Rating: 
Summary: A disturbing tale of shipwreck and savagery
Review: This story, Poe's only novel, is an endurance test for both reader and characters. I believe it was originally serialized, and reads like a collection of incidents rather than a complete story. However, it is a captivating tale, astounding in it's detail and casual horror. Arthur Gordon Pym was born under an unlucky star. He survives in the most inconceivable circumstances, from a drifting, overturned hulk to the frozen waters of the Antarctic. Each page turned piles more horror in his path, described with a growing clinical distance. Pym himself becomes more desensitized to each incident, until he views the irrational with a casual curiosity. The language is beautifully detailed, and some feel this story is the inspiration for "Moby Dick."Altogether, a delightfully disturbing story. One of the best I have read.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent adventure story
Review: when it comes to things to shudder about, poe pulls out all the stops here- being buried alive, starvation, overwhelming thirst, ritual murder, cannibalism, insanity, etc. mixing factual and fantastical elements, this rich little novel is on the surface a gothic tale of seafaring adventure. but it is so filled with haunting images of suffering and amazing, fantastic discoveries it burrows into your subconcious. the wonderfully inconclusive termination of the narrative further adds to the feeling of awe.
| 
