― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 04:54 (sixteen years ago) link
i left off about halfway through and just picked it up again a few weeks ago, and i'm almost done. i agree that it's a much more fun book than ppl say - i actually find all the technical detail about whaling pretty interesting.
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 05:01 (sixteen years ago) link
― Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 05:30 (sixteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 05:38 (sixteen years ago) link
it was a good thing the beginning turned out to be so funny. otherwise it would have been hard to press on.
― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 06:14 (sixteen years ago) link
― wmlynch (wlynch), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 06:36 (sixteen years ago) link
― wmlynch (wlynch), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 06:37 (sixteen years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 06:47 (sixteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 19:21 (sixteen years ago) link
― Dark Horse, Wednesday, 30 November 2005 20:48 (sixteen years ago) link
― steve ketchup, Thursday, 1 December 2005 16:21 (sixteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 1 December 2005 17:56 (sixteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 2 December 2005 22:33 (sixteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 3 December 2005 01:37 (sixteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:10 (sixteen years ago) link
― steve ketchup, Saturday, 3 December 2005 05:46 (sixteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Friday, 16 December 2005 22:37 (sixteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Friday, 16 December 2005 22:43 (sixteen years ago) link
I am almost finished this, reading it for my classic book club. It is an amazing book... I can see where people who hail it as the greatest ever novel in the English language are coming from.
And yes, it is very funny, and it does lots of strange digressions, but when the action gets going, Jesus. The last 100-150 pages of my edition are astonishingly page turning.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:15 (twelve years ago) link
I tried this once, and failed.
― quincie, Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:52 (twelve years ago) link
the trick is to read it alound in your head in an "salty sea dog" voice
― Fox Force Five Punchline (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
a "salty, er
have had this book out from the library since last...october. progress: 50 pages
― 丫 power (dyao), Tuesday, 23 March 2010 16:01 (twelve years ago) link
Yarrr, a land lubber eee be.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 23 March 2010 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
ilx lubber more like it ;.;
― it is just like an unknown puzzle till the end of the world (dyao), Tuesday, 23 March 2010 16:20 (twelve years ago) link
i find a lot of melville's other work more interesting than moby dick, it was kind of a disappointment when i finally got around to it
― bernardyao (velko), Tuesday, 23 March 2010 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
I really enjoyed it when I read it earlier in the year, though I have a fondness for the tone of 19th-century encyclopaedias, which helped, I think.
I'm surprised at those who call it the Great American Novel, not because it's not great, but because it doesn't seem much concerned with America at all.
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 23:23 (twelve years ago) link
There is this theory that it is A Meditation On America - as opposed to a meditaton on whales and the maniacs who hunt them.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 25 March 2010 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
H. Bloom loves to compare Ahab to Andrew Jackson (it's been a while; is that conceit in the actual text?)...sometimes I think the "Great American Novel" hype is just because it's a great novel written by an American...
― don't let it rest on the President's desk (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 27 March 2010 01:50 (twelve years ago) link
harold bloom is fat
― velko, Saturday, 27 March 2010 02:49 (twelve years ago) link
reading it now - awesome.
"I'm surprised at those who call it the Great American Novel" :
one way of interpretation is to see the novel as an allegory to how destructive totalitarism is as oppose to democracy.in a way, the book is one out of many foundations for the american democracy, as portrait by art.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 May 2010 12:54 (twelve years ago) link
Have been trying this and I started off really liking it, no problem with the the salty sea-dog prose and the characters were really striking; but then, my god, the endless digressions. History of whaling, crap cetology, how the crow's nest was invented... get on with the story already! I've pretty much given up ;_; perhaps there's an abridged version I could tackle.
― the big pink suede panda bear hurts (ledge), Tuesday, 4 May 2010 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
Closer in some ways to Kafka
Which is interesting, because it's always been "Bartleby" that's considered a predessor to Kafka.
Anyway, after you all get done with Moby Dick, go read John Kessel's "Another Orphan," the story of a man who wakes up and becomes a character in that book. (It's much better than that description sounds. Trust me. )
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Tuesday, 4 May 2010 16:35 (twelve years ago) link
A memorable sequence from chap 94, for those who like homoeroticism in their classics...
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that spermtill I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till astrange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittinglysqueezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for thegentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, lovingfeeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continuallysqueezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; asmuch as to say,--Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherishany social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come;let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves intoeach other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk andsperm of kindness.Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!
Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 00:21 (twelve years ago) link
And this, which I found in reading ABOUt Moby-Dick
The largest monster in antebellum literature was the kraken depicted in EugeneBatchelder’s Romance of the Sea-Serpent, or The Ichthyosaurus (1849), a bizarrenarrative poem about a sea serpent that terrorizes the coast of Massachusetts,destroys a huge ship in mid-ocean, repasts on human remains gruesomelywith sharks and whales, attends a Harvard commencement (where he hasbeen asked to speak), shocks partygoers by appearing at a Newport ball, andat last is hunted and killed by a fleet of Newport sailors.
I need to read that.
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Thursday, 6 May 2010 00:38 (twelve years ago) link
Christ, now there's a mission - I like to imagine the nanosecond I submit my interlibary form (as I most certainly will), it'll come back NO! NO! NO! with no other explanation given.
― R Baez, Thursday, 6 May 2010 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
That sounds like a poem I would love!
― This is four-dimensional art; the 4th dimension is incredibly powerful. (Abbott), Thursday, 6 May 2010 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
this book sux
― coining (Lamp), Thursday, 6 May 2010 19:55 (twelve years ago) link
Full view over at Google Books, I see. It rhymes but it's written out in prose.
― alimosina, Thursday, 6 May 2010 20:17 (twelve years ago) link
Argh! I can't find it. Link, please?
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Thursday, 6 May 2010 23:27 (twelve years ago) link
Try this one.
― alimosina, Friday, 7 May 2010 15:13 (twelve years ago) link
Am so reading that at the w/end.
― I had gained ten lewis (ledge), Friday, 7 May 2010 15:17 (twelve years ago) link
Slightly better than this at least.
― alimosina, Saturday, 8 May 2010 03:31 (twelve years ago) link
Thank you so much for this! These are the best/worst couplets ever.
― This is four-dimensional art; the 4th dimension is incredibly powerful. (Abbott), Saturday, 8 May 2010 03:53 (twelve years ago) link
Magic! Thank you for the link!
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Sunday, 9 May 2010 23:53 (twelve years ago) link
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CqDk4jAv_Y4/S-eU94J7dCI/AAAAAAAAC50/l-79c_1TmiY/s1600/11.jpg
― Did you in fact lift my luggage (dyao), Monday, 10 May 2010 06:10 (twelve years ago) link
Thank you for the link!
Heck, I'd never heard of this, uh, marvel until your post.
Abbott's next paper... "Polarities of Prophetic Vision: Paradise Lost and Romance of the Sea-Serpent"
― alimosina, Monday, 10 May 2010 13:35 (twelve years ago) link
That sounds like a poem I would love! --This is four-dimensional art; the 4th dimension is incredibly powerful. (Abbott)
― mrsameh31, Wednesday, 12 May 2010 06:07 (twelve years ago) link
They don't even try to keep a consistent meter. I needed this so bad in my life right now.
― This is four-dimensional art; the 4th dimension is incredibly powerful. (Abbott), Monday, 17 May 2010 20:08 (twelve years ago) link
I'm designing myself a POD edition. Too 'good' not to have a physical copy.
http://static.lulu.com/product/item/a-romance-of-the-sea-serpent-or-the-icthyosaurus-%5Ba-whisky-priest-book%5D/10994552/thumbnail/320
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Tuesday, 18 May 2010 00:05 (twelve years ago) link
one grand hooded phantom
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 24 January 2020 21:27 (two years ago) link
I just read this (for the first time) a couple years ago and I might already want to read it again
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Friday, 24 January 2020 21:29 (two years ago) link
https://miro.medium.com/max/1600/1*YRmtU6nrcbETqAhsOz1Aag.jpeg
whales... are fish
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 24 January 2020 21:31 (two years ago) link
reading the chapter called "the cassock" for the first time and just never stopping saying WTF ever since
― mark s, Friday, 24 January 2020 21:35 (two years ago) link
Yeah yeah, I think the fact that so much of the ~whale science~ is wrong and/or presumptive is a large part of what makes those sections interesting. Deepens the sense of UNKNOWABLE that permeates the book. Also it’s just kinda neat.
