Discussion: Pym

[Bessie]

@Rashida - One thing that had popped to my mind was whether the Tekelians see any great similarity between themselves and the humans. In the same way that white slaveholders justified slavery by identifying their slaves as chattel, I wonder if the Tekelians had a similar view such that it's not a matter of race per se but one of seeing the humans as mere, disposable tools for labor. Poe's descriptions of the Tsalalians echoes that sense of the "savages" as being not quite the same species as his "human crew". Who knows to what extent the Tekelians are capable of analysis in terms of justifying their actions toward Jaynes et al., but the Tekelians do seem to have some degree of socialization - language, their placement of sausage-nose in an elevated social position implies a sense of hierarchy, etc. The Tekelians seeing their human slaves as not belonging to their same species would fit one of the slavery cliches, that of the mindset that slaves are not of the same species as their owners.

@Jo, I agree with the moral scale of wrongness and about how Poe and Johnson are both great storytellers who are definitely having fun with their two tales. Oh and I cracked up over your Little Debbies discovery - hilarious!! It's been quite a few years since I've had one myself...hmm....;)

[jo]

i would like to add the jaynes heavily dehumanizes the tekelians too. let's remember that he's a very biased and cuckoo narrator. johnson is very careful to use the tropes of slavery in both directions in all sorts of subtle and not so subtle ways.

i don't know that we have talked about it at any length, but the way in which jaynes and garth are treated in the painter's dome -- wow.

[Mistinguette]

I FINALLY got this book from the library and read it in 3 days. "Pym" is the most fun I have had with a book in years. I so wish I had just dropped the $$ to buy this so as to be in on the discussion: I have a reading meme about "playing in the dark", blackness as performance and passing novels. And I love the mixture of high brow lit theory "play" and lowbrow guffaws woven into this text.

Thanks everybody who voted for this one - I would never otherwise have read Mat Johnson and would have missed an iconoclastic 21st century black writer whose work I absolutely loved!

[Wilhelmina]

Glad you could get it, Mistinguette! "Pym" was a lot of fun!

[jo]

yay! i also have a reading meme about those things, mostly Playing in the Dark and passing novels. glad you had as much fun as we did.

[jo]

p.s. i guess i have a standing thinking meme about anything as performance!

[George]

I think it's the most original work I've read in this group by far. Certainly the funniest. finally got my wife to read it last week and she ate it up.

Just so folks don't think I've become a hermit, I won't get July's reading until mid to late July though. I'm returning to the US and will go visit family and friends in Atlanta and North Florida before heading up to DC for a year.

[jo]

so many members of this group travel so much! what interesting lives!

[Doret]

I loved Pym. When it comes to satire Shteyngart has nothing on Johnson or Whitehead.

[Rashida]

So, they are dedicating the MLK memorial on the mall, soon. And Al Sharpton has this radio spot that keeps playing about marching from the Lincoln memorial to the MLK. I chuckle every time I hear it, because I just keep thinking about Uncle Booker. I think the first time I heard it, I actual yelled out loud at the radio, "But what are you marching for!?"

[jo]

gosh, i wish i got the reference. entirely lost on me. don't remember. :(

[Wilhelmina]

Funny, Rashida!