Reviews - Pym | The StoryGraph

197 reviews for:

Pym

Mat Johnson

3.59 AVERAGE

lwebster's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

britlaccetti's review against another edition

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this novel. First, I was forced to read it for a literature class I am taking this semester; I think when you are forced to read a book you tend to be on the "it was awful" side. It's not that the book was awful, it was just too "out there" for me (and this is just a personal preference). I also did not enjoy the captions, I found them to be superficial and unnecessary and almost a burden while reading.
But I enjoyed the idea behind the whole piece. Black Americans searching for the truth behind white culture. Unlike most readers, I enjoyed that the ending was open-ended because I imagine the narrator feeling "at home" finally.
I just did not like the way the author had to move around to get to this point. The giant Ice creatures, the bio-dome, the debbie cakes? Come on. And the way women are portrayed is pretty insulting (but maybe that's the point?). And I felt like a lot of metaphorical images were too "in your face" such as the 3/5 of a house and the Kincade reference.

I don't know. There are some great quotes though, "How is it that something as the color of a bird's feathers can make the difference between being regarded as the international symbol of peace and being the urban symbol of filth and nuisance?" (316)

celesteface's review

Entertainingly absurd. In lieu of an actual review, I just want to note my appreciation of Johnson’s choice to include a character named Jeffree who, spurred by dreams of internet fame and under the influence of two lawyers with dollar signs in their eyes, insists that a tunnel in the ice be named after him: “Jeffree’s tube.”

agmaynard's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Excellent and provocative! Satirical and funny at times, without losing sight of racial and historical critique. As always, my understanding and enjoyment deepened because of having a reading companion! Looking forward to trying another book by Mat Johnson sometime.

docpacey's review against another edition

3.0

Pym is an interesting attempt to satirize current race relations by loosely retelling "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" the only novel published by Edgar Allen Poe. It's not uncommon for an author to take a beloved work and recast it both as homage and as template for a modern work, and elements of the story (an island near antarctica that is peopled by a black race, strange monsters on antarctica iteself) lend themselves to the task, but it might have been a stretch that's just a stretch too far unless Johnson was counting on a large audience of readers with an affection for Poe's story.
Our modern Pym is the story of a crew of adventurers and opportunists who set out to make a fortune mining ice on antarctica. Their leader is an out of work academic who is convinced that the original Pym is based on fact, and will lead them to the fabled island of Tsalal, his right hand man is in search of Thomas Karvel ( ne Kincaide) the painter of light, who has fled to the continent to live in peace.
What follows is a strange, sometimes funny, sometimes satirical adventure that takes the crew past the end of the world, quite literally.
Johnson's strength is in his characterizations, the wide variety of his black characters, in contrast to the uniform abhorrence of the pale, white monsters; and while the story is a bit absurd, the message within it is not.