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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
Que livro! E assim começo essa pequena resenha, do que deveria ser sua conclusão.
Moby Dick é um romance que trata da pesca baleeira. Mais do que isso, é também um romance que trata da busca do homem (ser humano) em controlar a natureza, sua forças, crendo-se ungido, "homo deus", acima do bem e do mal, como em seu personagem Ahab, o capitão do Pequod, faustiano até o tutano.
É também um livro-ensaio, pois Melville praticamente nos introduz ao mundo da pesca beleeira, escrevendo não apenas sobre os cetáceos, sua pesca, como o tratamento que os produtos de seus imensos corpos, especialmente o espermacete das cachalotes, é conduzido, as diversas partes de um navio pesqueiro, etc.
Romance ou ensaio, a escrita de Herman Melville seduz, canta, é poética, seja na voz de Ishmael, ou do narrador oculto, pois ambos conduzem a narração dessa obra prima.
Que livro!
Moby Dick é um romance que trata da pesca baleeira. Mais do que isso, é também um romance que trata da busca do homem (ser humano) em controlar a natureza, sua forças, crendo-se ungido, "homo deus", acima do bem e do mal, como em seu personagem Ahab, o capitão do Pequod, faustiano até o tutano.
É também um livro-ensaio, pois Melville praticamente nos introduz ao mundo da pesca beleeira, escrevendo não apenas sobre os cetáceos, sua pesca, como o tratamento que os produtos de seus imensos corpos, especialmente o espermacete das cachalotes, é conduzido, as diversas partes de um navio pesqueiro, etc.
Romance ou ensaio, a escrita de Herman Melville seduz, canta, é poética, seja na voz de Ishmael, ou do narrador oculto, pois ambos conduzem a narração dessa obra prima.
Que livro!
I am struck by the brilliance of this novel. Far more postmodern than could have been expected. The structure, the playfulness, the prose, the poetry, the anxiety, and the obsession. A far easier read than I thought it would be; the “boring” chapters even have such wonderful moments. I will not forget this journey and will likely want to get aboard soon.
“Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried” (697)
“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” (655)
“Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried” (697)
“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” (655)
I HATE Captain Ahab with every fiber in my being. That's it. That's the review.
reflective
slow-paced
Read this in high school and appreciated but didn't love it. Had an amazing professor in college who taught this in an American Lit class I took, and it quickly became one of my all time favorites. I recently corresponded with this professor, and we got to talking about Moby Dick. Because of that conversation, I got a hankering to read it again. I am liking it just as much as I did 16 years ago.
adventurous
challenging
funny
slow-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Before you read another book (or finish the one you're reading); before you see another movie; before you contemplate any work of art; before you read a review of a book or a movie or a work of art; get thee to the nearest bookstore or library or ereader or google books page, or wherever you prefer to look at books, and find Moby-Dick [1]. Turn to Chapter 83, Jonah Historically Regarded, one of the many short, stand-alone chapters that are simply Melville going off on certain, shall we say, "ways of thinking".
The power of literature does not come from rational truth ("these foolish arguments...only evinced his foolish pride of reason" 355), but from the truth that is The Story (a magical mystical thing that is not separate from Life itself, as we shall see). In other words, it's useless to apply so-called facts to a story. The Story is the Facts. [2]
I first read Moby-Dick ten years ago, and was wowed by it. I later wrote here (but some years after first reading it) only a few words: "What's there to say? This is not just about a Whale, but about Life. A seamless blend of adventure, philosophy and documentary. One of the best books EVER." What's there to say after this fresh reading? I can only humbly try to get down all my scattered thoughts on this whale of a book.
And that's exactly what it is ("To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." 440 [3]) And how so American that is, which this book is through-and-through, from its "mighty theme" to its anti-philosophy to its wacky religiosity, to its confident yet contradictory proclamations (not to mention a throw-away scene just to make fun of the French (chapter 91)).
Of which, the anti-philosophy, I hadn't noticed on the first read. At every chance he gets, Melville zings philosophy. Too much thinking, not enough doing. [4]
As with all great books, we can read Moby-Dick on many levels: man vs. nature, man vs. fate, man vs. his own stupidity, etc. But let's look at fate because fate is huge in this book. Fate is what drives it, it swims in fate. ("...we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike." Ahab 522)
But Fate isn't some invisible outside force that treats us as playthings. Think of when we read (or listen to) a story (any story); there are certain signs, portents, foreshadowings, of what's to come (Moby-Dick is of course full of these -- it's practically an entire web of signs portents and foreshadowings that lead us to the only final central destiny possible [5]); or else events and scenes that "represent" the character of a character, or the character of the story itself.