― circa1916, Friday, 24 January 2020 21:39 (two years ago) link
post-mortemizing
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Friday, 24 January 2020 21:48 (two years ago) link
otm all around, i loved the whale facts chapters (whiteness of the whale otoh...), especially the part where he bids adieu to the sulphur bottom whale lol
― culture of mayordom (voodoo chili), Friday, 24 January 2020 22:02 (two years ago) link
Read it for a third time last year, the only book I’ve re-read in 20 or more years, gets more fun every time. The wrong science in the whale chapters never bothers me bc it always just ends up being in the service of teeing up some philosophical point in the last couple paragraphs anyhow, it’s never about actually teaching u about whales.
― warn me about a lurking rake (One Eye Open), Friday, 24 January 2020 23:42 (two years ago) link
It was a good companion getting me through the dark weeks after USA Election Day 2016, I picked it up the morning after, thought it might be good to get a refresher on how to exist in a world filled with random disasters & unknowable evils
― warn me about a lurking rake (One Eye Open), Friday, 24 January 2020 23:49 (two years ago) link
this time of year I always think about the passage early in the book where he talks about the special joy of looking out at cold winter night from a warm cozy indoor perch: it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides... What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.
Also the part slightly later where he talks about how you cant fully enjoy being under a warm blanket in a cold room unless some part of you is sticking out to feel the cold & remind you how good you have it.
― warn me about a lurking rake (One Eye Open), Friday, 24 January 2020 23:56 (two years ago) link
Love the whole book, but I miss Ishmael’s narration/asides when the book becomes more plot/Ahab/Starbuck focused towards the end.
― culture of mayordom (voodoo chili), Saturday, 25 January 2020 00:17 (two years ago) link
i listened to e1 of talia levin's BIG MOBY DICK ENERGY podcast on stitcher: my conclusion is that the title and music have already palled but the discussion is engaging enough, bcz very enthusiastic (1st guest = ex-deadspin writer david roth) if not particularly deep so far*
*(viz they were both oddly stumped by what happens in the tale of lazarus and dives, possibly partly bcz this was a call forward to the next chapter which they hadn't reread with a view to discussing it, but still decided to discuss it anyway lol) (i mean i get not knowing much abt the new testament if you didn't grew up with it as an adjunct in yr education but it is probably going to be kind of an important element?)
― mark s, Saturday, 25 January 2020 15:42 (two years ago) link
anyway:
let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness— Moby Dick (@MobyDickatSea) January 25, 2020
― mark s, Saturday, 25 January 2020 15:52 (two years ago) link
I found critical biography among the most illuminating I've read about any novelist/poet in recent years.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:05 (two years ago) link
Is Ishmael a reference beyond the name? Not very familiar with lesser biblical figures.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:14 (two years ago) link
He was Abraham's son with his wife's handmaid Hagar.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:18 (two years ago) link
Ishmael was the child of Abraham and his wife’s servant Hagar, who was cast out from the family after Abraham and Sarah’s son Isaac was born. God promised to make Ishmael a great nation as well, separate from the line of Abraham that became the tribes of the Hebrews. So Ishmael might be a name implying wanderings, being an outsider, heterodoxy…
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:18 (two years ago) link
patriach of Islam too
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:19 (two years ago) link
There is a big picture of Melville in the cafe at the South Street Seaport location of McNally-Jackson bookstore which is quite appropriate.
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:33 (two years ago) link
It has that quality of the eyes seeming to follow you about, like the portrait or a certain patriarch of the family Flintstone.
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:38 (two years ago) link
god this is the best book ever. the way the "whale facts" chapters either explained things that had just happened or foreshadowed things to come was intoxicating, i always felt i was like running through these alleyways of lowkey narrative that inextricably bound the "actual" narrative
― american bradass (BradNelson), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:42 (two years ago) link
i have a moby-dick tattoo that i'm not embarrassed about, that is how much i love it
― american bradass (BradNelson), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:44 (two years ago) link
Sick
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:45 (two years ago) link
I found Melville's poems harder going than Moby-Dick.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:47 (two years ago) link
I tried to read Confidence Man, wasn't happening
― I have not yet begun to fart (rip van wanko), Saturday, 25 January 2020 16:59 (two years ago) link
that's my least favorite of the novels I've read
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 January 2020 17:04 (two years ago) link
god this is the best book ever
literally true
i only know about lazarus+dives because they're a recurring symbol in MLK sermons
― difficult listening hour, Saturday, 25 January 2020 18:27 (two years ago) link
I started trying to read Confidence Man cos Nick Cave was said to be a fan. Think I got a couple of chapters in. Must give it another go. This 30+years later.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 25 January 2020 18:29 (two years ago) link
i picked his book of civil war poems recently and it was really a chore, tough going indeed
― warn me about a lurking rake (One Eye Open), Saturday, 25 January 2020 19:36 (two years ago) link
christ, this revive scared me, i thought maybe melville had died or something
― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy), Saturday, 25 January 2020 22:31 (two years ago) link
No, but 🚨 SPOILER/TRIGGER ALERT 🚨 I believe Billy Budd, Sailor is now in the public domain.
