Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe is our May 2023 Old School Classics Group Read. This is a spoiler thread.

Anyone know what this means: "A sail was thrummed, and got under the bows, which aided us in some measure, so that we began to gain upon the leak."

The sail is under and on the outside of the ship?

"yet I could not bring myself to abandon an animal who had now been twice instrumental in saving my life"

That is a oddly cold way of saying that he loves his dog.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Anyone know what this means: "A sail was thrummed, and got under the bows, which aided us in some measure, so that we began to gain upon the leak."

The sail is under and on the outside of the ship?"

That does sound confusing - I guess I'll be running into this when I start next week.

If it's a big ship, maybe it has something to do with the spritsail that's below the bowsprit? And if you think of the bows as the point at the furthermost front point of the ship, the spritsail is below that when unfurled.

But really this is just a massive guess.

I got the impression that a lot of Poe’s writing was some technical or scientific innovation he read about and turned into fiction. This time it is phosphorus matches.

The story is from 1838. Compare:

” In 1831 Charles Sauria of France incorporated white, or yellow, phosphorus in his formula, an innovation quickly and widely copied. In 1835 Jànos Irinyi of Hungary replaced potassium chlorate with lead oxide and obtained matches that ignited quietly and smoothly.
The discovery … in 1845 of red phosphorus, which is nontoxic and is not subject to spontaneous combustion, led to the safety match.... “
source: https://www.britannica.com/science/ma...

So these 1838 matches are before 1845 and may spontaneous ignite. Good to have on board a ship.

By 1838 phosphorus matches were a fancy new thing. He was likely playing with matches and testing the phosphor smearing to write the story.

Wikipeadia is – as always – a good read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Anyone know what this means: "A sail was thrummed, and got under the bows, which aided us in some measure, so that we began to gain upon the leak."

The sail is under and on the outside of the ship?"

A sail would be coated with tar, pine sap or some other less soluble sticky substance and then drawn under the bows (hull) in the hope that water pressure would force a portion of the sail into the leak and lessen the intake of water by partially staunching the leak.

I think the just released The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann might make a good companion read to this.

Sam wrote: "A sail would be coated with tar, pine sap or some other less soluble sticky substance and then drawn under the bows (hull) in the hope that water pressure would force a portion of the sail into the leak"

Thanks Sam! I haven't started yet, but that certainly sounds plauaible!

Sam wrote: "A sail would be coated with tar, pine sap or some other less soluble sticky substance and then drawn under the bows (hull) in the hope that water pressure would force a portion of the sail into the leak and lessen the intake of water by partially staunching the leak. "

Thank you. That makes sense. I don't think that part is very important. More there general picture that they are limping along.

The book is in some parts tense, but its flow is mostly disrupted by many digressions. So it looses pace from time to time. I still have to praise it for the ideas and it has a few very terrifying moments, especially in the first half of the book. Later, it becomes a bit unrealistic and not that polished.
The book would be pretty good as a series of short stories, but not as a complete novel. What starts as a horrifying mutiny onboard the ship, develops into senseless bloodshed, spiced at the end with a pinch of cannibalism (because the guys were starving and couldn't catch any fish while they were out in the vast of the ocean, but it was simpler to eat one of theirs?).
In the second part of the book, it becomes a Robinson Crusoe-style adventure story, which wasn't much of a treat. It was crossed with various descriptions of the islands, the travels of the third ship, pelican habitats and similar...

“To the curious incident of the dog.... “

Just pop up out of nowhere and disappears again when the story doesn’t need it. It would have been the logical choice to eat it rather than....

First of all: How did the dog get to the ship? Arthur must have left his parents without it. They think he is going to a visit for a few weeks. Imagine Augustus showing up at his parents house asking for the dog. Everybody knowing that Augustus would be away for a very long time, and Arthur would be back way before Augustus. That doesn’t sound right.

During the mutiny fight the dog attacks and kills and man to Arthur surprise. Not by his command. That seems to me like a strange behaviour for a dog.

Sam wrote: "I think the just released The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann might make a good companion read to this."

I definitely want to read that one.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Anyone know what this means: "A sail was thrummed, and got under the bows, which aided us in some measure, so that we began to gain upon the leak."

The sail is under and on the outside of the ship?"

That's the idea. I'm not exactly how they manage it but the idea is to put a sale on the outside of the hull to reduce the amount of water coming in through the seams.

What an odd story!

To me it had a U-shape. The beginning with a stowaway and phosphorus matches was very Poe-like and fine. When followed a bad middle section, where it felt like Poe did not know where to go with the story (I still suspect that to be the case), then followed an excellent ending.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nar...
” much of the novel is carefully plotted. Novelist John Barth notes, for example, that the midway point of the novel occurs when Pym reaches the equator, the midway point of the globe.”

