Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (PENGUIN CLASSICS) by Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Kopley ISBN: 0-14-043748-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Wonderful Sailor's Tale
Comment: Arthur Gordon Pym was a young man who had dreams of great adventure. He defied his family and stowed away on board a whaling ship. Doing this lead him into all sorts of exciting adventures. He confronted things like mutiny, near starvation, and altercations with different cultures.
I'd have to say that this story is "classic Poe". If you are a fan of Poe's short stories, you'll definitely like this book. I only had a few problems with the story. There were times that the story dragged, but this is far outweighed by the times that the story was very exciting, and I couldn't put the book down. I won't go into the ending, but it left me unsettled.
I found that the explanatory notes were very helpful. I'm not a great scholar on any level, nor will I ever claim to be. The explanatory notes were very simple to understand, and it helped me understand portions of the story that caused confusion, particularly the end.
Rating: 5
Summary: thoroughly enjoyable
Comment: I haven't yet ruled out the possibility that I'm simply an oddball, but I assume every boy goes through a sort of Poe mania at some stage, at least I did. In fact, I got so bad around 5th grade that, having torn through the stories and poems, I was even reading biographies about him. But somehow, even with all of that, I think I had missed this longer work. I'm sorry I did, because while this wildly overstuffed adventure is enjoyable now, I would have really loved it as a kid.
When Arthur Gordon Pym stows away on a whaling ship, he little dreams that he'll encounter tyranny, mutiny, biblical storms, cannibalism, shipwreck...and Poe's just getting warmed up.
I've read that he cobbled together this semi-novel from several shorter pieces he'd written. It has a somewhat uneven feel to it; episodic, even disjointed. And as the episodes are piled one on top of the other it becomes a tad much. But it is always fun, often thrilling, and the mayhem that lurks on the surface guards layer upon layer of allegory and allusion. As you read you find yourself saying, "Hey, Melville borrowed that scene and Jack London got that idea here and Lovecraft cadged this plot..." If you have any doubts about how influential a literary figure Edgar Allan Poe was, this melodramatic masterpiece will put them to rest. More importantly, you'll thoroughly enjoy yourself.
GRADE: A-
Rating: 5
Summary: An American Classic. A Horror Classic.
Comment: Poe's only novel reminded me of Gogol's "Dead Souls," in that, in both, the story seems to take a weird turn toward the end and shuts down rather oddly. Gogol's excuse is that he became a fire-breathing convert to Christianity midway through writing his book, and so had no use for the book's initial cynical tone (instead we get a character rant on in socio-religious mode for awhile). I don't know what Poe's excuse is, but the effect of his end-of-story turn is remarkable, and I won't spoil it for you (unlike other reviewers below - warning!). There is a vivid, dreamlike, unsettling quality to the whole book, and (with the exception of a few dull pages of sailing life detail - not unlike "Moby Dick," but with nowhere near as much page-filling excess) there is rip-roaring action from start to finish. Poe's yarn is full of incident, and every bit of it counts. So at midnight, lock the door, sit back, put your feet up, and soak up this book in the dim light of your hurricane lamp. It's, after all, one of many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore!
 |
Title: Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence ISBN: 0140183779 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: God and the American Writer by Alfred Kazin ISBN: 0679733418 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Wieland, or the Transformation (Literary Classics Series) by Charles Brockden Brown ISBN: 1573921750 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
 |
Title: Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (Penguin Classics) by Charles Brockden Brown, Jay Fliegelman ISBN: 0140390790 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1991 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
 |
Title: Pierre, Or, the Ambiguities (Penguin Classics) by Herman Melville, William C. Spengemann ISBN: 0140434844 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
