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Pym

3.54 of 5 stars 3.54 · rating details · 1,117 ratings · 257 reviews

A comic journey into the ultimate land of whiteness by an unlikely band of African American adventurers

Recently canned professor of American literature Chris Jaynes is obsessed with The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Edgar Allan Poe’s strange and only novel. When he discovers the manuscript of a crude slave narrative that seems to confirm the reality of Poe...more

Hardcover, 322 pages

Published March 1st 2011 by Spiegel & Grau (first published February 14th 2011)

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Lists with This Book

2011's Best African American Literature

2nd out of 40 books — 75 voters

At the Mountains of Madness And Other Tales of Terror by H.P. Lovecraft

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket & Related Tales by Edgar Allan Poe

Stories set in Antarctica

15th out of 35 books — 28 voters

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Community Reviews

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Jun 28, 2012 Maureen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

oh god. i am almost ready to give up satire and humour entirely. i adore a good quip. i love a wag, i cheer a wit (and mat johnson fits these categories) but i don't seem to have the patience for the sustained point behind it all these days. happily, there was a lot of other filling in this little debbie cake novel which has a lot going for it in terms of voice, intertextuality, intelligence, and invention: chris jaynes, an african-american professor who wants to teach poe instead of pursuing th...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Jason added it

Shelves: read-2011, read-2012

Pym is the tale of white and black and no end to the shades of grey that such binaries necessarily imply. It doesn't waste any time in telling us so either. Chris Jaynes, the novel's protagonist is a professor of black literature who isn't concerned with teaching only that anymore, and is trying to get around to understanding the conception of whiteness, specifically through the work of Edgar Allan Poe. This, however, doesn't sit well with the president of the small, white, Midwestern college wh...more Pym is the tale of white and black and no end to the shades of grey that such binaries necessarily imply. It doesn't waste any time in telling us so either. Chris Jaynes, the novel's protagonist is a professor of black literature who isn't concerned with teaching only that anymore, and is trying to get around to understanding the conception of whiteness, specifically through the work of Edgar Allan Poe. This, however, doesn't sit well with the president of the small, white, Midwestern college who wants someone to sit on the diversity committee, and so Jaynes is fired for not being black enough; especially of note because he is a very pale black man, an octoroon who "passes" as white a number of times in the novel. Then our adventure begins as he raises an all-black crew to head to Antarctica to investigate what he believes to be the "true" story being Poe's only novel, a disaster of writing he is obsessed with, where they run into a race of giant albino man-creatures who promptly enslave the black crew.

While the novel leans heavily on the swashbuckling adventure narrative and makes ample use of romantic pursuit within the novel, it is a story about negotiating not only the white-black divide, but also the means to which we explore it. The preface begins with a note from C. Jaynes, who on arriving back has told the tale to Mr. Johnson, who has framed it as fiction. Further complicated is that Mr. Johnson, the writer, is in fact a very pale black man who also could "pass" as white. Further complicating the situation is that Jayne is replaced by another, different Mr. Johnson: Mosaic Johnson. The crew is of varying shades of blackness, especially the protagonist and when they meet the white creatures, though paler than anything else, they are, in fact, a shade of grey. The academic arguments put forward in the book further serve as not only critical commentary, but also as humor, both of the guffaw sort and of the kind serving satire. I haven't even gotten to the Thomas Kinkaid stand-in, to say the least. Nor have I illustrated the many ways in which the novel apes the structure of Poe's, how it glorifies and ironizes it, and how it both glorifies and makes ironic its own undertaking.

