Pym's steps to Antarctica in search of the Island of Tsalai which Jaynes believes may be "the last untouched bastion of the African diaspora". And he will make this voyage with an all-black crew.
Author Mat Johnson has written one hell of a strange and engrossing novel. It is, at once, fascinating science fiction and biting satire on American race relations. He does a wonderful job of recreating Poe's style while, at the same time, writing a completely original tale. And, in Chris Jaynes, he has drawn one of those rare characters who stay with you long after you finish the book.
He stumbles upon a manuscript that makes him believe that Poe's novel is, in reality, a fictionalized account of a real voyage and Jaynes decides he will retrace Pym's steps to Antarctica in search of the Island of Tsalai which Jaynes believes may be "the last untouched bastion of the African diaspora". And he will make this voyage with an all-black crew.
Author Mat Johnson has written one hell of a strange and engrossing novel. It is, at once, fascinating science fiction and biting satire on American race relations. He does a wonderful job of recreating Poe's style while, at the same time, writing a completely original tale. And, in Chris Jaynes, he has drawn one of those rare characters who stay with you long after you finish the book.
January 24, 2015
Mat Johnson's Pym is nothing less than an absolute masterpiece. It is easily among the top 5 books I have ever read in my life. Johnson continually shows a razor sharp wit in crafting his protagonist's consciousness -- at different moments, his observations had me heartily laughing out loud at his incisive or absurd insights, giggling at the silliness of the fantastical realm he finds himself in, and chuckling bittersweetly at the comically framed horrors that are sometimes described. A lot of the genius of this work inheres in Johnson's deep understanding of how absurdity can resonate profoundly with reality and his sensitivity to the poignancy of its actual presence in real life.
If you like literary heavyweights who write compelling plots in sophisticated and original ways, try this book. If some of your favorite comedy (in any medium) is dramedy, try this book. If you are sensitive to the presence of race in American life, try this book. If you appreciate the absurd, try this book.
If you like literary heavyweights who write compelling plots in sophisticated and original ways, try this book. If some of your favorite comedy (in any medium) is dramedy, try this book. If you are sensitive to the presence of race in American life, try this book. If you appreciate the absurd, try this book.
April 21, 2022
Overthought and overwrought, Pym scans as a fix-up of two halves with dissimilar themes, awkwardly riveted together with a forced attempt at wry social satire. It doesn't work.
The first half is smug and pretentious, with the narrator implicitly winking at the reader: "Look, I'm a black man making fun of blacks; I'm a writer making fun of writers; I'm an academic mocking academia. Aren't I clever ?" The digs at deeply-held conceits would have been more satisfying were the narrator less of a schmuck and the sarcasm thinner.
The second half enters the land of truly bad, SF B-movies. Actually, were Roger Corman to emerge from retirement to produce a blaxploitation/horror film about alien honkies in the Antarctic while hampered by a shoestring budget, this would be the screen treatment.
Hard pass.
The first half is smug and pretentious, with the narrator implicitly winking at the reader: "Look, I'm a black man making fun of blacks; I'm a writer making fun of writers; I'm an academic mocking academia. Aren't I clever ?" The digs at deeply-held conceits would have been more satisfying were the narrator less of a schmuck and the sarcasm thinner.
The second half enters the land of truly bad, SF B-movies. Actually, were Roger Corman to emerge from retirement to produce a blaxploitation/horror film about alien honkies in the Antarctic while hampered by a shoestring budget, this would be the screen treatment.
Hard pass.
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