The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| In [[Paul Theroux|Paul Theroux's]] travelogue ''[[The Old Patagonian Express]]'' (1979), Theroux reads parts of ''The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'' to [[Jorge Luis Borges]]. Theroux describes it in this book as being the "most terrifying" story he had ever read. [[Yann Martel]] named a character in his [[Man Booker Prize]]-winning novel ''[[Life of Pi]]'' (2001) after Poe's fictional character, Richard Parker. | In [[Paul Theroux|Paul Theroux's]] travelogue ''[[The Old Patagonian Express]]'' (1979), Theroux reads parts of ''The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'' to [[Jorge Luis Borges]]. Theroux describes it in this book as being the "most terrifying" story he had ever read. [[Yann Martel]] named a character in his [[Man Booker Prize]]-winning novel ''[[Life of Pi]]'' (2001) after Poe's fictional character, Richard Parker. | ||
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| + | In a 1988 ''[[Young All-Stars]]'' comic book written by [[Roy Thomas|Roy]] and [[Dann Thomas]], Arthur Gordon Pym is a 19th century explorer who discovered the lost Arctic civilization of the alien Dyzan. Pym goes on to become [[Jules Verne]]'s [[Captain Nemo]], eventually sinking the [[Titanic]]. This story also uses elements of [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton]]'s 1871 novel ''[[Vril]]''. | ||
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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe's only complete novel, published in 1838.
The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym including shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The story starts out as a fairly conventional adventure at sea, but it becomes increasingly strange and hard to classify in later chapters, involving religious symbolism and the Hollow Earth.
Influence and legacy
Scholars, including Patrick F. Quinn and John J. McAleer, have noted parallels between Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and other Poe works. Quinn noted that there were enough similarities that Melville must have studied Poe's novel and, if not, it would be "one of the most extraordinary accidents in literature". McAleer noted that Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" inspired "Ahab's flawed character" in Moby-Dick Scholar Jack Scherting also noted similarities between Moby-Dick and Poe's "MS. Found in a Bottle".
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket became one of Poe's most-translated works; by 1978, scholars had counted over 300 editions, adaptations, and translations. This novel has proven to be particularly influential in France. French poet and author Charles Baudelaire translated the novel in 1857 as Les Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym. Baudelaire was also inspired by Poe's novel in his own poetry. "Voyage to Cythera" rewrites part of Poe's scene where birds eat human flesh.
French author Jules Verne greatly admired Poe and wrote a study, Edgar Poe et ses œuvres, in 1864. Poe's story "Three Sundays in a Week" may have inspired Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). In 1897, Verne published a sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery. Like Poe's novel, Verne attempted to present an imaginative work of fiction as a believable story by including accurate factual details. The two-volume novel explores the adventures of the Halbrane as its crew searches for answers to what became of Pym. Translations of this text are sometimes titled The Sphinx of Ice or The Mystery of Arthur Gordon Pym.
An informal sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the 1899 novel A Strange Discovery by Charles Romeyn Dake where the narrator, Doctor Bainbridge, recounts the story his patient Dirk Peters told him of his journey with Gordon Pym in Antarctica, including a discussion of Poe's poem "The Raven".
Prince Amerigo in Henry James's novel The Golden Bowl (1904) remembered The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: "He remembered to have read as a boy a wonderful tale by Allan Poe ... which was a thing to show, by the way, what imagination Americans could have: the story of the shipwrecked Gordon Pym, who ... found ... a thickness of white air ... of the color of milk or of snow."
Poe's novel was also an influence on H. P. Lovecraft, whose 1936 novel At the Mountains of Madness follows similar thematic direction and borrows the cry tekeli-li from the novel. Chaosium's role-playing adventure Beyond the Mountains of Madness (1999), a sequel to Lovecraft's novel, includes a "missing ending" of Poe's novel, in which Pym encounters some of Lovecraft's creatures at their Antarctic city.
Another French sequel was La Conquête de l'Eternel (1947) by Dominique André.
Georges Perec's 1969 novel A Void, notable for not containing a single letter e, contains an e-less rewriting of Poe's "The Raven" that is attributed to Arthur Gordon Pym in order to avoid using the two es found in Poe's name.
In Paul Theroux's travelogue The Old Patagonian Express (1979), Theroux reads parts of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket to Jorge Luis Borges. Theroux describes it in this book as being the "most terrifying" story he had ever read. Yann Martel named a character in his Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi (2001) after Poe's fictional character, Richard Parker.
In a 1988 Young All-Stars comic book written by Roy and Dann Thomas, Arthur Gordon Pym is a 19th century explorer who discovered the lost Arctic civilization of the alien Dyzan. Pym goes on to become Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, eventually sinking the Titanic. This story also uses elements of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1871 novel Vril.