But let's get back to the fun of this, of the thrill of adventure, the pursuit of love, the bonds of friendship and how funny it is, how fun. It is a fun novel, full of swoops and thrills and chases and battles, and the fact that it carries within it a very clever, very indecisive examination of race; well, that's just icing.(less)

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Jun 11, 2012 Maxine McLister rated it 4 of 5 stars

Chris Jaynes is the only black professor (he considers himself the token black) at a predominantly white liberal arts college where he has been hired to teach Black Studies. But he has a fascination with Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which Jaynes believes exemplifies the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness". Since he is untenured, and since his class size has dwindled due to his refusal to teach anything other than Pym, he soon finds himself out of a job...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

What a strange book. I wasn't sure what to make of Pym when I finished it earlier today, but after thinking it over for a while, I'm pretty sure I like it. I read it for a book club at work, and let's just say it was NOT a popular choice. The general consensus was that Pym was offensive and ridiculous, the protagonist was angry, and the characters were obnoxious. At the beginning of the meeting I was inclined to agree with many of the criticisms, but as the discussion went on, I found myself def...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Mike Ingram rated it 1 of 5 stars

Well, it appears I have to be the contrarian on this one. My Goodreads friends--and the world at large--seem to have nothing but praise for Pym. And I was primed to love it, too. A biting, satirical treatment of whiteness as a social construction? Edgar Allen Poe meets "Fear of a Black Planet"? I'm totally on board with that project.

Unfortunately, I found the satire rather shallow, and the book's characters were mostly one-dimensional caricatures. I realize that's sometimes how satire works, but...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Jaclyn Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://wineandabook.com/2011/09/01/re...

First person narration can be tricky, but Mat Johnson has a sense of voice that rivals Junot Diaz. So clear, so compelling. As I read, I wanted to follow Johnson's main character, Chris Jaynes, anywhere he went. Until he decided to leave the States (and reality) far, far behind...

The premise of this book is really quite genius: the self-described token black professor at a small, predominately white liberal arts college finds himself without tenure after f...more http://wineandabook.com/2011/09/01/re...

First person narration can be tricky, but Mat Johnson has a sense of voice that rivals Junot Diaz. So clear, so compelling. As I read, I wanted to follow Johnson's main character, Chris Jaynes, anywhere he went. Until he decided to leave the States (and reality) far, far behind...

The premise of this book is really quite genius: the self-described token black professor at a small, predominately white liberal arts college finds himself without tenure after favoring teaching Edgar Allen Poe to authors of color. The object of Jaynes' fascination is Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Johnson does an amazing job of allowing us into Jaynes' psyche as deconstructs Poe's novel, which he sees as part of the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness." In this part of the book, Johnson soars and Jaynes takes us through Poe's work and explains its literary and institutional significance. Strong voice, compelling argument and raw social commentary. Near perfect. Up until this point in the narrative, I was in love with this book.

Then we go to Antarctica. Through a turn of events (which I won't cheat you out of discovering on your own), Jaynes is lead to believe that the events outlined in Poe's novel may not be so fictitious after all. Given the opportunity to, in part, retrace Pym's journey and go to Antarctica, he accepts in hopes of finding the island of Tsalal, an island of pure blackness (which Poe described with much terror) which Jaynes imagines to be the "last untouched bastion of the African diaspora." Unfortunately, once the ship docks, Johnson loses me a bit.

My problem is not with the journey; my problem is not even with the sequence of events that border on science-fiction/disaster porn. My problem is with the way the characters react (or don't) to these events. Typically, when an author decides to dive into the realm of science fiction or adventure, as Johnson absolutely does in the last half of his book, either:
the story takes place in a world where a specific set of magical/heightened/supernatural/etc rules and conditions are consistent and we, as readers accept them as the reality of the story OR
the story takes place in reality as we know it and something unusual/strange/supernatural/world-shattering happens, and the characters react accordingly.
A beautiful example of this is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: when the house starts shifting and changing, people freak out, then adapt, then re-approach their new reality. In Johnsons' story, when reality as Jaynes' knows it is turned on its head, the characters just seem to keep moving through the plot without much reflection, except in terms of potential profit. In addition, some pretty major occurrences are mentioned and then never reacted to thoroughly or revisited...which I think, in the end, is not a problem of story as much as a issue with characterization.