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 26 January 2020 01:07 (two years ago) link
Confidence Man is great, you guys mad.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Sunday, 26 January 2020 01:14 (two years ago) link
It was a popular choice when I was in high school, don’t know if that’s a relevant data point.
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 26 January 2020 01:18 (two years ago) link
Confidence is really good. Better than his poems, surely.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 26 January 2020 11:12 (two years ago) link
Alfred not liking Confidence Man, liking Ad Astra, world is mad.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 08:37 (two years ago) link
my curvy cetacean wife
This excerpt from a rejection letter to Melville re Moby Dick is just amazing.the more things change... pic.twitter.com/dRaelwdlaG— Andrey (@andreyp_ap) January 21, 2021
― mookieproof, Friday, 22 January 2021 20:07 (one year ago) link
i have a bookclub w my friend & we are currently reading “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”. i had never read Verne til now & i think i may actively hate him. wtf at this goddamn book. but, my point is thus:i pitched to my friend that we absolutely HAVE to read Moby Dick next bc Melville is such an excellent & enjoyable writer (imo)& she agreeeeeeeeeeed ~snoopy dance~ i have 7 chapters left of Verne & at this point i dont care if the “mystery” of Nemo is that he sneaks onto land at night to steal children to power the submarine with human babies i really fucking hate it & cannot WAIT to read Moby Dick again. it’s been at least 25 years since i read it for American Lit class at Uni
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 June 2021 01:00 (ten months ago) link
Oh man you’re going to have so much fun. It holds up like crazy
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 22 June 2021 02:26 (ten months ago) link
🐳🐳🐳🐳🐳
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 June 2021 02:31 (ten months ago) link
oddly enough there is an old ray bradbury essay where he compares ahab and nemo, tho not to any particular purpose that i can recall beyond “they’re both captains.”
i like verne actually, at least his best work, but i remember 20,000 leagues being a bit of a slog. he is certainly a strange writer and “wtf” is a reasonable response. he’s most enjoyable when he’s writing about something completely mad — tunneling to the center of the earth, traveling round the solar system on the back of a comet. but moby dick is so good and so unique that it’s hard to compare anything else to it.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 22 June 2021 17:58 (ten months ago) link
yeah 20,000 leagues feels more like a vehicle for verne to show off about fish taxonomy & the inner workings of an electric submarine (while characters consume as much exotic marine life as possible). definitely light on the adventure that its reputation seemed to promise. i read in that 2019 new yorker article about melville that Moby Dick was inspired by his reading Mary Shelleys “Frankenstein” for the first time while traveling to Englandi’d never heard that before! which makes me like it more
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 June 2021 18:18 (ten months ago) link
i have just started reading moby dick for the first time! No spoilers!
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 12:59 (ten months ago) link
Moby Dick is a whale.
― Van Halen dot Senate dot flashlight (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 13:30 (ten months ago) link
also a fish
― mark s, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 13:32 (ten months ago) link
when i was small and my dad read me some (i guess very abridged/adapted) children's version of 2000 leagues i heard the name of nemo's sub as "the naughtiness"
this is the only thing i remember tbh (and it's wrong)
Moby Dick is people!
― Rich Valley Girl, Poor Valley Girl (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 13:33 (ten months ago) link
Sorry
*disappointedly flings book across the room*
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 13:33 (ten months ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/science/math-gresham-sarah-hart.html
― Rich Valley Girl, Poor Valley Girl (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 14:05 (ten months ago) link
Moby Dick Restaurant; Northern Mariana Islands, Garapan Saipan PMB658 BOX10000 https://t.co/SWcke0ABbC pic.twitter.com/BWqf8A6BrI— Random Restaurant (@_restaurant_bot) November 21, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 21 November 2021 19:19 (five months ago) link