This seems to be the definitive edition of Poe's only novel, jam-packedas it is with essays providing historical and literary context and,for the completist, ending with a summary (with substantial excerpts) of Jules Verne's pedantic sequel, Les Sphinx des Glaces. Pym, yet another hollow doppelganger for Poe himself, escapes his boringmiddle-class lifestyle in Nantucket by stowing away in the hold of a trading vessel. He is secreted away deep below decks by his chum Augustus, son of the ship's captain, in a pitch-black maze of oil casks, dry goods, and dormant Galapagos turtles. He is to be extricated from this position when the ship is too far out from port to turnback--a few days, no more--but weird shit begins to happen immediately, when Poe (ah, excuse me, Pym) awakens from an unusually heavy slumber in the rank hold to find his watch wound down, his head cloudy, and his supply of food rancid with decay. He, of course, freaks out in the best "Premature Burial" fashion,which makes for intense reading.

The subtitle from the 1838 edition, a great relic from pre-review-blurb days, offers a hard-sell plot summary without giving the juicy details away, so I'll steal it: the narrative, it claims, comprises "thedetails of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brigGrampus, 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[sic]; their shipwreck and subsequent horrible sufferings fromfamine; their deliverance by means of the British schooner JaneGuy; the brief cruise of this latter vessel in the Antarctic ocean;her capture, and the massacre of her crew among a group of islands in the eighty-fourth parallel of Southern latitude; together with the incredible adventures and discoveries still farther south to whichthat distressing calamity gave rise."

The novel, originally (and unsuccessfully) passed off as a true accountby Pym himself, requires frequent and severe suspension of disbelief, but, given half a chance, it takes off into the bizarro zone of cannibalism,lost tribes, axe murders, and supernatural visitations, all of whichcan substantially improve one's quality of life. Poe is easily oneof the best and most accessible writers from the 19th century, and, unlike boring blowhards like Hawthorne, his work stands up today justfine. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an extreme melo/ psychodrama with heavy-duty symbolic overtones (even Camille Pagliais forced to cram it into her literary unified field theory) which I don't feel like going into. It's pre-Lovecraft Lovecraftian. Read it, please. --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #2)

last update 7/30/97


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