Jaynes is a wonderful character. Consistent. Complex. Evolving. But he was the only one flushed out and developed to that extent. The rest of the cast of characters seemed to be more like different sized shadows of people rather than fully realized individuals, with only 2-3 defining characteristics, as opposed to the dynamic, compelling personality given to Jaynes. When they stand side by side as the same bizarre events unfold, it's hard to completely give yourself to the world Johnson creates given their reactions (or lack thereof).

But back to Johnson's genius: he crafts the story utilizing the same structure as Poe's Narrative. As I read, I kept noticing how Johnson took some of the most salient story elements from Poe's piece and reappropriated them for Jaynes' journey (if you're curious as to which story elements he chose, message me, as I don't want to give away any major plot points here!). Super clever, and done in such a subtle way that it's in no way gimmicky or forced.

Rubric rating: 7. I would love to read more by Johnson...as long as it's set north of Antarctica.(less)

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Apr 21, 2013 Kirsten Nelson rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't know if anyone else who read both of these books is getting the vibe that The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier and Pym by Mat Johnson kind of play off each other (and I'm only halfway through the book while writing this comment, but whatever), but SO MUCH of the imagery in the books are similar: in the arctic, drilling for glacial water for a cola company, images of heaven or something like that to go along with a post-apocalyptic world? I can't not think about Brockmeier's...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: may-june-2011

In this “relentlessly entertaining novel” (New York Times Book Review), Johnson skewers contemporary culture, deftly balancing social satire with an old-fashioned (if wacky) adventure tale that simultaneously lampoons the 19th-century racial assumptions encapsulated in Poe’s original Narrative. As a result, some passages can read more like literary criticism than fiction, but Johnson’s wit and insight keep the story—his own unique slave narrative—moving forward. While the Boston Globe complained...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Booknblues rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a long strange trip it is.....Chris Jaynes an African American who happens to be a professor of literature is fired at the beginning of Pym, reminding me of a book I’d recently read The Lecturer’s Tale by James Hynes which started in much the same way. Jaynes has a fascination with Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and a copy of Dirk Peter’s diary a supposedly fictional character of the novel . Jaynes decides that he should follow in Peter’s footsteps to Anta...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Maurice Carlos Ruffin rated it 4 of 5 stars

America is afraid to engage with it's great original sin. No surprise. Slavery tarnished the ideals of freedom and rugged individuality enshrined in our Constitution. During the time of slavery, we ignored the irony inherent in this set up. Today, we generally acknowledge the horror of that period in our history, but we're style afraid to engage with the idea of race and our slaveholding past's affect on our present. You want to unsettle people at a dinner party? Mention the Dred Scot revolt. Yo...more

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Jun 20, 2011 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was attracted to this peculiar novel by a plot summary on NPR of all places. I was impressed that a book described on NPR sounded genuinely impudent, and not merely quirky or irreverent. So I decided to stop reading law books long enough to check out a new novel by an author I'd never heard of. Very unlike me.

The author, like his novel's protagonist, is a light-skinned black man. The protagonist is a professor of African-Amerian literature at some small liberal arts college who gets canned for...more

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May 21, 2011 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book, just not as much as I thought I would.... like Johnson, I come from that ridiculous place of teaching at the U, writing and trying to make something of the legacy of these monolithic, and monolithically weird books, like Poe's _Narrative_. Somehow, I wanted this book to make sense out of that experience, and in the process to turn out to be something every bit as warped and unforgettable. I know, it's a tall order, but I can't help but feel like it's been done.

This is not that...more I liked this book, just not as much as I thought I would.... like Johnson, I come from that ridiculous place of teaching at the U, writing and trying to make something of the legacy of these monolithic, and monolithically weird books, like Poe's _Narrative_. Somehow, I wanted this book to make sense out of that experience, and in the process to turn out to be something every bit as warped and unforgettable. I know, it's a tall order, but I can't help but feel like it's been done.

