[PREV - MOBY_DICK]    [TOP]

RE_DICKED

                                             May     12, 2026
                                             October 18, 2026

                                               MOBY_DICK
I've argued that it doesn't really make
much sense to treat "Moby Dick" as
the Great American Novel... but you could
take it the other way:


"Moby Dick" is weirdly lumpy and unsure of itself,
it's struggling to figure out what kind of book it
is-- some of the best elements seem like they might
belong somewhere else, the over-all framework seems
pretentious and confused (is it an allegory, perhaps
a polemic?)  the messages people claim to find in it
don't seem that impressive (Don't mess with God?
Don't mess with Mother Nature?).

Isn't there some stronger ground to talk about obsession
and arrogance than this?

The oblivious nebbish of a view-point character blindly
following deranged leadership taking everyone into disaster...

Maybe this is really it, maybe this really
is the true American Novel...
                                                 Consider it as a flop
                                                 puffed up after the fact
                                                 with a pretentious con,
                                                 a grand masterpiece of
                                                 literary gaslighting...

                                                 Doesn't that sound like
                                                 the American Experience?

    No work is ever really perfect,
    and maybe it's not that unusual
    for what's bad about it to be
    what's good...

        Consider or re-consider
        Kerouac's "On the Road"
        in this light.




--------
[NEXT - RE_PSYCHED]