The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)


Verne wrote the 44th book in his Extraordinary Voyages ("An Antarctic Mystery", aka "The Sphinx of the Ice Fields", 1897) as a sequel and homage to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket". In preparation for reading Verne's book, I first read Poe's work, the only novel the American author wrote.


What is it about?: Young Arthur Gordon Pym stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall him, including mutiny, shipwreck and cannibalism. Later, after miraculously surviving, Pym continues his adventures further south, aboard the ship Jane Guy. As they get closer to the South Pole, their ship encounters scheming natives and strange phenomena.


Poe's novel is far from perfect, but it possesses an energy and intensity that kept me glued to my ebook device. In that sense, it reminded me of the best pulp adventure stories from the beginning of the 2oth century. It's a ripping yarn, a real page-turner, with the virtues and flaws of such excessive tales. It has many elements in common with other 19th century adventure stories about sea voyage, but at the same time it's a very personal work, full of Poe's obsessions and terrors.

When published, this novel was not successful, neither critically nor commercially, and Poe himself called it "a very silly book", but at the same time it has influenced and earned the admiration of writers like Herman Melville, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Baudelaire, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges.

The novel is composed of two very different parts, with different tones and only linked by the title character's sea voyages and by a certain self-destructive tendency he has that pushes him into terrible situations.

The first half is a more traditional sea adventure, with mutineers, shipwrecks, privations... but this does not give you an idea of how terrifying, dark, extreme, gruesome and claustrophobic the story is. It's a relentless narration, never giving the characters or the reader a respite. Poe really was very different from Verne. Verne's mind is rational and well-ordered, while Poe's mind is twisted, full of dark corners.

The second part, starting at chapter XIV, is such a sudden change of tack that it leaves some readers disconcerted and disgruntled. The pace here is less frantic and oppressive. It now feels like a 19th century sea exploration story. Poe imitates the non-fiction travel narratives of his century, much like Verne will do later in his own novels, describing the islands the ship visits and giving their coordinates. Poe even gives us a long overview of the Antarctic exploration that had been done at the time, which is something that Verne will also do in his stories of polar exploration.

Of course, beyond a certain point, the Antarctic regions were unknown at the time, a large blank area on the maps. And Poe fills it with his fantasy. The so far realistic story of exploration becomes increasingly fantastic.

And then there's the ending. What an ending. Infuriating, a disconcerting cop-out, unsatisfactory... Yes, it's all that, but also, how memorable and intriguing, suggesting so many things and leaving the reader wondering. Verne would write about it "Who shall continue it? Someone braver than me, someone more willing to enter the domain of impossible things." Twenty years after writing that, Verne must have felt brave enough to make the attempt, and the result was "An Antarctic Mystery" (aka "The Sphinx of the Ice Fields"). But that's a different book, to be discussed elsewhere.

Coming back to Poe's novel: it's too gruesome and truculent. It's not well-structured as a novel, feeling like a fix-up of two novellas, very different in tone. Also, it lacks a proper ending. It is deserving of criticism. But at the same time it's so vivid, its imagery so powerful, that it is still read much after its critics are gone and forgotten.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it a lot. A lot of elements in common with Verne's stories, but at the same time so different... ( )

It may be painless to mount a defense of this work despite its many flaws, in that it is an relic of a very specific time and place. However I am not about to do so.

This book is tedious, pointless and dull as dishwater a good 80% of its length. Useless details about ship stowage, map coordinates, the market for sea cucumbers and so on may set a certain feeling of reality for a population used to sea faring memoirs, but exciting reading they do not make.

There is some Poe sensibility here, especially near the end, but not enough to answer for the utterly pointless digressions that plague the majority of Pope's only novel.

He should have stuck to sort stories


I added a star for cannibalism but this is a two star book. ( )

3.5 stars.

Who knew Poe could write about life at sea with the same kind of detail and description as Melville. I could feel the terror of the storm at sea and the desperation of being adrift. The story became a bit laborious at times, but for the most part it was exciting and Poe didn't miss a good opportunity to include his favorite theme of the horror of being buried alive.
( )

Poe's only novel. It depicts an accidental trip to the arctic and various high-seas adventures. Poe describes physical sickness and danger and injury well, but his characters seem to have no real emotional reaction to their situation. Then when things get weird as the ship discovers new lands, the creatures and things found are really kind of lame, like something a 12year old would of come up with.
Finally the story ends in what i'm sure was meant to be really dramatic way but just comes across as annoyingly mysterious and leaves a sour taste.
Overall its still ok, i've read worse... take that ringing endorsement however you like :) . ( )

I liked this book. It's a classic tale of adventures, there are offshoots at certain points where the writer goes off in a tangent, but I love all that additional informaron. It's a product of it's time, and i absolutely love it. It can be full of racism at times but you shouldn't judge things by modern standards, it used to be common place back then, not saying it was right. I absolutely love Poe's style of writing, those long sentences hypnotise me. All in all, if you're a Poe fanboy like me, you're gonna love it, if not, then give it a try if you're looking for an adventure novel with some facts thrown in, some 19th century facts. It's time travel for me. ( )