In a novel by Mat Johnson, Chris Jaynes leads an expedition to Tsalal, a land inhabited entirely by a black-skinned society originally from this novel. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this 1838 novel that ends abruptly as the title character encounters a giant shrouded figure whose skin “was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.”
ANSWER: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
[10e] The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is this author’s only novel.
ANSWER: Edgar Allan Poe
[10h] This book’s chapter “Romancing the Shadow” quotes the aforementioned scene as an example of how “figurations of impenetrable whiteness” often appear in American literature in response to an “Africanist presence.” This book was adapted from its author’s 1990 Massey Lectures.
ANSWER: Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (by Toni Morrison)
<Will Nediger, American Literature>