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333_lucy_333 's review for:
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
by Edgar Allan Poe
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is an unrepentant, disgusting, flaming pile of garbage presented on the rusted platter of America's weird and ongoing literary nationalism, served by a 29-year-old gambling addict, actively sweating alcohol from every pore in his body, who'd already been married to his 15-year-old cousin for two fucking years.
If you could not tell, I really, really hate this book. And Poe. In general.
So many of the reviews on this book are suspiciously silent on the blatant racism foregrounded in the latter half of this narrative. But let me be absolutely clear: Poe's treatment of Native-ness and Blackness is vile. He plays into racist myths and stereotypes to titillate his audience: the Black inhabitants of Tsalal are presented as entirely morally bankrupt---attacking the white sailors just to destroy their ship, refusing to help their wounded fellows, etc.---as well as being easily startled, superstitious, disorganized, and---that lovely, lovely word with absolutely no baggage at all---"uncivilized." As a side note, Poe also plays into the "ancient race of builders/ancient aliens" by slipping in the information that the canoes owned by the Tsalal natives were not in fact built by them, but that they accidentally got them from some other, unseen social group in the south. Poe also plays on very real and intense cultural fears around being buried alive to heighten the danger posed by the natives to the white sailors---eventually, the Tsalalians attack the white sailors, apparently unprovoked, by burying them alive in a landslide. Not only is Poe wielding racist myths here, but co-opting extant cultural fears to divorce the category of "human" from "Native-ness" and "Blackness," replacing that void with fear and hate.
And in case you're one of those people who are eager to shunt aside any racist remarks as mere "happenstance of the times," citing death of the author on one hand and historical apologism on the other, first of all, fuck you, and second of all, the book is bad regardless. If Poe had written this book without any racist caricatures or themes, it still would've been absolute garb-o. The pacing is entirely off thanks to Poe's tendency to wander down meaningless rabbit holes that feel as if they've been ripped straight from whatever encyclopedia he could get his hands on, constituting a multi-page-long sprawl of Wikipedia-page-proportion on the nesting habits of fucking albatrosses. Jesus fucking Christ. And if I have to learn one more useless factoid about boats or failed voyages there is a serious risk that I will combust.
And the cherry on this worm-infested sundae? So in total there are max 10 important characters, one of them being our main character's beloved dog Tiger, who plays a kind of (?) pivotal role in some of the book's early scenes where our narrator is trapped in the hold of the ship, not to mention the fact that later Tiger brutally murders a man by ripping his throat out. So, yes, this same Tiger disappears about 42% of the way into the book with no fanfare or mention whatsoever, never to return either physically on the boat, or mentally in our narrator's thoughts. The final line referencing him?: "I had the greatest difficulty in bringing to recollection the various circumstances connected with my situation, and for some time remained firmly convinced that I was still in the hold of the brig, near the box, and that the body of Parker was that of Tiger." A hallucination, folks. Apparently, Tiger wasn't so beloved after all.
I am firmly convinced that this book is still drawing air into its rickety, age-spotted lungs because of white-man-exceptionalism and an ongoing American-academic desire to locate "great American writers" throughout the 19th century. It's unnecessary. Time to ditch the myth of Poe.
Fuck this book. Politely.
0/5 stars
If you could not tell, I really, really hate this book. And Poe. In general.
So many of the reviews on this book are suspiciously silent on the blatant racism foregrounded in the latter half of this narrative. But let me be absolutely clear: Poe's treatment of Native-ness and Blackness is vile. He plays into racist myths and stereotypes to titillate his audience: the Black inhabitants of Tsalal are presented as entirely morally bankrupt---attacking the white sailors just to destroy their ship, refusing to help their wounded fellows, etc.---as well as being easily startled, superstitious, disorganized, and---that lovely, lovely word with absolutely no baggage at all---"uncivilized." As a side note, Poe also plays into the "ancient race of builders/ancient aliens"
Spoiler
if you haven't heard of this conspiracy theory, how and oh my god could I please be you, but also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts. Essentially this theory undermines the very real and very cool architectural things accomplished by Native populations by ascribing them to some outside, and often white-coded, force, in design alone and sometimes in construction, too.And in case you're one of those people who are eager to shunt aside any racist remarks as mere "happenstance of the times," citing death of the author on one hand and historical apologism on the other, first of all, fuck you, and second of all, the book is bad regardless. If Poe had written this book without any racist caricatures or themes, it still would've been absolute garb-o. The pacing is entirely off thanks to Poe's tendency to wander down meaningless rabbit holes that feel as if they've been ripped straight from whatever encyclopedia he could get his hands on, constituting a multi-page-long sprawl of Wikipedia-page-proportion on the nesting habits of fucking albatrosses. Jesus fucking Christ. And if I have to learn one more useless factoid about boats or failed voyages there is a serious risk that I will combust.
And the cherry on this worm-infested sundae? So in total there are max 10 important characters, one of them being our main character's beloved dog Tiger, who plays a kind of (?) pivotal role in some of the book's early scenes where our narrator is trapped in the hold of the ship, not to mention the fact that later Tiger brutally murders a man by ripping his throat out. So, yes, this same Tiger disappears about 42% of the way into the book with no fanfare or mention whatsoever, never to return either physically on the boat, or mentally in our narrator's thoughts. The final line referencing him?: "I had the greatest difficulty in bringing to recollection the various circumstances connected with my situation, and for some time remained firmly convinced that I was still in the hold of the brig, near the box, and that the body of Parker was that of Tiger." A hallucination, folks. Apparently, Tiger wasn't so beloved after all.
I am firmly convinced that this book is still drawing air into its rickety, age-spotted lungs because of white-man-exceptionalism and an ongoing American-academic desire to locate "great American writers" throughout the 19th century. It's unnecessary. Time to ditch the myth of Poe.
Fuck this book. Politely.
0/5 stars