The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket & Related Tales

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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket & Related Tales

by Edgar Allan Poe, J. Gerald Kennedy (Editor)

3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 · rating details · 2,796 ratings · 265 reviews

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus. Various adventures & misadventures befall, including shipwreck, mutiny & cannibalism, before he's saved by the crew of the Jane Guy....more

Paperback, World's Classics, 336 pages

Published November 19th 1998 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1837)

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Jan 27, 2011 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

Dear The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,

I love you. I hate you. You confuse me because you evoke within me such conflicting emotions. The truth? I really got into a relationship with you because I thought that you would be a straight-up maritime adventure novel a la "Master and Commander." I heard you inspired Herman Melville when he was writing Moby Dick. That's what I was looking for. What I got was... well, what are you, Arthur?

Here's the thing, Gordy: you were always good as an adventure n...more Dear The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,

I love you. I hate you. You confuse me because you evoke within me such conflicting emotions. The truth? I really got into a relationship with you because I thought that you would be a straight-up maritime adventure novel a la "Master and Commander." I heard you inspired Herman Melville when he was writing Moby Dick. That's what I was looking for. What I got was... well, what are you, Arthur?

Here's the thing, Gordy: you were always good as an adventure novel. That was your strength and I always liked that about you. I liked your gruesome tales of cannibalism, the ship of dead people, the mutiny, the shark attacks, killing a polar bear with a knife and the sprays of blood, etc. But then, oh God, there were the parts where you devolved into long passages about nautical terminology. For pages and pages you rattled off longitudes and latitudes and the way the sea currents were running. I almost left you then. You were elegant as hell, but I was bored off my ass. "Stick to the action, Arthur," I wanted to say, "If I wanted a travelogue I'd read 'The Voyage of the Beagle.' If I wanted a treatise about the nesting habits of frigate birds I'd pick up a Time-Life book or check out Wikipedia."

I feel like you are trying to be all things to all people, Arthur. I think this has to do with your origins, how you were published episodically in a newspaper and had to appeal a variety of readers. And while I admire your versatility, I think you should just stick to who you really are, deep down: an adventure novel. Or maybe, again, that's just who I wanted you to be and I'm projecting my expectations on you. If you feel smothered by me, that's fine.

And you are a racist son of a bitch, too. All the black guys are either mutineers or knuckle-dragging savages? Come on!

Arthur, I'm sorry it didn't work out. I wanted to love you so bad. I want to compare you other lovers: your lost civilizations reminded me of Borges, your castaways reminded me of Robert Louis Stevenson, you seem at times like you could've been a pulp novel penned in the early twentieth century---all swashbuckle and edge-of-your-seat adventure. But I just can't look past your flaws. And maybe that's my fault. I think our age difference is a chasm between us. You come from different generation. I can't help but judge you by my modern standards of tolerance (and post-Hemingway appreciation for strong, brief sentences) and that's not fair to either of us. I'm sure there's a better reader out there for you, somewhere, Arthur. We had some good times this past week and a half, but I'm glad to move on. I'm eager to start a relationship with another book. Me and Raymond Chandler have been seeing each other lately, and I think I might pursue that a little. I'm eager to start a new chapter in my reading life (sorry for the pun).

Don't take any of this personally. Again: it's not you, Arthur. It's me.

Sincerely,
Richard Porter

P.S. Bad-ass cover, BTW. (less)

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Mar 29, 2010 Keely rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, sea-story, reviewed, american, supernatural-horror, lost-world

There is something in the reader in me that constantly drives to seek out the unusual and inexplicable. Authors who try to achieve this effect deliberately are always a bore, for the same reason that a man who wears a tophat as an affectation is always infinitely dull compared to the man who wears one unselfconsciously. Iconoclasm may owe its birth to the need for difference, but any iconoclast who fails to find a deeper inspiration is a rudderless rebel.

