A very engaging mortician (Ask a Mortician) talks about how the real-life events on which the novel "Moby Dick" was based were so much more disturbing than the book ... https://youtu.be/QS299VkXZxI .
Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
71–80 of 93 posts
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#72“To convey an adequate idea of a book of such various merits as that which the author of Typee and Omoo has here placed before the reading public, is impossible in the scope of a review. High philosophy, liberal feeling, abstruse metaphysics popularly phrased, soaring speculation, a style as many-coloured as the theme, yet always good, and often admirable; fertile fancy, ingenious construction, playful learning, and…
I am also reading it for the first time right now. I am absolutely blown away by it. It has an energy to it that is difficult to convey, as if it was written by a mad man all in one sitting. There are sentences or paragraphs that go on and and on I find myself thinking "Ok Melville went a little too far here" and then, by golly, he brings it all together in a flourish. The language is simultaneously as descriptive as…
McCarthy lists Moby-Dick as his favorite book [1]. The otherwise-impenetrable sentence "The Dipper stove." from the first page of Blood Meridian will be immediately understandable to anyone familiar with early 19th century whaling expeditions.
[1] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/s...
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#73If anyone’s looking for a nice and libre ebook of Moby Dick , I produced one for Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/herman-melville/moby-dick I also put together a collection of Melville’s short fiction, which includes “Bartleby”: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/herman-melville/short-fict...
Going through the Moby Dick one right now, and I must say it's a great edition. Thank you and the other Standard Ebooks contributors!
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#74My review: A brilliant book, possibly my favourite of all the books I have read, which is a lot, and certainly one that I have enjoyed re-reading time and again. Tragic that it wasn't more widely appreciated in Melville's lifetime. A must read.
Yes, it is if every sentence in it is a thoughtfully crafted poetic fragment. And many of the chapters essentially nonfiction, a sort of encyclopaedia of Whales and Whaling. "Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle t…
I must be stupid because I read that line you quoted and I have no idea what it means. If I need to study and deliberately parse every sentence, and think about archaic idioms or word meanings, it's just too much effort. Give me a Tom Clancy or John Gresham novel.
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#75I'm a non native english speaker trying to read this book, sort of gave it up around (i think) half to read other books in the waiting list. Most of the interludes are not that engaging to me (whale classification chapter comes to mind), which is a pity since I enjoyed the actual narrative.
> Most of the interludes are not that engaging to me (whale classification chapter comes to mind),
FWIW, that is the experience of many English speakers; it's a feature, not a bug, so to speak.
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am also reading it for the first time right now. I am absolutely blown away by it. It has an energy to it that is difficult to convey, as if it was written by a mad man all in one sitting. There are sentences or paragraphs that go on and and on I find myself thinking "Ok Melville went a little too far here" and then, by golly, he brings it all together in a flourish. The language is simultaneously as descriptive as…
McCarthy lists Moby-Dick as his favorite book [1]. The otherwise-impenetrable sentence "The Dipper stove." from the first page of Blood Meridian will be immediately understandable to anyone familiar with early 19th century whaling expeditions. [1] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/s...
I don't know what Melville thought of Shakespeare, but we can trace a stylistic line through Meridian, Moby Dick, Macbeth.
All three have a mad project of egotistic ambition, sooth-sayers of doom, and great helpings of gore along the way to the catastrophe foretold. Sooth-sayers are of course, always correct, whether they appear as a trio of witches, world-weary Parsee, or a decrepit "disordered Mennonite".
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet, this book, along with The Count of Monte Cristo, Grapes of Wrath, and quite a number of other tomes are assigned in high schools by teachers/school districts. Those educators think they are providing some kind of service by trying to force feed young people books that cannot really be understood in a meaningful way by the vast majority of people with ~15 years of life. It wasn't until a decade after college…
> HS literature cirriculum having zero relatability to students so they're unable to comprehend why the books are "great" I've called it "an overdose of Dead Poet's Society" before. Shakespeare plays, Steinbeck, Moby-Dick: they'll all make the majority of the class tune out if they're presented as a treatise on the human condition. Shakespeare is meant to be performed on a stage, not read from a book. Discuss his cod…
You're lumping in Steinbeck with Shakespeare and Moby-Dick? His topics are much more relevant to what is going on for many students today and the language is much less dated.
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#78“To convey an adequate idea of a book of such various merits as that which the author of Typee and Omoo has here placed before the reading public, is impossible in the scope of a review. High philosophy, liberal feeling, abstruse metaphysics popularly phrased, soaring speculation, a style as many-coloured as the theme, yet always good, and often admirable; fertile fancy, ingenious construction, playful learning, and…
This review is a fantastic reproduction of Melville's style in Moby-Dick. It must have been intentional, and tongue-in-cheek!
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#79Recently ran across this interesting guide to Moby-Dick: "The 100 Chapters of Moby Dick You Can Skip - And why you won’t want to" https://baos.pub/the-100-chapters-of-moby-dick-you-can-skip-... The point is that while most of the book is incredibly boring, that's a feature and not a bug.
Time aboard a square-rigger is days of near idleness punctuated by a few hours of sheer panic.
Holystone the decks!
Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am also reading it for the first time right now. I am absolutely blown away by it. It has an energy to it that is difficult to convey, as if it was written by a mad man all in one sitting. There are sentences or paragraphs that go on and and on I find myself thinking "Ok Melville went a little too far here" and then, by golly, he brings it all together in a flourish. The language is simultaneously as descriptive as…
McCarthy lists Moby-Dick as his favorite book [1]. The otherwise-impenetrable sentence "The Dipper stove." from the first page of Blood Meridian will be immediately understandable to anyone familiar with early 19th century whaling expeditions. [1] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/s...
“otherwise-impenetrable” is a great way of characterizing McCarthy and Melville. Often I am left mystified at what I just read, but have sensed something of great weight and gravity…I suppose that’s life, eh?