Godwin, Arktos

[Dave Monroe]

Finally have at hand my copy of Joscelyn Godwin,
Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi
Survival (Grand rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1993). Now
there's an awful lot that might prove of interest,
relevance in here, but fliiping through this caught my
eye.  On John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829), hollow earth
theorist and, as has been mentioned here, probable
inspiration for E.A. Poe's The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pym of Nantucket,) ...

"It is easy to laugh at Symmes and his holes.  But
researchers in the occult will recognize him as a
familiar type: the man with a military background (or
the daughter of one), sane and competent in worldly
terms, who nurtures a secret belief, perhaps founded
on a moment of inexplicable revelation, that is the
antithesis of his outward persona.  Some psychologists
would say that the more disciplined the mask, the more
repressed and fanatic might be the inner life of such
a person.  We might add how symbolically appropriate
this particular theory is, concretizing, as it were,
the sublimina; contents of the mind, and crying out
for their exploration!" (112)

... Godwin doesn't give other examples of this
supposedly "familiar type" here, but this does seem
applicable to more than a few pynchonian characters,
no?  By the way, Symmes might well have been, under
the intriguing pseudonym, "Adam Seaborn," the author
of Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery (1820).  Something
else to follow up on here.  In the meantime, on Poe's
Narrative, do see ...

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/silverman/poe/home.html

Make sure you get that final 'l' (el) in the address ...

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