Difference is not, in itself, interesting...more

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Dec 14, 2012 Aramys rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Le tengo que dar las cinco estrellas a Poe, pese a la jugada del final. El libro es una pasada, todas las partes, salvo la central con el capitán Guy, son sublimes, con una acción trepidante y una sensación de peligro siempre flotando en el ambiente, que hacen que no puedas dejar de leer. De verdad que he disfrutado como un niño bajo una sabana y una linterna leyendo este libro, imprescindible.

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Mar 01, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Surprisingly, this is Poe's most compulsively readable work, and I would have given it five stars, except for the lack of an ending, moments of sheer unbelievability, and the occasional ultra-boring chapter describing various animals or islands. As far as the ending goes, apparently Jules Verne wrote a sequel, so I will be able to have closure on the story eventually. This may not be one of Poe's most artistic works, but I found it to be his most suspenseful story, ironically despite its being a...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Miquel Codony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

La mayor parte del libro es absolutamente brutal y perfecta, imposible mejorarla. El tramo final, a pesar de ser apasionante, tiene algunos problemas de ritmo (malditos infodumps) que se notan aún más después de la maravilla (el horror, según se mire) que lo precede, y por eso le escatimo una estrella. He leído quejas del final. A mi me gusta lo enigmático que resulta... por más que maldiga a Poe por no seguir explicando las aventuras de Arthur...

Este libro es una joya.

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May 04, 2011 Shannon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, journey, read-in-2011

I read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym for the first time when I was nine years old, after receiving a volume of the Complete Edgar Allen Poe as a gift. While I devoured the short stories and the poetry multiple times, this, Poe's only novel, was read by me once, and I'm not even able to remember if I finished it. I picked this up to read in preparation to read Mat Johnson's satire, Pym (excellent, 5 stars btw.) Man, did I ever hate this. It was so excruciating to read, whether by design (to...more I read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym for the first time when I was nine years old, after receiving a volume of the Complete Edgar Allen Poe as a gift. While I devoured the short stories and the poetry multiple times, this, Poe's only novel, was read by me once, and I'm not even able to remember if I finished it. I picked this up to read in preparation to read Mat Johnson's satire, Pym (excellent, 5 stars btw.) Man, did I ever hate this. It was so excruciating to read, whether by design (to demonstrate the dual-authorship as described in the preface gimick) or just because Poe didn't "get" the concept of a novel, I couldn't really tell.

The thing that frustrated me most, was the long boring descriptions and tangents that read more like encyclopedia articles. As if Poe, perhaps unable to break out of his short-story-mentality, was creating "filler" to draw out his work into the length suitable for a novel. I think at one point he described storms or something (I really lost focus, it was so boring) for about 20 really long paragraphs, and in the next killed off 13 people in the course of four sentences. That's the exciting part that should have been expanded, Edgar! Maddening!

And Pym and Augustus -- what idiots they were! It was comical how stupid they were. That's actually what probably saved this from being a one-star review. I would read, get all infuriated with how preposterous they were and/or how Poe totally barely touched on the interesting stuff in favor of boring crap I could care less about, and it made me laugh. Like I said, I don't know if Poe wrote it this way on purpose, but I think I almost respect it more if he did. I drove my husband nuts telling him what crazy thing the idiotic characters did, or how deranged Poe must have been while writing certain sections.

Anyway, I'm glad I reread it so I'd have a better foundation before reading Johnson's Pym, but I'm unlikely to ever read it a third time. I've always been a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe, but his only novel (and thank God there was only this one!) was, for the most part, not a pleasant read.(less)

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Aug 05, 2010 Ben Loory rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a man is involved in a terrible boating accident and as a result conceives of a great desire to go to sea. this one of the strangest books i've ever read-- a nightmare in the form of an adventure novel, where life and death are consistently confused, everyone appears to be sleep-walking, and the author seems bored out of his feverish mind. it's got some great imagery and a fantastic ending... plenty of mystery... but no drama or tension. an aura of great meaning all the way through, though... yo...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Marts (Thinker) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: All who enjoy Poe's writing and love classic adventure

