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A review by bookishwendy
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
3.0
I quite enjoyed the first half of this over-the-top, laughably macabre tale (I would expect no less from Edgar Allan Poe). The pinnacle must have been the bit where the four survivors of a half-sunk storm-damaged ship draw lots for who gets to be killed and eaten, follow through with their morbid plan...and then a day or so later realize they had an ax the whole time, and can cut through the deck to reach the flooded storerooms below. Psych! This was only slightly better than the part where the one guy dresses as the ghost of his dead shipmate and literally frightens a nemesis to death.
This one has all the good seafaring tropes of storms, mutiny, buried alive (in a ship's hold), penguins, sea cucumbers, and an antarctic cataract flowing, I suppose, to the center of a hollow earth. It also has some of the not-good seafaring tropes--mainly those lengthy journal entries of repetitive uneventful days at sea, and some very dated depictions of native islanders.
Did i love some of this? Hell yes. Did I get bogged down in the middle with the repetitive journaling? yes. Did I get to the final line and go "WTF did I just read?" Of course! This is Poe, and this book is his elaborate ruse to fool editors into thinking he can write more than just short stories. And guess what, he can! Sort of. And yet...I think I still prefer "The Cask of Amontillado".
This one has all the good seafaring tropes of storms, mutiny, buried alive (in a ship's hold), penguins, sea cucumbers, and an antarctic cataract flowing, I suppose, to the center of a hollow earth. It also has some of the not-good seafaring tropes--mainly those lengthy journal entries of repetitive uneventful days at sea, and some very dated depictions of native islanders.
Did i love some of this? Hell yes. Did I get bogged down in the middle with the repetitive journaling? yes. Did I get to the final line and go "WTF did I just read?" Of course! This is Poe, and this book is his elaborate ruse to fool editors into thinking he can write more than just short stories. And guess what, he can! Sort of. And yet...I think I still prefer "The Cask of Amontillado".