A review by ebonyutley
Pym by Mat Johnson

3.0

Pym is the oddest little book. It’s a literary science fiction novel about Edgar Allen Poe’s obscure novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Weird by any generic standard. I didn’t read for character development or continuity, I just wanted to know what crazy thing was going to happen next. A black professor denied tenure at a PWI ventures to Antarctica to fulfill a researcher’s dream but encounters monsters and the undead along the way. Most of the story is implausible, but the main character is so endearingly hapless. As a professor, I admired his love of the arcane and awkwardness around regular people. I also liked all of the intellectual musing about whiteness being erasure and the absence of things as opposed to its presence. Plus, I’ve never read a novel with footnote commentary by the main character about the main character’s feelings. It’s great. The quirks of this story contribute more to the story than the plot. How the main character talks about the adventure makes the story so delightful. I’m not entirely sure who the ideal audience of a book like this would be. One would have to be very patient or really interested in Poe to slog through all the sycophancy about his single novel. I fit in the former category. I wouldn’t re-read the book, but I’m glad I read it once.