Shelves: classics, audio-books, edgar-allan-poe

Being a fan of Poe's tales, I decided to experience his only novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" written in 1838.
In classic Poe style of course it was quite interesting and enjoyable, on many an occasion I felt I was actually with Pym experiencing the adventures. The tale is about the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Pym experiences a series of adventures including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism. He is eventually rescued by the...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Jay Daze rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, audio-book, sea-lit, sf, horror, librivox

Mr. Poe is definitely messing with us on this one. It just gets odder and odder: cannibalism (don't pick the short splinter), racism (an evil black cook and the treacherous natives), and gotta have some being buried alive (twice if you include being trapped below decks). Some of the aping of explorers journals gets tired and a couple of the chapters are just non-fiction essay (which may be trickily mucked up by Poe, but I don't have the heart to check them). He may be using the forms of adventur...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Maria rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

O primeiro livro de Edgar Allan Poe que eu leio!
E para primeiro aqui está um que já ficou nos meus favoritos. Este livro é extremamente interessante, com um final surpreendente e nada, nada, esperado...completamente "surreal".

Este livro conta as aventuras de Gordon Pym, um jovem rapaz. O livro é contado por Pym, posteriormente à aventura que viveu no mar. Ou seja, a aventura começou no ano de 1827 e o relato é feito em 1838.

Neste relato, Pym conta como começou as suas aventuras. Fala da amiza...more O primeiro livro de Edgar Allan Poe que eu leio!
E para primeiro aqui está um que já ficou nos meus favoritos. Este livro é extremamente interessante, com um final surpreendente e nada, nada, esperado...completamente "surreal".

Este livro conta as aventuras de Gordon Pym, um jovem rapaz. O livro é contado por Pym, posteriormente à aventura que viveu no mar. Ou seja, a aventura começou no ano de 1827 e o relato é feito em 1838.

Neste relato, Pym conta como começou as suas aventuras. Fala da amizade entre ele e um rapaz dois anos mais velho, Augustus, filho de um capitão de baleeiro, que já tinha feito uma viagem com o pai, no barco, pelo Pacifico Sul. Pym depressa começa a acalentar a esperança de ir, um dia, para o mar e fazer uma grande e extraordinária viagem. Certo dia, Augustus informa-o de que vai com o pai (e a equipagem) para o mar e convida Pym. No entanto a família de Pym não o deixa ir.
Mas como o desejo de Pym era enorme, Augustus e ele decidem traçar um plano e Pym embarca no navio, escondido no porão, dentro de uma caixa com grades e um espaço para ele se deitar.
O plano é, depois de estarem em alto mar, fora da vista de terra, Augustus manda Pym sair do esconderijo e apresentar-se ao pai de Augustus e a toda a tripulação. Desta forma, fora do alcance da terra, todos têm de se conformar com Pym a bordo. E a família de Pym, estaria descansada, a pensar que ele estava na casa de um familiar (Augustus forjara uma carta desse parente).

Mas o tempo começa a passar e Augustus não desce ao porão...a água desaparece, a comida também. Pym fica doente e começa a pensar que o amigo o abandonou. Tempos depois, recebe a visita de Tigre, o seu cão de estimação (que Augustus tinha levado para o barco). Atado ao cão está um papel escrito a vermelho, que avisa Pym para algo de errado a bordo. E Pym continua no seu esconderijo...cada vez pior. Até ao dia em que Augustos finalmente aparece e lhe conta que o barco foi alvo de um motim.
Muitas outras aventuras acontecem e o relato prossegue, cheio de detalhes e aventuras. Pym, Augustus e Peters (um homem meio louco, ou não) decidem tomar o barco de novo. E conseguem, fazendo um refém, Richard Parker. No entanto, uma enorme tempestade abate-se sobre o barco e vêm-se à deriva, num barco desfeito. Assim ficam durante muitos e muitos dias...

Mas a viagem não termina. E muitas aventuras esperam por Pym no Polo Sul. Numa época em que o Polo Sul era um mistério, numa época em que a teria Hollow Earth fazia parte da realidade das pessoas, muitos eram os mistérios que acompanhavam a mente dos navegadores.
Até ao centro do Polo Sul, assim quer Arthur Gordon Pym.

