Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Mar 03, 2011

Keely rated it:

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, i More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

John rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Richard rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Andrew rated it:

This would have recieved more Stars had the whole style of the book been more in the vein of Jules Vernes section of the book.
From what I understand this is the only 'novel' by Edgar Allen Poe though in respects of the version I have(an older copy not pictured)it would be more a Novella being 70 pages only.
The Poe story was largely dismissed by the author later on although has been attributed as being of interest to Herman Melville and undoubtably Jules Verne who provides the second More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Dfordoom rated it:

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 Antarct More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Christy rated it:

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 More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Marts (Thinker) rated it:

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 rescu More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Jay rated it:

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 adven More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Rex rated it:

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 re More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 30, 2011

Tony rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2011

Todd rated it:

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 sa More...

1 comment like

May 25, 2011

Meghan rated it:

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 Na More...

0 comments like

Nov 18, 2011

Juan rated it:

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 obli More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

Adam rated it:

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

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 04, 2011

Shannon rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

MB rated it:

On the bus ride home today I finished reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). I chose to read this primarily because two authors I enjoy, Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft, wrote sequels. It’s not a bad book. It starts pretty slow, but the story becomes quite interesting. However from my contemporary view point, the style of the writing goes to great lengths to hide this. (According the Wikipedia article of the work it is “One of Poe's least accessible work More...

0 comments like

Jan 29, 2012

Raelene rated it:

Overlooking a few serious plot flaws, and Poe's excessive use of "the most" (e.g. "the most oppressive horror," "the most appalling sense of doom," etc), and the utterly ambiguous and completely unsatisfyingly abrupt ending - this is a fantastic novel of adventure on the high seas. With it, I've been reminded that I love novels about adventure on the high seas and Poe's is full of the most intriguing, appalling, exciting, and awful events. (yes, I use "the mos More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

Judith rated it:

Flawed in several ways. Poe was wise to stick with poetry and short stories as his only novel is truly not up to his usual standards.

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Leonard rated it:

Poe's longest sustained narrative, and it's a very very weird one -- a strange blend of Melville and Lovecraft.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2011

Ljubomir rated it:

Edgar Allan Poe's only novel is perhaps also his only work, which I don't find particularly fascinating. It is good, yes, but not on a par with his other writings, no matter what Borges, whose opinions I usually like, says. Perhaps it's due to Poe not being used to writing longer narratives, but at times the novel felt too succinct, at times too lavish in unnecessary details which have nothing to with the story. Unlike other novels which compensate its lack of dialogues with psychological and ph More...

0 comments like

Dec 14, 2011

Jörg rated it:

As a big fan of Poe I really was curious what this book was like because I had read a lot about it. Now having read it I have to say that I'm somehow indecisive on what to make of this book. While there are some great scenes in it, like for example the whole shipwreck and cannibalism plot at the same time it always feels like a collection of short stories which were linked together. It almost seems as if the first part was in no way connected to the second part of the book. Also the characters a More...

0 comments like

Feb 01, 2012

Shai-Hulud rated it:

Este é um livro que me impressionou bastante e que tenho dificuldade em classificá-lo em algum gênero literário. Isso é tanto mais verdade, quando parece haver duas histórias em uma mesma obra.

Até um certo ponto, a história pode ser tida como de horror ou suspense. E que cenas Poe consegue narrar! É uma pena que não dá para colocar nenhuma aqui, para não estragar a experiência de quem ainda não leu.

Após esse momento, contudo, a história se desvia para um tipo de ficção ci More...

0 comments like

Sep 07, 2011

Артём rated it:

Read this inspired by Amy H. Sturgis' "History of the Genre" segment on StarShipSofa.

My impression was that it starts off like Tom Sawyer sort of story, then mutates into a Treasure Island and continues through Robinson Crusoe into almost The Teachings of Don Juan sort of stuff, while remaining all special and original and all. If it wasn't for strangeness of the last chapters I wouldn't give it four stars, but I was fascinated by Poe's boldness and disregard for his own Rul More...

0 comments like

Oct 01, 2011

Ellen rated it:

This might be the worst novel by a legendary author ever published. Seriously, it's terrible. There is no continuity throughout the novel. Characters appear and disappear at will. It switches between first person narrative and diary style travelogue a couple times, with no explanation. However, the concept of whiteness and blackness, as well as the overtly racist overtones throughout this novel are fascinating and don't really come out in any of Poe's short stories. Totally worth the read, More...

0 comments like

Jan 05, 2012

Kori rated it:

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...

0 comments like

Oct 31, 2011

Ury949 rated it:

I didn't expect this story to be so good. It's EAP's longest tale at over 100 pages and there's not much dialogue - when I glanced it over it was mostly thick paragraphs. But as I was reading it (and I can't even remember the last time this has happened to me it's so rare) I could not put it down. I finished it in two nights which is amazing super speed for me.

The story is an adventure at sea and the amazingly drastic perils that Mr. Pym overcomes - with such descriptions of physical and me More...

0 comments like

Nov 09, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

What the %$&#?? That is how I felt about The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. This book made no sense. Okay, sure, sometimes it was exciting and harrowing with all the mutiny and starvation and cannibalism. But a lot of his physical descriptions were downright confusing. Like the set-up of Pym's hiding place on the Grampus. I didn't get that for a minute. I literally did not understand it. Was he in a crate? The language in this novel is very unclear.

And later there was his d More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

Krystl rated it:

Audio book review from 2007:

By sort of read, I mean listened to on the drive to Phoenix. Someone else in the car got it at a truck stop, so I didn't pick it, but didn't have a problem listening to it with everyone else. :)

So, it was:

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which was the only novel length piece Edgar Allen Poe wrote. It was actually published a chapter at a time in a newspaper or something like that, so maybe the people reading it didn't realize how repet More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

Ben rated it:

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...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Mark rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

reviews