I am just not convinced: Look at how the dog shows up out of nothing, how is disappears again when the story doesn’t need it. The captain of Jane Guy disappears in a similar manner. Another inconsistency that is mentioned may places is that Pym notes that Augustus did not tell him about the sound of the broken a bottle this until "many years elapsed", but Augustus dies eight chapters later.

In one way the book is very Poe-ish: Two times does he gets entombed alive.

Also from Wikipedia:
”20th-century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who admitted Poe as a strong influence, praised the novel as "Poe's greatest work".”

According to Wikipeadia the novel later influenced Herman Melville. It is a happy coincidence we are reading that next month.

I am not bothered by the sudden ending. I like the idea of giant Ethiopian letters. The figure pointing to the south: Maybe it is a warning? I can definitely see how this can inspire other writers.

Finally there is the line in italics at the end: “I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the dust within the rock.”

Who is saying that? “ I have graven it within the hills” Is that the huge Ethiopian letters?

Also there are a few inaccuracies that Poe likely did not know: No polar bear to the south. All sorts of tortoises including those living in water need to breath air. He could not find a live one in the cargo after all that flooding.

There ae parts when they are adrift and in extremis that I think Poe may have plucked from the published narratives of the Whaleship Essex's ill-fated voyage. Another good companion read to this would be In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick, which includes a description of an actual sailor's lottery.

Tom wrote: "...Another good companion read to this would be In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick, which includes a description of an actual sailor's lottery."

That is an excellent book.

I finished this today and, while it's not the greatest thing I've read, it was interesting. In my review, I called it part Melville, part Verne, with more than a dash of Lovecraft thrown in. What I liked most about it was the moments where Arthur was caught in an inescapable situation and is surely about to die. This is the very scenario that Poe excelled at writing.

Oner thing I want to comment on is Poe's description of the temperatures rising as he got closer to the pole. It was a commonly accepted theory until almost 1880 that there was an open polar sea at the poles and the continent of Antarctica had yet to be discovered, so what he describes toward the end was likely considered feasible, or at least less farfetched, when Poe wrote it than it is today.

Tom wrote: " It was a commonly accepted theory until almost 1880 that there was an open polar sea at the poles..."

Fridtjof Nansen walked to 86° 14 N in 1895. He writes in his book about the expedition that scientists was "sure" what where would be open water.

Just started, and it's a weird book - not the typical sea voyage adventure at all. Not sure if it will make sense in the end, but I'm intrigued by the weird fainting fits, time lapses, and the sudden appearance of the dog in the hiding place. What in the world is going on here?

J_BlueFlower wrote: "What an odd story!

To me it had a U-shape. The beginning with a stowaway and phosphorus matches was very Poe-like and fine. When followed a bad middle section, where it felt like Poe did not know ..."

I agree with this J_BlueFlower.

The beginning with the mysterious happenings was very engaging, and I enjoyed the scene where the narrator impersonated a dead man to strike fear into the hearts of the evil mutineers - that part was so much fun! It was macabre in a good way.

But then, the book wanders about, and it frankly gets a little boring. Over and over, I was at this latitude and longitude, and here's the history of this island, and then I was at this langitude and longitude, etc. Lots of factual information without any character engagement or much story.

I haven't finished yet, about 70% done. Looking forward to where it picks back up!

Finished today and gave it three stars.

I think my favorite part was the mysterious beginning, though toward the very end I also liked the Lovecraftian hints at an ancient intelligence with the cryptic tunnels/writing and the huge pale figure at the far pole. The middle had a lot of boring wandering, and I'm not sure I even liked the evil natives storyline in the last third too much - it's such a staple of similar adventure stories and didn't engage me fully.

Overall, I'm glad I read it, but I definitely prefer Poe's other works where he gets to go full Poe, like The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales or his short stories. I don't think I'd go back and re-read this one again as I have with many of his other works.

Interesting, I just scrolled back through the comments, and it appears that this is one of those rare times where everyone is on a similar page. Everyone who has already finished reading and has commented below is listed as giving it 3 stars.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "“To the curious incident of the dog.... “

Just pop up out of nowhere and disappears again when the story doesn’t need it. It would have been the logical choice to eat it rather than....

First of..."

I actually thought the dog was a hallucination because it was so absurd! The writing at times in this book makes it hard for me to tell what's actually going on.

Greg wrote: "...But then, the book wanders about, and it frankly gets a little boring...."

I agree completely. Poe seemed fascinated with ideas which is why short stories seemed to work so well for him. Novels usually require a lot of things to work besides one good idea. Reading this, it just felt like Poe was uncomfortable in the larger medium.