E assim é este livro. Uma escrita muito descritiva, mas muito interessante e cheia de factos importantes e curiosidades que não faz mal nenhum saber, antes pelo contrário. Um livro com História real no seu conteúdo. Uma história extraordinária, cheia de aventuras e de acontecimentos misteriosos.

E com um final...simplesmente bem conseguido, para suspense total.
Recomendo a todos!

No blog:
http://oimaginariodoslivros.blogspot....(less)

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Jan 05, 2012 Kori Klinzing rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, ugh

I cannot believe that Jules Verne was inspired by this nonsense. I am very rarely tempted to put a book down before finishing this, but several times throughout the novel I just didn't know how I would go on. There were painful page-long descriptions on boats and sailing, which, as the main character wasn't really a professional sailor and seemed completely inept in the first bit of the story, seemed completely implausible, and only served to distract from the only good part of the novel: the ad...more

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Apr 03, 2008 Dfordoom rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror-gothic

Part sea story, part adventure story, part horror story. A young man who runs away to sea and gets more than he bargained for. Mutiny, shipwreck, cannibalism, and that’s just for starters. It’s really in some ways a tall tale – the indirect way Poe tells the story, in the form of a story told to him by Pym, draws attention to the fact that it is a story and that the reader has no way of knowing how true it is. As the tale progresses it gets weirder, as Pym finds himself exploring the Antarctic,...more

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Jun 16, 2008 Christy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, science-fiction-and-fantasy, readinglist2-sf, watery

This book is fun but flawed. It's far from a consistent work and feels somewhat fragmentary and exploratory at times, but any novel that includes mutiny, shipwreck, cannibalism, strange and threatening natives (especially ones with black teeth), fascinating creatures (from identifiable animals like sharks, polar bears, and penguins to unidentifiable ones like the white creature with red teeth that they come across late in the book), and a healthy dose of adventure, horror, and mystery is worth r...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Oscar rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: acción-aventuras, clásicos, misterio-suspense, infantil-juvenil, míos, terror

Edgar Allan Poe fue uno de mis padres literarios. Junto a Arthur Conan Doyle y H.P. Lovecraft, hizo que empezase a amar la letra impresa. Este libro de Poe no me ha gustado nada. Tal vez sea por la malísima traducción. Tengo una edición tan mala que no aparece ni el nombre del traductor. No exagero, hay frases que parecen trabalenguas. Lo he terminado por orgullo y como homenaje al 200 aniversario del nacimiento de este genio indiscutible.

La trama es sencilla, un joven, Arthur, que junto a su am...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2013, horror

As I was reading this book, I first thought I would give it two stars, then three, and finally four. It does not have the perfection of Poe's short stories, but it was a compelling read with moments of absolute brilliance. I was surprised by the humor in the book--leave it to Poe to make cannibalism funny and ironic. It is a gruesome book in parts, but it is also beautiful. The writing in the last chapter earned its 4th star. There is so much to say about this book,and it can be read on so many...more

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Jan 03, 2010 Rex Snyder rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Poe writes well & always has some interesting things in his stories. This one is too complex and not very direct. The ending is unusual and quite unique, but leaves one wondering if he had any original direction for it in the first place. In fact, the ending and the complexity leave me wondering if the whole story is just a rambling adventure with no end in sight. It is easy to see the influence this story had on H. P. Lovecraft's, At The Mountains of Madness. While this story is easy to rea...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe began with two drunken boys on a nearly fatal sailing adventure and progresses through increasingly disturbing adventures at sea, ultimately culminating in a voyage to the South Pole. Narrated as a memoir, the novel ends abruptly while riding in a boat on a current of ever-warming milky-white water, under drifting ashes, toward a huge white figure shrouded in mist, leaving the pole itself a mystery. Pym and the one other survivor...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Booknblues rated it 4 of 5 stars

