The horrid morsel [of human flesh] dropped at length with a sullen splash immediately at the feet of Parker. May God forgive me, but now, for the first time, there flashed through my mind a thought, a thought which I will not mention, and I felt myself making a step towards the ensanguined spot.
I have just finished reading The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the only novel ever written by E. A. Poe. I began reading it without any prior knowledge about it, thinking that it was simply going to be a fun tale about ships and pirates, but what awaited me was a dreadful story that included episodes of cannibalism (both explicit and implicit, see above) and mass murder - not as fun and cheerful as I expected, to say the least. The novel also features many masterful descriptions of Pym's ever-changing feelings of fear, courage, and resilience that demonstrate Poe's exceptional ability to recount what one feels when confronted with the possibility of dying at any moment. Nonetheless, this novel, while great, is far from being an amazing one, its weak point being its length: Poe makes sure to bore the modern reader with superfluous descriptions of how penguins and albatrosses collaborate when creating their nests, for example. This way of writing novels was common in the nineteenth century, but it surely hasn't aged well. Overall, The Narrative is an interesting novel, and Poe's prose is undoubtedly at its best when feelings, fears, and hallucinations are described - the very ending of the novel is superb on that front. And since the modern-day internet is obsessed with ratings, I too shall indulge in this vice, and I shall conclude my post by stating that this novel is a strong 8/10.
