Pym (novel)
Encyclopedia
Pym is the third novel by American author Mat Johnson
, published on March 1, 2011. A satirical
fantasy
inspired by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
, Edgar Allan Poe
's only novel, the book explores racial politics and identity in America, and Antarctica. The novel was written over a period of nine years and has been well received by critics, who have praised its lighthearted and humorous style of social criticism.
's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
, "a strange tale of shipwrecks, mutiny and a mysterious island inhabited by black-skinned people whose teeth are even black, and it ends abruptly at the South Pole with Pym facing haunting white figures". Poe's only novel, it is the favorite book of Johnson's protagonist, Chris Jaynes, African-American professor of literature, and his obsession with it leads him on his own journey to Antarctica.
According to Johnson, creating the book involved "9 years of writing, 16 drafts, [and] 3 deletion attempts […]" While working on Pym, Johnson also finished three critically acclaimed graphic novels – Hellblazer: Papa Midnite (2005), Incognegro
(2008), Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story (2010) – and a fourth, as yet unnamed graphic novel scheduled for publication in 2012. In an interview with Mike Emery, Johnson stated that there were many times when he thought that Pym "was taking too much of my time, and it was taking me in the wrong direction". He credits his wife, journalist Meera Bowman Johnson (to whom he dedicated Pym), and friends with convincing him to continue with the novel.
Johnson's website features a list of books by other notable writers inspired by Poe's open-ended novel since its publication in 1838, including Herman Melville
's Moby Dick, H. P. Lovecraft
’s At the Mountains of Madness
, and Jules Verne
's An Antarctic Mystery
– "the most pragmatic and literal sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and also the worst sequel […] Come for the novelty, stay for the unbridled racism". The narrative of Pym also includes elements from Verne's and Lovecraft's Poe-inspired works.
In Pym, Johnson's protagonist named a course on Poe he was teaching in reference to Toni Morrison
's 1992 collection of essays Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, in which she explores the theory that for Poe, whiteness equalled perfection. Professor Jaynes's course, "Dancing With the Darkies: Whiteness in the Literary Mind", attempted to trace the roots of America's failure to become a postracial society to classic white texts, with a focus on Poe.
The quest is led by the protagonist's older cousin Captain Booker Jaynes, "the world’s only civil rights activist turned deep-sea diver", who is planning on mining blocks of Antarctic ice to melt and sell as expensive bottled water. Garth Frierson, Jaynes's childhood best friend with a fondness for Little Debbie snack cakes, joins the team in the hope of finding landscape painter Thomas Karvel, and in part, Pym is laid out as "a road story/bromance between Jaynes and his childhood pal". Other members of the expedition include water treatment engineers Jeffree and Carlton Damon Carter, a gay couple documenting the trip for their "Afro-adventure blog". Angela Latham, a lawyer and Jaynes's "much-pined-for" ex-girlfriend, brings along her new husband Nathaniel, treating the venture as a honeymoon. But instead of the black inhabitants described by Poe, Jaynes and his friends come across "a prehistoric world of giant white people, or 'Snow Honkies', who enslave them."
referring to it as "an acutely humorous, very original story that will delight lovers of literature and fantasy alike" and NPR
's Maureen Corrigan
calling it "loony, disrespectful, and sharp" and "a welcome riff on the surrealistic shudder-fest that is Poe's original." According to Associated Press
writer Jennifer Kay, Pym is a swiftly paced satire which "skewers Edgar Allan Poe, race in America, the snack-food industry, academia, landscape painting and abominable snowmen." She concluded, "A commentary on racial identity, obsessions and literature should not be as funny as Pym, but Johnson makes light work of his heavy themes." Adam Mansbach, writing for The New York Times
, similarly stated, "It's no easy task to balance social satire against life-threatening adventure, the allegory against the gory, but Johnson's hand is steady and his ability to play against Poe's text masterly."
Michael Dirda, for The Washington Post
, called the novel "exuberantly comic", concluding that "in its seemingly effortless blend of the serious, comic and fantastic, Johnson's Pym really shouldn't be missed". Maggie Galehouse, book editor of the Houston Chronicle
, called Pym "… funny. And erudite, without condescension", stating that while there is "no shortage of thought and scholarship and experience underpinning Pym", reading it "is like opening a big can of whoop-ass and then marveling – gleefully – at all the mayhem that ensues." Joe O'Connell, in the Austin-American Statesman, called Johnson "a wizard", stating that the novel cast a "magical spell", and described it as "a rumination on America's ongoing problem of race, and an excellent modern picaresque sprinkled liberally with comic book action. Most of all, it's a sublimely written comic novel and a lot of fun." Publishers Weekly
, in a starred review, described Pym as a "high-concept adventure" which provides "a memorable take on America's 'racial pathology' and 'the whole ugly story of our world'."
Mat Johnson
Mat Johnson is an American writer of literary fiction.-Biography:Born and raised in the Germantown and Mount Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johnson writes primarily about the lives of African-Americans, using fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels as mediums...
, published on March 1, 2011. A satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
inspired by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus...
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's only novel, the book explores racial politics and identity in America, and Antarctica. The novel was written over a period of nine years and has been well received by critics, who have praised its lighthearted and humorous style of social criticism.
Development history
Pym takes its title from Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus...
, "a strange tale of shipwrecks, mutiny and a mysterious island inhabited by black-skinned people whose teeth are even black, and it ends abruptly at the South Pole with Pym facing haunting white figures". Poe's only novel, it is the favorite book of Johnson's protagonist, Chris Jaynes, African-American professor of literature, and his obsession with it leads him on his own journey to Antarctica.