This is not that book, anyhow. Instead, Johnson smooths down the edges of weirdness in his own book, even though he refers often to the strangeness of Poe's book. This is, to a degree that left me a little bored and disappointed, a mostly straight ahead adventure story, with a mostly brisk plot, the kind of thing that really would adapt well, and easily, into some sort of Michael Bay movie. You can say what you want about Poe, but even the Vincent Price "adaptations" are more memorable than Transformers! I mean it, this feels like it just doesn't do enough with the source material, and by itself, it's not interesting enough-- in part, maybe, because adventure novels scratch a little that vicarious itch to go someplace like King Solomon's Mines or whatever, ostensibly real places even if the events there are overly dramatic. But this book is set, for the most part, on a fantastic landscape, so we don't even quite get that.

The race stuff, which I thought was really brilliant in the first couple chapters, is mostly just window dressing here and doesn't play an especially large role in the actual book-- again, that seems silly to say, but unless you think the whiteness of Moby Dick is the most striking thing about that book, you'll likely feel the way I do here. It's funny, sharp and insightful, and ultimately beside the point. And the presence of women here is laughable bordering on insulting.

So why four stars? It's a good read. It's solidly constructed, and imaginative, and it's often interesting. The characters are flawed, and from their flaws revealing truths are born. There is a lot to like here, and I hate to hate on a book for not being the book I thought it was or wanted it to be-- taken on its own terms, this is a really satisfying read. It's just not on a par with the work(s) it takes as its inspiration and somehow wants to work through.(less)

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May 14, 2011 Ksab rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a great ride!! Excellent story- a masterpiece on many levels first being that the footnote commentary is hilarious. As a lover of African-American,American ( same as African-am) history, literature,historical fiction (???!!!) adventure and travel to unknown parts-I was truly engrossed , entertained and - shall I say- mentally challenged(oops=sorry)- I meant mentally stimulated by Pym-a Novel. I read Johnson's Hunting in Harlem several years ago and went looking for Incognegro at my library...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: scrappy intellectual fans of the absurd

Shelves: 2011

I tend to shy away from satires as they disorient me and I tend to feel like I don't get it. When this book arrived at the library for me, I couldn't remember where or when I had decided to take it on. It doesn't matter because it ended up being a fun read- even if I didn't appreciate the exact satire-ness it probably deserves.

The blackcentric liberal arts professor who loses his chance at tenure because he won't join the diversity committee sets the stage. He is obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe an...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Johnson, Mat. PYM. (2011). ***. This novel starts off as a marvelous satirical take-off on Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.” What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Chris Jaynes is a recently fired professor of American Literature at a small college. Ostensibly, the reason is that he wouldn’t join the Committee of Deversity. This was especially damning since he was the only black professor on campus. He takes this in stride and continues his study of the origins of blac...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Arinn Dembo rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: weird-fiction

I had great fun with this novel, for a variety of reasons. For one, I was already a fan of Johnson's work--Incognegro was one of the best graphic novels of 2008 and I still recommend it friends who are willing to read anything other than long underwear comics, for example, and I've been spending a lot of time lately tracking down his other writing, both in and out of print.

I'm also a fan of Poe, however, and of his spiritual and literary descendants in the Weird Tales generation, in particular H...more

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May 05, 2011 Amy (SpedBug) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-book

Chris Jaynes, the only black professor at a mediocre college, is obsessed with "how the pathology of Whiteness was constructed". Hired to teach African-American literature, he is fired because he's more interested in teaching Poe and ultimately when he won't join the Diversity Committee. His job is lost and his book collection is in ruins when a manuscript that appears to be written by Dirk Peters (the 'half-breed' character from Poe's only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym o...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Travis rated it 4 of 5 stars

With Pym, Mat Johnson's task isn't unlike Henry Fielding's in Shamela--to ridicule the misnomers underpinning those seminal works like Richardson's Pamela or, in Johnson's case, Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym . So, in that way, Johnson is tapping into something almost as old as the genre of the novel. Satire can be hit and miss with audiences, though, and being asked to go along with the ridicule might be a bit too polarizing for some (get it? poles? Antarctica...no?). Regardless, Pym real...more

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Oct 19, 2012 William Thomas rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: dreck, dont-believe-the-hype

I wonder who told Mat Johnson that he'd make a good writer. Maybe they said 'great' instead of good. I don't know. Whoever this person/people were, they lied to his face. Or through email. Or text messages. Whatever medium, they were lying in it. Because this is easily the worst book I've read in 10 years.

