An Antarctic Mystery; or, The Sphinx of the Ice Fields

A Sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym'

By: Jules Verne, Brian Taves - introduction

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

During his twilight years, the French author Jules Verne (1828-1905) wrote two original sequels to books that had fired his own youthful imagination but which he felt to be incomplete: Johann Wyss's Swiss Family Robinson and Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

Arthur Gordon Pym (1845) was only one of many Poe stories which Verne admired; no other single author had more impact on his writing. Verne acknowledged this debt in his only major piece of literary criticism, a detailed 1864 article entitled "Edgard [sic] Poe and His Work".

Poe (1809-1849) was just emerging on the French literary scene in translation as Verne was writing his first plays and short stories. Verne was familiar with a broad range of Poe's works, the well-remembered stories as well as many that are obscure today. What is to be admired in Poe, Verne wrote, "are the novelties of his situations, the discussion of little-known facts, the observations of the unhealthy faculties of Mankind, the choice of subject-matter, the ever-strange personality of his characters, their nervous, sickly temperaments, their ways of expressing themselves by bizarre interjections. And yet, among all these improbabilities, exists at times a verisimilitude that grips the credulity of the reader."

This edition is a newly revised and modernized translation and features a new introduction by Brian Taves.

©2005 John Betancourt (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Both Wonder-full and Also Not

Disclaimers but no spoilers—
Yes, it’s period writing so there’s political incorrectness abounding though not I think ill-intended by the author. With that said:
It’s a survival and adventure on the high seas novel with some early, basic science fiction thrown in. It’s my first Verne, and he’s a beautiful writer.
But to any and all who, like me, hoped for a little more “wonder” and sensationalism and spectacle along the lines of how Edgar Allen Poe finished (and left utterly hanging) his Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of which Verne’s Antarctic Mystery is a direct sequel, you will be sorely disappointed. There is an explanation of sorts, there is a resolution, Verne even fills in to the best of his ability the bizarre dog character plot hole left by Poe, but it is not the wondrous story I had hoped for after being tantalized by the signs of Ancient Ethiopians in Poe’s Pym and the giant glorious snow-swept Sphinx of Verne’s Antarctic Mystery cover art.
I’m glad I read it. It was good, and I was 100% invested in the characters. But I was disappointed in the story itself.

Good, but not all of Verne

This is a tough one. The narrator is good - something unfortunately all too rare in Verne audiobooks - and the translation has been somewhat revised from the original by "Mrs Cashel Hoey." But the audiobook is missing the Brian Taves introduction mentioned in the description. And a comparison of the text with a more recent translation - the one by Rick Walter published by SUNY - shows that many of the cuts made by Mrs Hoey have not been restored in this version. I would use this as an intro to the story - but try to get your hands on the Walter edition (which has, in addition to the original novel by Edgar Allan Poe, a long critical essay by Verne about Poe's novel).

A Great Example of the Writing of the Period

Modern audiences might find the writing dense, and filled with minutia that does not move the action along. I enjoyed reading Verne on my early teens, and the pacing took me right back to adventure stories like 80,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

An amazing sequel carrying on the work a legendary author

This title caught my eye because I had noticed some influence in Verne's other works of the great Poe. Verne carried on the tradition of Poe, writing so convincingly that many believed they were reading a genuine narrative. Put alongside Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" a fantastic trilogy is formed. The details in Ernest Shackleton's non-fiction account of the antarctic show that Verne was quite insightful to the hazards of the region. Besides completing an incredible amount of research for each story, the author was a talented storyteller, and kept the pages turning. I would love to see a higher percentage of Jules Verne's works on Audible instead of fifty versions of the same three titles.