Combine Robert Louis Stevenson with Jules Verne and you have Edgar Allen Poe’s classic adventure tale of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket . In some ways this sole novel of Edgar Allen Poe is an extraordinary shipboard adventure filled with pirates and mutineers and in others it is a glimpse into fantastical imagined worlds similar to ones we have seen in works of Jules Verne and it is no wonder as this work has influenced writers as Jules Verne and Herman Melville and more recentl...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Poe, Edgar Allan. THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. (1838). ****.
There’s no need to write a blurb on this tale from Poe. All I have to do is give the full title of the book as provided by the author: “THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET, Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827, with an account of the recapture of the vessel by the survivers; their shipwreck and subsequent...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Todd rated it 4 of 5 stars

This novella, the only book-length for Poe, is a satire on sensational literature of the mid-C19th. It is also a mix of a statements on what it means to try to survive outside of gender-normative heterosexual male whiteness of the time.

It has a few (in)famous scenes of horror. As the book progresses, the horror/harrow becomes so common that the senses dull somewhat (this being the point).

I like the contrast between (A) Pym remembering the story in the preface when he says the only other witness...more

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May 25, 2011 Meghan R. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, fiction-canonical, ebook, fiction-speculative

I picked this up so that I could read Pym: A Novel, but it's weirdly compelling in its own right. With the novel-plotting skill of a born short story writer, Poe plunges through a succession of genres and tones, from boys'-own-naval adventure story to survival horror to Jules Verne-like exploratory proto-SF, all wrapped in that crunchy shell of found-document author-uncertainty that was postmodern before there was postmodernism (or modernism, for that matter).

Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, our...more I picked this up so that I could read Pym: A Novel, but it's weirdly compelling in its own right. With the novel-plotting skill of a born short story writer, Poe plunges through a succession of genres and tones, from boys'-own-naval adventure story to survival horror to Jules Verne-like exploratory proto-SF, all wrapped in that crunchy shell of found-document author-uncertainty that was postmodern before there was postmodernism (or modernism, for that matter).

Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, our titular narrator, is so deficient in anything resembling a conventional character development arc that one is tempted to conclude that he must be a real person after all, albeit the victim of some kind of psychotic break prompted by deeply traumatic events. The most significant disjunction, to my mind, occurs when Pym is rescued from the shipwreck by the Jane Guy. It seems scarcely credible to me that, so far from expressing the slightest desire to return to his native Nantucket upon his recovery, he is the one to urge the captain to head for the Antarctic. The extensive interlude consisting almost entirely of latitude and longitude readings simultaneously describing the progress of the Guy and a history of various other excursions into the region that is here foisted upon the reader could be read as the perseveration of a trauma victim.

Then there is the episode on the island of Tsalal, which is a potent brew of psychedelic racism that would not be equaled until H. P. Lovecraft, whose At the Mountains of Madness homages Pym, even including the cries of "tekeli-li!" (In the interest of full disclosure, I got that information off Wikipedia and my closest experiences with Lovecraft involve wearing various Lovecraft-inspired perfume oils from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.)

Finally, there is the ending, or non-ending, of the book, which crashes to an abrupt halt with a handful of diagrams and a flurry of footnotes as figleaves for its nakedness. Having followed the action of the novel thus far, one might readily imagine that Poe had written himself into a corner and was more than ready to stop adding new incidents to the narrative, but first he teases a reference to Symmes's Hollow Earth which, if you are me, you may be familiar with from The White Darkness. I was definitely expecting this subject matter to make up more than approximately one sentence of the novel.

A bizarre, glorious and provocative failure. I feel like I can see why Mat Johnson felt the urge to write an entire book in response to it.(less)

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Jun 30, 2012 Andrew Finazzo rated it 2 of 5 stars

Poe himself summed up my thoughts about this novel when he said it is "a very silly book".

The prologue sets up the work as being written by two authors, Poe ghostwriting the first two parts and Pym himself finishing the rest. The work is split into a preface and 25 chapters.

