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MOBY_DICK
May 3, 2019
There's an old joke, I don't remember from where,
First guy: So, did you read "Hamlet"?
Second guy: Yeah, I did. I didn't like it.
First guy: Well, you're wrong!
This is a joke so un-funny I might've come up with it,
but it was actually from someone else, and I think
the syndrome is all too familiar.
Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851) strikes me as a pretty
terrible book, and actually it strikes a fair number I'm not a big fan
of people as a terrible book (though admittedly, for of Twain's
different reasons), and in point of fact no one "Huckleberry Finn"
really liked this book when it was first published-- but at least people
if you see someone rhapsodizing about what this great liked his stuff.
American classic tells you about the American spirit,
the right answer would be not too much, since no one HAWKING_FINN
cared about it-- it was canonized much later.
As wikipedia has it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick
"Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was
a commercial failure, and was out of print at
the time of the author's death in 1891. Its
reputation as a 'Great American Novel' was
established only in the 20th century, after the
centennial of its author's birth."
This wikipedia page doesn't at present contain much
detail about who anointed Moby-Dick in the 20th
century. It does mention E.M. Forster as an early
enthusiast, quoting some comments from 1927.
So: Dashiell Hammett was already
publishing before Moby Dick became Hammett's "Red Harvest" was
one a them Great American Novels. published in 1929, incorporating
stories published as early as
1927. The Continental Op had
been introduced in "The Black
Mask" in 1923.
I've written about Moby Dick a number of times,
but somehow it's never made it to these pages.
The points, in outline:
o when I read a great classic of American But then, my old
literature from before 1900 or so, I often rants on this point
feel like I'm looking at a dancing bear. are overstated:
o the material about the whaling industry ANTIAMERICAN
in Moby Dick stikes me as it's most
interesting aspect-- What about:
Edgar Allen Poe
Though other detractors of Moby Walt Whitman
Dick point to this as a problem.
o the second most interesting thing is the
homoerotic material, in particular the And this is something it
undercurrent of interacial homosexuality. has in common with another
Great American Novel,
"Huckleberry Finn", which
o it has some other oddities about it no does make one wonder.
one seems to mention, e.g. Chapter 40
is written in what appears to be musical
comedy format. A drag theater group could
do a good job with it, if they were up
for the butch costuming.
UNGAINLY_MESSES
o shorn of these oddities, what you have is a
heavy-handed religious parable, something
about contending with god (the great white
whale) and meeting your inevitable doom.
This strikes as so grossly
sophomoric it seems like a bad joke.
It's such an obviously weak
novel, I'm not sure why it auostrilover wrote: [link]
would have present-day
defenders, except that they've "Melville anticipated the
been told it's great, so they postmodern novel more than
need to contrive reasons. half a century before
modernism. Moby Dick was
just astoundingly ahead of
its time."
o The book was not well-recieved when Dude, try reading
first published, which undercuts the "Tristram Shandy".
usual defense of older works: "you
have to get into the mindset of the Before the modern era,
audience when it was first published". it wasn't that hard to
write "post-modern".
If you do that job
right, you'd have a And anticipating
better understanding of "post-modernism" (an
why this book flopped, intellectual pan-flash of
not why it should be the latter 20th) isn't
regarded as great now. anything to be proud of.
Fans of Moby Dick like to talk about how [link]
it's open to multiple intepretations, e.g.
eligodfrey defends Moby
Does the white whale represent: as existential realism:
(1) god "In fact it's a pretty
(2) evil straightforward musing
(3) nature A silly question, of on whaling, and by
(4) Hellman's course: we're talking extension America...
mayonnaise *American* symbolism. and humanity."
Nature is green, Evil
Or, my personal answer: is black, and God is Then you get the
white. Duh. "open to inter-
(5) what difference pretation" defense,
does it make? where the disparate
takes on why it's
good becomes
evidence of it's
goodness.
"Moby Dick" made no splash when first published,
but despite this it made it on the list of "books
that shaped America". The Associate Press tells
us this is because:
[link]
"Herman Melville's tale of the Great White Whale
and the crazed Captain Ahab who declares he will
chase him 'round perdition's flames before I give
him up' has become an American myth. Even people
who have never read Moby Dick know the basic plot,
and references to it are common in other works of
American literature and in popular culture, such
as the Star Trek film 'The Wrath of Khan' (1982)."
But has it ever been on "The Simpsons"?
American culture has shaped
And if Moby ever went up against the Moby myth much more than
King Kong, I know who'd win. vice versa.
In an interview in The Atlantic, David Gilbert
expresses his love for Moby Dick: [link]
"I know it makes no sense, or comes across as
pretentious nonsense, but so often when reading
this book I find myself on the verge of tears
and I have no idea why. A lost world perhaps? A
striving for connection? A certain secular
religiosity. No matter, the whales are doomed."
Ah Melville, ah humanity.
[link]
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