Yes, even counting those times I tried to read paranormal romance novels. This is worse. Because those writer of paranormal romance created their books without the pretense or the hope that th...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Babydoll rated it 5 of 5 stars

I must admit, hesitantly, that I was not keen on reading this book when I initially heard about it. When I read the description of the book, I thought it sounded a bit boring. It was not until I took a Saturday afternoon to spend in the bookstore, that I actually sat down and gave this novel a chance. What initially was supposed to be just the first few pages read, turned to be the devouring of the first four chapters. I was obviously proved wrong. This is the perfect example of how one must not...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-novels

I bought this book because it got such rave reviews on Salon and Fresh Air. The concept was great and the passages quoted were hilarious. I love academic satires and fiction about fiction and Poe (and Lovecraft) and critical theory about race ... So I was set to LOVE this book, and for the first 150 pages I did love it. I was snickering and giggling and tipping with laughter at the dry humor and footnotes and gentle mockery of academic language.

Then something happened. I don't know what exactly....more

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Aug 03, 2011 Keith Michael rated it 2 of 5 stars

Jaynes and his morbidly obese, snack cake-gobbling buddy Garth assemble a crew of eccentrics to search for the truth about Dirk Peters, Edgar Allen Poe and humankind’s fascination with whiteness in the unforgiving terrain of Antarctica. A relentless social satirist, Johnson playfully flays the academic community, the American way of life, and human nature in a story with all of the adventuresome vitality of Voltaire’s classic Candide.

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Apr 12, 2011 Nancy Oakes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite, fiction

There are just some books that have the power to take you out of the real world for a while so that all there is is the story in front of you, and Pym is one of those. This book fits the bill of that old phrase "a rollicking good yarn," while simultaneously offering its readers the author's ruminations on the issue of race. Trying to pigeonhole this metafictional novel is not a simple task: it's got it all -- alternative history, fantasy, adventure, satire, and above all, comedy. I think there w...more There are just some books that have the power to take you out of the real world for a while so that all there is is the story in front of you, and Pym is one of those. This book fits the bill of that old phrase "a rollicking good yarn," while simultaneously offering its readers the author's ruminations on the issue of race. Trying to pigeonhole this metafictional novel is not a simple task: it's got it all -- alternative history, fantasy, adventure, satire, and above all, comedy. I think there were only a few moments when I didn't laugh while reading this book.

The story begins when Christopher Jaynes fails to gain tenure at the university where he's teaching. Jaynes is the only black male professor on campus, and was hired to teach African American Literature. But he would rather teach American lit., and because he believed that early American literature (including his favorite, Edgar Allan Poe) held the "intellectual source of racial Whiteness," and "the twisted mythic underpinnings of modern racial thought." He offered a course called "Dancing With the Darkies: Whiteness in the Literary Mind" to explore his ideas. He believes his work is helping to discover why America has not yet become a postracial society, and also that his work is helping to find a cure. As he explains to the bow-tied university president, "If we can identify how the pathology of Whiteness was constructed, then we can learn how to dismantle it." And Jaynes believed that Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (and some of his other works, but he is somewhat obsessed with Poe's Pym) was a key source in understanding the source of the assumptions of Whiteness. But these classes were poorly attended, one of the reasons given to him for denial of tenure, as well as the unspoken reason that Jaynes refused to sit on the school's diversity committee.