According to Johnson, creating the book involved "9 years of writing, 16 drafts, [and] 3 deletion attempts […]" While working on Pym, Johnson also finished three critically acclaimed graphic novels – Hellblazer: Papa Midnite (2005), Incognegro
Incognegro (comics)
Incognegro is a black-and-white graphic novel written by Mat Johnson with art by Warren Pleece. It was published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo-Publication history:...
(2008), Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story (2010) – and a fourth, as yet unnamed graphic novel scheduled for publication in 2012. In an interview with Mike Emery, Johnson stated that there were many times when he thought that Pym "was taking too much of my time, and it was taking me in the wrong direction". He credits his wife, journalist Meera Bowman Johnson (to whom he dedicated Pym), and friends with convincing him to continue with the novel.
Johnson's website features a list of books by other notable writers inspired by Poe's open-ended novel since its publication in 1838, including Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
's Moby Dick, H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
’s At the Mountains of Madness
At the Mountains of Madness
At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and rejected that year by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length. It was originally serialized in the February, March and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories...
, and Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
's An Antarctic Mystery
An Antarctic Mystery
An Antarctic Mystery , is an 1897, two-volume novel by Jules Verne and is a response to Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket...
– "the most pragmatic and literal sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and also the worst sequel […] Come for the novelty, stay for the unbridled racism". The narrative of Pym also includes elements from Verne's and Lovecraft's Poe-inspired works.
In Pym, Johnson's protagonist named a course on Poe he was teaching in reference to Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
's 1992 collection of essays Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, in which she explores the theory that for Poe, whiteness equalled perfection. Professor Jaynes's course, "Dancing With the Darkies: Whiteness in the Literary Mind", attempted to trace the roots of America's failure to become a postracial society to classic white texts, with a focus on Poe.
Synopsis
Chris Jaynes is the only African-American professor of literature at a liberal Manhattan college. Refusing to limit his teaching to the African-American canon and serve on the college diversity committee, he is denied tenure. His obsession with Poe's novel comes to a head when a friend introduces him to a copy of "The True and Interesting Narrative of Dirk Peters. Coloured Man. As Written by Himself.", "an unpublished 19th-century manuscript that suggests Poe's novel, which was partially set in Antarctica, was drawn closely from truth". Jaynes assembles an all-black mining crew and embarks on an expedition to the South Pole in search of Poe's fabled island of Tsalal, the "great undiscovered African Diasporan homeland ... uncorrupted by whiteness."The quest is led by the protagonist's older cousin Captain Booker Jaynes, "the world’s only civil rights activist turned deep-sea diver", who is planning on mining blocks of Antarctic ice to melt and sell as expensive bottled water. Garth Frierson, Jaynes's childhood best friend with a fondness for Little Debbie snack cakes, joins the team in the hope of finding landscape painter Thomas Karvel, and in part, Pym is laid out as "a road story/bromance between Jaynes and his childhood pal". Other members of the expedition include water treatment engineers Jeffree and Carlton Damon Carter, a gay couple documenting the trip for their "Afro-adventure blog". Angela Latham, a lawyer and Jaynes's "much-pined-for" ex-girlfriend, brings along her new husband Nathaniel, treating the venture as a honeymoon. But instead of the black inhabitants described by Poe, Jaynes and his friends come across "a prehistoric world of giant white people, or 'Snow Honkies', who enslave them."
Reception
Pym has been well received by critics, with Kirkus ReviewsKirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...
referring to it as "an acutely humorous, very original story that will delight lovers of literature and fantasy alike" and NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan is an American journalist, author and literary critic. She writes for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post, and is a book critic on the NPR radio program Fresh Air. In 2005, she published a literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in...
calling it "loony, disrespectful, and sharp" and "a welcome riff on the surrealistic shudder-fest that is Poe's original." According to Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
writer Jennifer Kay, Pym is a swiftly paced satire which "skewers Edgar Allan Poe, race in America, the snack-food industry, academia, landscape painting and abominable snowmen." She concluded, "A commentary on racial identity, obsessions and literature should not be as funny as Pym, but Johnson makes light work of his heavy themes." Adam Mansbach, writing for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, similarly stated, "It's no easy task to balance social satire against life-threatening adventure, the allegory against the gory, but Johnson's hand is steady and his ability to play against Poe's text masterly."
Michael Dirda, for The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, called the novel "exuberantly comic", concluding that "in its seemingly effortless blend of the serious, comic and fantastic, Johnson's Pym really shouldn't be missed". Maggie Galehouse, book editor of the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
, called Pym "… funny. And erudite, without condescension", stating that while there is "no shortage of thought and scholarship and experience underpinning Pym", reading it "is like opening a big can of whoop-ass and then marveling – gleefully – at all the mayhem that ensues." Joe O'Connell, in the Austin-American Statesman, called Johnson "a wizard", stating that the novel cast a "magical spell", and described it as "a rumination on America's ongoing problem of race, and an excellent modern picaresque sprinkled liberally with comic book action. Most of all, it's a sublimely written comic novel and a lot of fun." Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, in a starred review, described Pym as a "high-concept adventure" which provides "a memorable take on America's 'racial pathology' and 'the whole ugly story of our world'."
External links
- Official website
- Radio interview with Mat Johnson on The Takeaway, March 2, 2011