PYM

[intertribal]

PYM by Mat Johnson is a whole bunch of awesome (as pgtremblay promised it would be).  It is, basically, the kind of science fiction/fantasy* that I really enjoy and get a lot out of.  That is:

• Well-written.
• Written with passion.  I don't know how to describe this really, I just know it when I see it.
• Overflowing with sharp, biting, often-funny social commentary. 
• Smart.  The whole thing is a sequel and satire of Edgar Allen Poe's rather racist, open-ended fantasy The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and the narrator is a black-but-looks-white literature professor who's just been denied tenure for refusing to go along with the college's pointless Diversity Committee.  The original story features an undiscovered island full of extraordinarily black, blacker than black people, as well as an Antarctica that's home to an extraordinarily white, whiter than white giant.  That's all I'll tell you, because finding out what happens after is the good part - the journey is the reward itself, etc.  PYM is mental acrobatics - not difficult to read, though, and very engaging - but the set-up is mental acrobatics. 
• Not an exercise in authorial wish fulfillment.  I mean, there is a ton of desire and wishing going on, but... the best laid plans, etc.
• Just a little bit wacko = kind of like the endearing quality "whimsy," but a lot less cute and a lot more WTF. 

It's also a lot of fun and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, most of the way at least (the tone changes near the end).  Mostly this is due to Johnson's evident great talent for voice.  And another thing (I may get flack for this, but whatever...)?  I don't think this could have been written by someone who wasn't black.  Or at least it would have been extraordinarily hard.  So much of it - and I really mean this, it's basically the whole book - is about (the author's take on) being black in America, being black within the social and cultural history of America.

Good stuff.  Wish more stuff was like this.  

* But I'm pretty sure this would get shelved in the "literary" section of the library, despite the, uh, ice yetis involved.