Jaynes also collects antiquarian texts, and one day shortly after leaving the university, finds an item in a catalog for a "Negro Servant's Memoir," from 1837. As it turns out, it's not really a slave narrative, but rather a major find: an African American work written before the Civil War. As he begins reading, to his very great surprise, he finds that what he has is nothing less than the autobiography of Dirk Peters, the "half-breed" companion of Arthur Gordon Pym from Poe's novel. Jaynes has an OMG moment where it comes to him that Pym's narrative may not have been fiction after all, and the proof is in his hands. So if The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is true, then Jaynes realizes that

" ...Tsalal, the great undiscovered African Diasporan homeland, might still be out there, uncorrupted by Whiteness. That there was a group of our people who did achieve victory over slavery in all its forms, escaping completely from the progression of Westernization and colonization to form a society outside of time and history. And that I might find them."

Jaynes decides to go to Antarctica, using his cousin Booker and a crew completely composed of African Americans to get him there. And this is where the story really takes off, so I won't add any more of the plot to avoid spoiling it for anyone who might be interested.

Pym is one of the best novels I've read this year. The author's writing comes off naturally so there's no contrived feeling in his prose. His characterizations are what make this book -- you will instantly recognize various character types as you read, making it all the more real. Jaynes' best friend Garth is enamored of paintings done by an artist named Thomas Karvel (think Kinkade), and loves Little Debbie Snack Cakes, which he packs by the caseload for the stay in Antarctica. His cousin Booker is a civil rights activist, and constantly spouts off about white people and the system when it suits him. There's also a gay videographer who runs a video website, along with his partner; even in the worst of spots the camera is rolling. Another character is an entertainment lawyer, who often stops the Antarctic action in debates about what they'll find and who will have the rights to it. And along the way, the author provides his insights and commentary on other works that followed The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, for example, Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness and a sequel to Poe's work by Jules Verne, besides delving into Poe's novel itself.

The action gets a little odd toward the end, but overall, if you're up for a great read, Pym is it. It satisfied my reading thirst for quirkiness, for comedy and satire and for a good story. Keep in mind though that it veers toward the fantastical, so if you can't suspend your disbelief, this isn't the book for you. You don't have to read Poe's original work to get it, as the author does a great job of presenting the story in his novel, but on a personal level, I'd suggest doing so. I got a lot more out of Johnson's novel having read Poe's first -- the style is purposefully similar to the original and there are little nuances from Poe that Johnson also captures in his book without explanation to the reader. It's definitely not a mainstream read -- and even though it's part fantasy, it's also an excellent commentary on race and human nature all wrapped up in one of the funniest stories I've ever read. While you're laughing, you're also learning. (less)

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Dec 27, 2012 Scott Hodukavich rated it 4 of 5 stars

I would categorize it as literary fiction in that the main character is a professor who analyzes the work of Edgar Allen Poe, a fantasy/sci-fi work (true science fiction in that it used scientific or technological explanations like Jules Verne), African-American fiction; it's a comedy; it has elements of a love story (unrequited); it has apocalyptic overtones; it examines American society; the relations between blacks & whites in America; slavery; the morality of genocide if that's what's ne...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

A dizzy rewrite of Poe and a heckuva fun read.

It's at first a sharp-eyed satire on literature and on race. Narrated by an African-American professor, recently fired, who is obsessed with Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. He comes to find (shades of Coetzee's rewrite of Crusoe, Foe) a real-life predicate to Poe's whacked-out Antarctic phantasm (with all its antebellum racial sicknesses), and ends up in Antarctica. . . where things (or Things) emerge.

The novel's earlier approach to satire is s...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Grace Fiandaca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Chris Jaynes, an unemployed African-American literature professor, is in search of an island of dark-skinned people, uncorrupted by white culture. He read about this island, Tsalal, in an obscure work by Edgar Allen Poe, and is convinced it really exists. He gathers a small group of African-Americans to trek to Antarctica--each in search of their own particular flavor of American Dream.

This novel was both hilarious and thought-provoking. The author examines attitudes toward--including how we co...more

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Dec 10, 2011 Dree rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads, sf-fantasy-speculative

And to think I almost didn't read this.

A fabulous and funny (and serious) read about a fired black English professor who, because of a manuscript he finds, mounts an all-black crew to travel to Antartica to look for the places mentioned in Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Yes, it sounds crazy, and what they find sends the story off in the realm of speculative fiction. And I can't tell you why, because that would spoil it.