* First 14 chapters:

This is a rousing narration following Pym as he stows away on a vessel which is taken by mutineers and eventually (with Pym's help) retaken. Poe gives a resounding description of terrible circumstances w...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Scott Hodukavich rated it 2 of 5 stars

Parts were quite entertaining. It is written as a narrative of someone from the 1800's remembering a long traumatic seafaring adventure. It sometimes goes into dry details which may be how someone from that time & place would have written it, but it doesn't always make for an interesting read.

The ending is interesting. I don't think it's a secret that the novel does not have a "conclusive" ending - I went into reading the novel knowing that much. But it's odd, since it is a narrative, you kn...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Juan rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Solo fans de Poe que quieren leer su obra completa. Tal vez lectores muy jovenes.

Poe es uno de mis autores favoritos, y dentro de mis favoritos el único que escribió textos que me gustan mucho y otros que me gustan muy poco o nada. “Las aventuras de Arthur Gordon Pym de Nantucket” –o como se le llame en español dependiendo de la editorial- es uno de los últimos.
Los primeros capítulos fueron publicados en serie dentro de una revista. La serie nunca se terminó y tiempo después apareció el texto “completo” como una novela. Sin embargo a mi me parece que Poe se sintió obligado a...more Poe es uno de mis autores favoritos, y dentro de mis favoritos el único que escribió textos que me gustan mucho y otros que me gustan muy poco o nada. “Las aventuras de Arthur Gordon Pym de Nantucket” –o como se le llame en español dependiendo de la editorial- es uno de los últimos.
Los primeros capítulos fueron publicados en serie dentro de una revista. La serie nunca se terminó y tiempo después apareció el texto “completo” como una novela. Sin embargo a mi me parece que Poe se sintió obligado a terminar la serie de cualquier manera y decidido esto la terminó de la peor manera posible, y sin mucho entusiasmo.
Ya de por si la serie iba mal. Da la impresión de que el autor escribía capítulos conforme la fecha de entrega se aproximaba pero sin tener nunca un plan general de cómo se desarrollaría la historia completa. Sin nombrar los absurdos que no dejan de aparecer a lo largo del texto, entre otros: el perro del protagonista –Arthur G. Pym- aparece sin razón lógica a bordo del barco en el que viaja solo para desaparecer en la nada unos capítulos después; el protagonista –como ocurre en otros escritos de Poe- parece no tener necesidades fisiológicas –durante su encierro, en los primeros capítulos, come poco, bebe casi nada y jamás necesita de un baño-; agobiados por el hambre el protagonista y sus compañeros marineros juegan al azar quien ha de morir para servir de alimento al resto solo para, tan pronto han terminado con él, ir por ahí a buscar comida que habían olvidado está en el barco –y de remordimiento nada, como si se hubieran comido unas golosinas y no a otro hombre-; en la segunda parte de su viaje Arthur y compañia encuentran islas de las que se desconocía su existencia, y en ellas hombres que nunca habían tenido contacto con la civilización ¡Pero que hablan inglés!; los viajeros luchan con y matan un oso polar mientras se acercan al polo sur; etc.
El final es uno de los puntos de mayor controversia con respecto a esta novela. En lo personal opino que simplemente no hay final. Pareciera como si un día Poe se hubiese dado cuenta del desastre que había creado y entendiendo que no había forma de arreglarlo hubiese terminado con él cortando todo de tajo. La verdad a mi no me molesta tanto el final, de hecho me gusta. Pero ¿murió Pym al final de la narración? ¿y entonces como la hizo años después? ¿o murió, como Poe se excusa, en el mismo momento que escribía aquello que quizá debía haberlo matado años antes?
Tal vez de haberlo leído en mi infancia este libro me hubiese gustado.
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Nov 17, 2008 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror-disguised-as-literature, steampunkery

A grand macabre 19th century adventure that inspired Melville and a league of sequels/tributes including:
H.P. Lovecraft-At the Mountains of Madness (which Charles Stross gave a sequel with “A Colder War”
Jules Verne- Sphinx on the Ice Field: an Antarctic Mystery (which I’m sad to report is pretty boring)
Howard Waldrop and Steve Utley-“Black as Pitch from Pole to Pole”
Rudy Rucker-Hollow Earth

