I've read a good chunk of Melville, and Billy Budd is the one thing I really disliked. Typee and the other Polynesian novels are fun, but nothing like Moby Dick, which is why his audience was more than a little miffed by Moby Dick. They were expecting more fun with native girls and got a grand, overwhelming, psychedelic mass of words carried on a sea of whale blubber.
("My Kinsman, Major Molineux" is by Melville's very good friend, Nathanial Hawthorne. They'd both be flattered by the confusion.)
The only Melville I liked was Bartleby the Scrivener.
t /Melville heretic
Standing with AmyLiz's heretic corner.
FWIW, I've read
Moby Dick
too. I recall enjoying it, but couldn't say much more than that. I've also read 100 Years of Solitude, and loved it. One of my favourite books.
I've thought about reading it, but in the end I didn't have the nerve. After the book is over, maybe.
FWIW, I've read Moby Dick too. I recall enjoying it, but couldn't say much more than that. I've also read 100 Years of Solitude, and loved it. One of my favourite books.
Heh. I'm the un-bt. Greatly enjoyed
100 Years...
but remember little of it other than a general lucid-dream kind of atmosphere.
Moby Dick,
though, is vividly lovable to me in exactly the way -t describes: I read it in high school because it was on a list of stuff we were supposed to have read by the time we graduated, picked it up dreading it, and found myself frequently weeping with laughter and wondering who the assholes were who'd covered it with Important Literature warnings and spoiled it for everyone else.
Of course, I also loved
Tom Jones
(and a novel by Fielding's lesser-known but apparently equally snarkful and sex-comic sister is presently near the top of my to be read list) and
Tristram Shandy
and have adored the bits and pieces of
Ulysses
I've nibbled at, so my taste is clearly antiquarian, eccentric and likely suspect in the extreme.
Joe, that was a splendid recommendation for Moby-Dick; it made me want to try reading the book.
Speaking of
Tristram Shandy,
have you read the comic version yet? How is it?
