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3.11 AVERAGE
3.11 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Problematic.
Pym seems more and more ludicrous as I read “Pym”, by Mat Johnson. For this horror fiction fan, Poe has become far worse as an author after laughing through Johnson’s (as C. Jaynes) plot synopsis.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
2.5 stars, but rounding it up to 3 because it's so influential.
2021 reread: This novella is essentially two books combine into one, especially given the seeming lack of narrative recall in the later half to the first half of the story.
The first half is a novella is heavily psychological and claustrophobic, as well as HEAVILY based on shipwrecked sailors and their resorts to cannibalism that were apparently all too common in the day. (This was the primary reason I wanted to reread this, having recently finished In the Heart of the Sea and relating so much of it to Pym.) In itself the first half gets 3.5-4 stars.
The second half after rescue is a play on the ship's logs and general tales of explorers of the era in search of a Southern Continent... but with Very Obvious Racial Overtones! It gets about 2.5 stars as a standalone. The entire world building that Poe creates for Tsalal and the southern reaches in general is surreal and mindbending... you could easily devote an entire college degree path in English (from Bachelor's to PhD) to studying Pym and race.
It also stood out to me throughout just how much Jules Verne was inspired by Poe, I was reminded of some portion from all of Verne's main works throughout this. Given that Verne wrote a fan sequel to Pym, I would not doubt that it was his favorite Poe work and used it as a main inspiration source.
2021 reread: This novella is essentially two books combine into one, especially given the seeming lack of narrative recall in the later half to the first half of the story.
The first half is a novella is heavily psychological and claustrophobic, as well as HEAVILY based on shipwrecked sailors and their resorts to cannibalism that were apparently all too common in the day. (This was the primary reason I wanted to reread this, having recently finished In the Heart of the Sea and relating so much of it to Pym.) In itself the first half gets 3.5-4 stars.
The second half after rescue is a play on the ship's logs and general tales of explorers of the era in search of a Southern Continent... but with Very Obvious Racial Overtones! It gets about 2.5 stars as a standalone. The entire world building that Poe creates for Tsalal and the southern reaches in general is surreal and mindbending... you could easily devote an entire college degree path in English (from Bachelor's to PhD) to studying Pym and race.
It also stood out to me throughout just how much Jules Verne was inspired by Poe, I was reminded of some portion from all of Verne's main works throughout this. Given that Verne wrote a fan sequel to Pym, I would not doubt that it was his favorite Poe work and used it as a main inspiration source.
Man, this thing did not age well.
Without spoiling things, the first part of the story, marooned on a wrecked ship, was fun. The second part, when they encounter what they encounter at the pole, is just silly. Jules Verne is looking at this and saying "man, that's really dated and stupid." It has a lot of the conventions of "adventure" fiction writing of the time: The boldest of the bold, the villain turned companion, the deceitful savages, Divine Right, the fantastical tales of mythical stuff that has no bearing in science - basically 20,000 leagues without the character depth and thought to believe-ability.
It's in the public domain, so pick up an e-copy and thumb through it. This is post-Cook, pre Origin of Species, so it falls into a period when we wanted to explore the world but were free to imagine the ridiculous.
Without spoiling things, the first part of the story, marooned on a wrecked ship, was fun. The second part, when they encounter what they encounter at the pole, is just silly. Jules Verne is looking at this and saying "man, that's really dated and stupid." It has a lot of the conventions of "adventure" fiction writing of the time: The boldest of the bold, the villain turned companion, the deceitful savages, Divine Right, the fantastical tales of mythical stuff that has no bearing in science - basically 20,000 leagues without the character depth and thought to believe-ability.
It's in the public domain, so pick up an e-copy and thumb through it. This is post-Cook, pre Origin of Species, so it falls into a period when we wanted to explore the world but were free to imagine the ridiculous.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Read Harder 2024, Task #12, Read a genre book by a disabled author
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
i don’t wanna talk about it much but YOU CAN’T END A BOOK LIKE THIS?? I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED???
Reads as two different stories - the first a sea survival story, the second a mythic horror story of sorts. Lovecraft picks up the mantle and does a better job almost a hundred years later.
I mean... It's Poe. If you like Poe you'll like this. If you think Poe is a bit pretentious, you'll think this is pretentious. The story is interesting enough to keep reading, but it never had me completely hooked. The ending is just awful.