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Sep 26, 2012 Tessa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: just-adventury

Low 3. If I didn't know this was written by Poe, I would never have guessed it. We don't get the creepiness vibe like we do in his short stories. We don't get the overflowing emotion like we do in his poetry. This felt like a generic 19th century novel, and along with that came the long digressions on subjects not terribly relevant to the plot. Really Poe, do you have to spend a chapter each discussing cargo stowage and albatross-penguin cohabitation? You are the master of terror and suspense, b...more

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May 10, 2012 Coral rated it 1 of 5 stars

There is a reason that Poe's poetry and short stories are his best-known works. This novel is rambling, digressive, and impossibly difficult to invest in. The scene in which Arthur is trapped in steerage for days showed promise, as it seemed that Poe planned to exploit some of the natural anxieties which people likely experienced aboard an early 19th century ship (claustrophobia, fear of starvation, etc.). Unfortunately, the atmosphere he creates disappears as a series of ridiculously unlikely e...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Diana DeCameron rated it 3 of 5 stars

As much as it pains me to admit this, I absolutely LOATHED Poe's novella: The Narrative of Author Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Just stringing the words "Poe" and "Loathed" together in the same sentence feels completely wrong to me. After all, I've always considered myself to be a lover of "all things Poe". As of this evening, however, I will now have to add an * that states (except The Narrative of Author Gordon Pym of Nantucket). How bad did it get? Well...I actually contemplated "abandoning ship"...more

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May 02, 2013 Sandi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So, since this is Poe, what I'm about to say shouldn't surprise you: this is a weird book. This was actually Poe's only book, and he later said that he thought most literature should be able to be read in one sitting in order to preserve its unity of effect. After reading this, I can see perhaps the origin of this philosophy--this book is all over the place.

For long chapters Pym is just sitting in the storage area of a boat, thinking that he's going to die...for pages! Events include losing his...more So, since this is Poe, what I'm about to say shouldn't surprise you: this is a weird book. This was actually Poe's only book, and he later said that he thought most literature should be able to be read in one sitting in order to preserve its unity of effect. After reading this, I can see perhaps the origin of this philosophy--this book is all over the place.

For long chapters Pym is just sitting in the storage area of a boat, thinking that he's going to die...for pages! Events include losing his candle, running out of water, thinking about eating his dog, passing out, shouting for help, losing his dog, finding his dog, and generally regretting his choice in sneaking on board.

After Arthur gets out of storage, it gets better. There's a mutiny on board so things get exciting for a bit as he has to help kill the mutineers, until there's a storm and everyone is dead except for him and a few others, and after another agonizing period of nothing happening but starvation, they resort to cannibalism. Other than initial disgust, Pym doesn't seem too affected by the whole thing, and doesn't reflect on it again, which could be denial, but it comes off as losing reality in a story that bills itself as "true".

They eventually get picked up by a ship, and head to the south pole, which, after passing an icy ridge, is actually tropical, and there are natives who try to kill them for pretty much no reason. This final section where Poe describes the strange creatures (huge polar bears!), and natural features (purple water!) is the most science-fictiony, and, I think, the best part of the whole thing. The end is a quickly told, mysterious cliffhanger, but I liked it. Poe's greatest asset in this narrative is his pacing, going from lengthy, slow passages, to excitement where not everything is fully revealed. But, this is also a big problem--his slow passages are at points too slow, reporting on the interior mental state of a character's who is actually not that interesting. Stick to the gigantic polar bears and purple water, Poe!(less)

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Mar 19, 2013 Jack Vinson rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up on recommendation from somewhere. It's a seafaring adventure - Edgar Allen Poe's only full length novel, apparently. The details about ship-board life are beyond anything I've ever read. It seems that Poe assumes the readers are quite familiar with the terminology, as he doesn't bother explaining much of what he says.

The story itself goes from gripping tragedy to gripping tragedy. And then it strangely ends as Pym is getting himself out of another tragedy and possibly into anoth...more

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About Edgar Allan Poe

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundr...more The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

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