jasonfurman 's review for:

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe

4.0

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A peculiar book, much of it feels derivative (although, admittedly, a somewhat unfair charge because some of it is derivative of more familiar books that were written later and themselves may have derived from this), much of it fails to hang together and the ending is completely abrupt. It features many of the standard nautical devices, a stowaway, a mutiny, a storm at sea, cannibalism, a shipwreck, a previously unknown island--all that plus a mysterious large white humanoid creature that is introduced but not explained in the final sentence of the book.

The book begins with Arthur Gordon Pym's boyhood sailing trip gone awry, followed by his stowing away on an adult voyage that goes wrong in just about every way. Much of the novel is in the form of a journal and it provides minimal descriptions of a few characters and just about no description of anyone else. It is part bildingsroman, part adventure, part science fiction, and depicts equal parts fear and wonder, horror and delight. OK, maybe not equal parts--it is certainly weighted towards the fear and horror side.

I have not read any of Poe's short stories in a long time, but my memory is that the best of them come much closer to perfection than this, his only novel.