But the characters!

Chris Jaynes, English...more

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May 18, 2013 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2016-challenge

Pym is a challenging, fascinating mediation on race, specifically on whiteness vs. blackness. Johnson's novel has stories within stories and probably several layers of meaning that I would need a second read to tease out. His use of form and tone reminded me a great deal of Percival Everett. If you haven't read Everett's Erasure, stop what you are doing and go get a copy right now! Anyway, Pym is the story of a black college professor named Chris Jaynes who gets fired from his small, liberal art...more Pym is a challenging, fascinating mediation on race, specifically on whiteness vs. blackness. Johnson's novel has stories within stories and probably several layers of meaning that I would need a second read to tease out. His use of form and tone reminded me a great deal of Percival Everett. If you haven't read Everett's Erasure, stop what you are doing and go get a copy right now! Anyway, Pym is the story of a black college professor named Chris Jaynes who gets fired from his small, liberal arts college because he wants to research and write about Edgar Allen Poe rather than more sexy literary topics such as the influence of hip hop on the postmodern novel. Arthur Gordon Pym is the main character of Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)—based on the eponymous person who really did have some of the adventures described in the book. That novel is really bizarre; it's a sort of realistic, journal-based account of the adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym at sea. Johnson describes Poe's novel at length because it ends up leading the protagonist on a quest. Long-novel short, Poe's story ends with Pym and his half-black sidekick, Dirk Peters, in Antarctica, being approached by a towering figure, all in white, shrouded in a large robe. End novel with no explanation. After Jaynes gets fired and has a hilarious fist fight in a bar with his replacement, Mosaic Johnson, who will, in fact, be teaching a class on using hip hop as a critical lens to study modern literature, he decides that he is going to travel to the South Pole and Antarctica to uncover what really happened to Dirk Peters. In the novel, Poe claims that Peters died, but, historically, Peters survived his voyage with Arthur Gordon Pym and actually met Poe. To cut to the really interesting part, Jaynes does end up in Antarctica, and he discovers a race of, as he describes them in a moment of pique, "prehistoric snow honkies." They are known as Tekelians, and they want to enslave Jaynes and the rest of his all-black crew! You'll have to read the book to find out what happens.(less)

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Apr 05, 2013 Hannah Biggs rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this for my graduate African-American Literature course, and it was one of my favorite books from the reading list. Not only is it highly entertaining and witty and written by a local Houstonian (a prof of creative writing at University of Houston), but it's actually an incredible piece of intellectual fiction as well. Between its dabbles in 19th-century Americanist studies (Poe) and critical race theory and AA Lit, this book does it all. Definitely worth your time to read. You'll be push...more

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Sep 26, 2011 John Pappas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Falling somewhere between the witty insouciance of Percival Everett and the cool intellectualism of Colson Whitehead's quasi-allegories, Mat Johnson's satirical and metafictional novel Pym takes on American literature, American culture, identity and the construction of "whiteness" and "blackness." Johnson's protagonist, Chris Jaynes, is an American literature professor who is obsessed with white American authors, namely Edgar Allan Poe. Because he doesn't fit the university's idea of diversity,...more

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Other African-American lit?	6	15	Jan 11, 2013 09:05am

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Quotes from Pym

“It is a great moment in every freak's life when he or she finds out that at least they are not the only one.” — 6 people liked it

“There are two types of lazy bosses. One is so lazy that they make you do not only your own work but theirs too. Worse, they lie to you about it, unloading all responsibility for their actions. The other is so lazy that not only do they not do their own work but they can't even be bothered to provide you work to do. These bosses lie as well, but only to themselves, passively. The first is the hardest boss to work for, the second the easiest.” — 4 people liked it

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avg rating	preview: Pym Goodreads rating: 3.54 (1117 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8501708-pym?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320435734l/8501708.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8501708-pym?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Pym by Mat Johnson[/url]

Pym

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