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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Edgar Allan Poe

Start date: March 1, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

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* Arthur Gordon Pym Discussion
By deleted member · 1 post · 20 views

last updated Mar 28, 2016 03:37AM

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last updated Aug 11, 2016 10:50PM

What Members Thought

Mar 28, 2016 mark monday rated it liked it

Shelves: masterpiece-theatre, blood-and-danger

an unusually restrained Edgar Allan Poe strips away his more poetic tendencies as well as his luscious prose in this Narrative, his only novel. the result is an "adventure" that is grim, Grim, GRIM... and so ends up feeling much like Poe after all, despite the shift in style.

a feckless youth decides to follow his heart and his sailor friend by stowing away on a whaling ship. sounds like a recipe for an exciting voyage full of adventure, bromance, mind-opening experiences and perhaps a little Com an unusually restrained Edgar Allan Poe strips away his more poetic tendencies as well as his luscious prose in this Narrative, his only novel. the result is an "adventure" that is grim, Grim, GRIM... and so ends up feeling much like Poe after all, despite the shift in style.

a feckless youth decides to follow his heart and his sailor friend by stowing away on a whaling ship. sounds like a recipe for an exciting voyage full of adventure, bromance, mind-opening experiences and perhaps a little Coming of Age, right? WRONG. so very, very wrong. little does he know, our poor lad is living in a novel written by Edgar Allan Poe; he has made a decision to leave all safety and sanity behind and to instead

naturally enough, near starvation & dehydration & a savage attack from a furry friend & mutiny & bloodthirsty slaughter & then even more bloodthirsty slaughter & horrific weather & capsizing & more starvation, more dehydration & cannibalism & the death of all dignity occurs. and then... the adventure is only half over!

coming aboard a new ship, our plucky young ~~hero~~ asshole uses his powers of persuasion and his ability to make a grown man doubt his own manhood, and manages to convince his new captain to continue their voyage to Antarctica despite a distinct lack of fuel and supplies.

guess what? more horrifying things occur. Arthur Gordon Pym is, above all things, a bonafide dumbass.

this was an interesting experience. the past month was a busy time for me, so I pretty much just read this in 20 minute installments. it was maybe the best way to read it. it is a dry book but not an impenetrable one. fairly easy going down, in its own austere way. the horrors occur so regularly that it was rather nice taking a break after each new disaster. and Poe includes many lengthy discussions and explorations of fairly technical topics - things like proper and improper methods of stowage on a whaling ship - that he apparently took verbatim from other texts of the time period. that could have been tedious if I had decided to read this over the course of a few sittings, but spread out over a longer period of time, it actually was pretty interesting. so I knew that each time I cracked open this book, I was sure to get both an atrocity and a bit of education.

a word about the ending: it is just the kind of abrupt and entirely ambiguous ending that pleases me to no end. the sea changing color and turning viscous, the wall of mist, birds fleeing from something, an eerie white figure in the distance... and then full stop. no questions answered. it was like I was reading a sea journey written by Joseph Conrad and then all of a sudden the author remembered he was Edgar Allan Poe. ...more

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Oct 26, 2016 Ericka Seidemann rated it it was ok

Nov 05, 2016 Lynx rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites

Mar 24, 2014 Axolotl marked it as to-read

Mar 18, 2016 Corey Holt marked it as to-read

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