As authors go you would be hard pressed to find many with a legacy as influential as that of our own dear Edgar. Poe's works have inspired directly or indirectly much of what we now perceive as the western cannon. Few modern horror writers can not trace the roots of their influences back to Poe in one regard or another. He laid the popular ground work for detective novels too. While surrealist fantasists certainly owe him a debt or two. As for Gothic fiction, he has arguably been of greater influence than even Shelley and Stoker (who was himself much influenced by Poe) for while they created lasting characters that informed their own sub-genre's, Poe work informs so much more of the work that came after him.
Despite the broad influence of his work, however, the majority of Dear Edgar's body of work and influence stems form his poems and short stories. Poe, like Lovecraft after him, only completed one novel in his life time. The ponderously titled 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'. The novel was written between the early 1830's and 1837, With the first two chapters originally written as short stories for a collection he never released.
It was finally published in 1838 after it was delayed for a year by the publishers after the stock-market crash of 1837. Yet even when the novel was first published in full it was done so not under Poe's name directly, but the name Arthur Gordon Pym and presented at a true account of his adventures, not an unusual publishing device at the time. Fictional 'true accounts' were often presented as authored by the narrator. While it is not an uncommon literary device to write a story presented in the reflective first person, it is rare these days that such stories are not published under the real authors name, and even rarer that they are presented as 'truth'. Though found footage cinema has been trying to pull this trick for decades...
The first time Poe's name was actually attached to the novel was when it was published without his permission in London. Ironically, as his main complain was they used his real name, the novel was more or less responsible for first making Poe's name in British literary circles and led to many of his earlier works finding there was, with or without permission, into British periodicals. His fame in Europe only grew from her on and was soon eclipsing his early renowned in America, and also lead to later editions in the USA carrying Poe's name as author and being presented as the fiction it was.
Comprising the Details of 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 Survivors; Their Shipwreck and Subsequent Horrible Sufferings from Famine; Their Deliverance by Means of the British Schooner Jane Guy; the Brief Cruise of this Latter Vessel in the Atlantic 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 Which That Distressing Calamity Gave Rise.
Full subtitle of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The above is the subtitle Poe gave to the novel, which serves quite well to sum up the entire narrative.
What is missed out of Poe ridiculously long subtitle is the main character stowing away in the most literal of senses aboard the first ship and almost starving to death. Almost staving to death again on a floating ship wreck before resorting to a singular bout of cannibalism, (two pages after the cannibalism episode Pym suddenly remembers there is an axe lodged in the remains a of a mast and hacks his way into the ships stores, which had he remembered the whereabouts of the axe earlier would have avoided the whole raw long pig feasting). While ship wrecked there is also the passing a Dutch ghost ship, which is presumably a reference to the flying dutchman, and a whole lot of stranger stuff that goes on the further south Arthur Pym finds himself.
The latter half of the book, is very much a journey into the the unknown southern regions beyond the Antarctic circle, which is not the Antarctic we know. Indeed beyond the ice there is a subtropical region warmed by odd currents form the pole itself and the book ends with Pym paddling a canoe towards the pole itself and the strange bright light that burns there. It becomes in short a tad bonkers, while being written very straight there is a degree of the comical about the final few chapters. As this is all in the narrators 'own words' there is every chance he is a little mad and the experiences he went through on the ship wreck and beyond sent him insane. The novel has a trick ending (Pym doesn't finish his narrative due to dying before writing of what he discovered at the pole itself) This is slight disappointing but frankly there is no real way it could have ended differently without stretching what credibility it has as a narrative beyond breaking point. There is no explanation of how two men in a badly made canoe, with nothing to eat but sea turtles, managed to get back from the south pole to Nantucket, though we know it took him six more years to do so as the opening chapters state he was away for seven in total. But frankly it is a better novel for the way it ends.
This is almost certainly the most readable of Poe stories up to this point in his career. Having the freedom of a novels format to play with clearly suited him. In effect there are several different tales here all linked in one long narrative, the first chapter is a short story that was originally published separately a couple of years before, and the difference is style is explained by Pym who says he employed a writer called Poe to present that first part of his tale as fiction, before deciding to write it himself. The story of the mutiny aboard the Grampus and eventual shipwreck is a separate tale, while the final section in the Antarctica feels like a whole different adventure story. Yet it all hangs together beautifully. Even if it is jarring to read about a bear attack on the Antarctic ice shelf and the latter half being more a fantasy than anything else. As long as you can accept the fact that little was known about the Antarctic when Poe wrote this, and his readers were not raised watching David Attenborough's Living Planet. While this is a flight of the imagination, it was not entirely fantastical at the time, as there were many odd theories about the southern regions around.
This was over 70 years before Roald Amundsen became the first man to the south pole, ruined Robert Falcon Scott's legacy. Scott's infamous tragic attempt to reach the south pole in 1912 was named the Terra Nova expedition. Terra Nova being the Latin for New Earth, which offers some perspective of just how little was known about the region. Even now it remains the least explored region of earth, though an archipelago of subtropic islands inhabited by south sea islanders warmed by an unknown white light at the pole is not likely to be discovered one suspects.
I approached this novel with a degree of trepidation due to Poe devote the 'Old Tentacle Hugger' Lovecraft. Before embarking on the Bibliography of Dear Edgar I did the same with Lovecraft and like Poe, Lovecraft wrote many short stories but only one novel. In Lovecraft's case it was 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' which was to say the least a struggle (though I scored it 4 out of 6, so its not terrible). Poe's novel in comparison to Lovecraft's is very modern and reads well. Its a little mad towards the end but then madness and Poe is nothing new at this point. It was certainly a better experience than reading Lovecraft's novel, though not quite up there with 'At the Mountains of Madness' which it inspired.
A FULL FLIGHT OF MURDEROUS RAVENS…
SHOULD YOU READ IT: If you only read one Edgar Alan Poe novel in your life time you should make it this one. Admittedly it is the only one... But read it anyway, it will surprise you.
ISSUES: While it is not overt there are some issues with the text in terms of race. However, these are minor and 'of there time' , as opposed to the kinds of issues you come across in Lovecraft's work.
Bluffers fact: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket inspired a lot of other writers and their work, but most notably Lovecraft's At the Mountains of madness where his giant albino penguins cry out tekeli-li or takkeli. This is the same cry used by 'deep' Southsea islanders who slaughter the crew of the Jane Guy.
Bonus Bluffers fact: Mark Hamill plays a character called Arthur Gordan Pym, in the Poe based Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher. Supposedly this series is set after his adventures at the south pole, and Pym is now a lawyer acting for the Usher family, who refuses to talk about the adventures of his youth.
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