But -- and here's the crux of it -- these are not Literary conceits. That's how Life is. Literature is like that because Life is like that. The same mystical magic that makes life flow, is the same mystical magic that makes literature flow (and life came first, naturally).
The world shows us signs so that we may know our Fate, and whether or not we can read those signs (mostly we can't or refuse to), we become active participants in the story that is our destiny (in a way, we know it, we sense it). [6]
[1] see my review of Pirandello's Il fu Mattia Pascal
[2] "Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko...It is not down in any map; true places never are." (53)
"So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby-Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory." (198)
[3] Melville continues with his typical confident and outsized exaggeration: "No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it."
(I say Melville even though technically it's Ishmael narrating. But this book is so essay-like in many ways, that I read Ishmael as Melville.)
[4] "So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have 'broken his digester'" (49) (that's also one of the many hilarious lines in this book).
"So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you will float light and right." (318)
"How many...have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?" (334)
"Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage -- and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!" (414) This is Melville (thru Ishmael) pretty much saying, "screw philosophy and wise men, get down into the dirt and the nitty-gritty, the nitty-gritty I'm schooling you with right now."
[5] sometimes not so much led, but explicitly told. For example in chapter 103, after describing how part of a whale's spine is even used to make little marbles that children play with, Ishmael concludes, "Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play."
Did he really need to spell it out? But that's Ishmael/Melville, he can't help being poetic, even when it's obvious.
[6] "...it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates." (207)
"But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm." (473)
The power of literature does not come from rational truth ("these foolish arguments...only evinced his foolish pride of reason" 355), but from the truth that is The Story (a magical mystical thing that is not separate from Life itself, as we shall see). In other words, it's useless to apply so-called facts to a story. The Story is the Facts. [2]
I first read Moby-Dick ten years ago, and was wowed by it. I later wrote here (but some years after first reading it) only a few words: "What's there to say? This is not just about a Whale, but about Life. A seamless blend of adventure, philosophy and documentary. One of the best books EVER." What's there to say after this fresh reading? I can only humbly try to get down all my scattered thoughts on this whale of a book.
And that's exactly what it is ("To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." 440 [3]) And how so American that is, which this book is through-and-through, from its "mighty theme" to its anti-philosophy to its wacky religiosity, to its confident yet contradictory proclamations (not to mention a throw-away scene just to make fun of the French (chapter 91)).
Of which, the anti-philosophy, I hadn't noticed on the first read. At every chance he gets, Melville zings philosophy. Too much thinking, not enough doing. [4]
As with all great books, we can read Moby-Dick on many levels: man vs. nature, man vs. fate, man vs. his own stupidity, etc. But let's look at fate because fate is huge in this book. Fate is what drives it, it swims in fate. ("...we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike." Ahab 522)
But Fate isn't some invisible outside force that treats us as playthings. Think of when we read (or listen to) a story (any story); there are certain signs, portents, foreshadowings, of what's to come (Moby-Dick is of course full of these -- it's practically an entire web of signs portents and foreshadowings that lead us to the only final central destiny possible [5]); or else events and scenes that "represent" the character of a character, or the character of the story itself.
But -- and here's the crux of it -- these are not Literary conceits. That's how Life is. Literature is like that because Life is like that. The same mystical magic that makes life flow, is the same mystical magic that makes literature flow (and life came first, naturally).
The world shows us signs so that we may know our Fate, and whether or not we can read those signs (mostly we can't or refuse to), we become active participants in the story that is our destiny (in a way, we know it, we sense it). [6]
[1] see my review of Pirandello's Il fu Mattia Pascal
[2] "Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko...It is not down in any map; true places never are." (53)
"So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby-Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory." (198)
[3] Melville continues with his typical confident and outsized exaggeration: "No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it."
(I say Melville even though technically it's Ishmael narrating. But this book is so essay-like in many ways, that I read Ishmael as Melville.)
[4] "So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have 'broken his digester'" (49) (that's also one of the many hilarious lines in this book).
"So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you will float light and right." (318)
"How many...have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?" (334)
"Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage -- and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!" (414) This is Melville (thru Ishmael) pretty much saying, "screw philosophy and wise men, get down into the dirt and the nitty-gritty, the nitty-gritty I'm schooling you with right now."
[5] sometimes not so much led, but explicitly told. For example in chapter 103, after describing how part of a whale's spine is even used to make little marbles that children play with, Ishmael concludes, "Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play."
Did he really need to spell it out? But that's Ishmael/Melville, he can't help being poetic, even when it's obvious.
[6] "...it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates." (207)
"But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm." (473)
-less boring than I expected. Steven Kidd's favorite book, he told me that Melville got paid by the word, hence the rambling and ceteology sections. But not immediately falling asleep as Jeff Smith would have me believe.