tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post2384255731283385768..comments2023-08-15T07:12:07.964-07:00Comments on Paulus Torchus: Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Part 3Paul Mathershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15951893912611871578noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-67021729825454504542010-10-07T13:17:11.897-07:002010-10-07T13:17:11.897-07:00Something I learned from Wikipedia was that the or...Something I learned from Wikipedia was that the original published version of M.D. overseas lacked the ending. Printer's error, if I'm remembering correctly.Tuirginhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05081067215683168015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-59587983753501895022010-10-07T04:37:58.229-07:002010-10-07T04:37:58.229-07:00What a strange concept! Imagining Moby-Dick as a ...What a strange concept! Imagining Moby-Dick as a sort of underground literature with a geeky few passing the torch for close to a century! The story behind this story keeps getting more and more interesting to me.<br /><br />Needless to say, I highly recommend Capote. He was one of those authors who had both natural genius and skilled self-discipline in his writing (although, by all accounts, almost no self-discipline left over for any other aspect of his life, including basic survival. Also, one of those authors whose biography is almost as captivating as their work.) I think you might enjoy Music for Chameleons quite a bit. Of course, for good reason, In Cold Blood is the traditional Capote diving board (unless you're one of the people to whom Breakfast At Tiffany's is the appropriate Capote diving board. Although, really, In Cold Blood is his high-water mark.)<br /><br />This page has some interesting early reviews of Moby-Dick, notably a few from Great Britain: http://www.melville.org/hmmoby.htm<br /><br />You know, I have a good friend in India who I will ask what he thinks about Melville.Paul Mathershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15951893912611871578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-68197199369498413182010-10-05T15:20:33.026-07:002010-10-05T15:20:33.026-07:00According to the Wikipedia entry, it lived on in t...According to the Wikipedia entry, it lived on in the underground, lively enough for it not to have fallen into oblivion by the 1920s.<br /><br />I haven't read Capote, though am interested -- especially after seeing the movie from a few years ago. I haven't read Steinbeck, and I've yet to really feel the urge. Not sure what it is -- the subject matter just hasn't ever appealed to me.<br /><br />Re: Moby Dick & patting our American backs, I wonder what it's status is outside of America. It was released in England at the same time as America, and I know that D.H. Lawrence approved of it even in the incomplete British version. Does it figure outside of English speaking countries?Tuirginhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05081067215683168015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-52100653577900386082010-10-05T12:27:29.437-07:002010-10-05T12:27:29.437-07:00So, I gather that Moby-Dick sat largely unread for...So, I gather that Moby-Dick sat largely unread for a good 60 years. That's interesting.<br /><br />Yes, it seems, in my experience, with both Auden and Eliot that no matter which country you attribute them to, someone objects. Or, at the very least, indulges their compulsion to point out the poet's association with the appropriate other country.<br /><br />In my opinion, America has produced a lot of great authors. Twain, Steinbeck, and Capote are my big three. I think each of them are as great of writers as have ever lived. I think America "gets" this with Twain at least. I imagine time passing will help the regard toward the other two. I've noticed the author is without honor in their hometown, at least while there are still people walking around who remember them behaving badly. No one walking the Earth today was once cussed out by Twain. There are people walking around who watched Capote pass out drunk onstage.<br /><br />As far as nationalism goes, I'm a little reluctant to delve into it myself. Mozart, for example (also a fine example of a nation eventually absolving the artist of all misbehavior in their personal life), does belong to humankind, but there is also a sense in which he "belongs" to Vienna. I'm assured by reportage that the place is positively dripping with plaques of places where Mozart did such and such. <br /><br />Also, Laurie and I have recently watched a series about the art at the Vatican which was beautiful, but it was also very clear of how proud Vatican City is of the art associated with it. Viewing Melville in light of this (and mind you I am not saying I believe this, I'm just expressing a thought) I almost wonder if the insistence on the greatness of Moby-Dick isn't, as it were, padding our résumé.Paul Mathershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15951893912611871578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-6755641758723375452010-10-04T05:16:06.613-07:002010-10-04T05:16:06.613-07:00The section on Wikipedia regarding the Melville Re...The section on Wikipedia regarding the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_dick#The_Melville_Revival" rel="nofollow">Melville Revival</a> around the 1920s is all I know about it. I have access to essays and whatnot from the criticism books Bloom edited and published through Chelsea House, but I've managed to keep from prying into them -- waiting to finish the book first. I haven't kept myself from Wikipedia, though I've stayed away from their plot synopsis.<br /><br />I have to say, I've not ever been particularly drawn to American writers. I developed an appreciation for Flannery O'Connor. I liked Edgar Allen Poe as a kid and young adult. But Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, and whomever else you wish to add to the list always left me cold. Dickinson and Whitman have an interest for me. Mark Twain. T.S. Eliot and Auden -- but Eliot left America for Great Britain and Auden left Great Britain for America. The one example of an American writer that I find very compelling is Cormac McCarthy. I've only ever read Blood Meridian, and I haven't finished it -- it got cut short as I started organizing this project. But I read enough to be convinced of its greatness.<br /><br />I'm suspicious that American Letters and I don't get along too well. Russian and British writers, specifically, European in general, are a different story... It'd be interesting to figure out why that is.<br /><br />Interestingly, the British writers I'm drawn to are less literary and more important for their Christianity: Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton. George MacDonald, too.<br /><br />Of course there's also Yeats who is one of my two favorite poets -- Osip Mandelshtam being the other. Yeats wasn't a Christian and Mandelshtam may possibly have possibly have been a Jewish convert to Russian Orthodoxy, but religion doesn't figure into his poetry much.Tuirginhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05081067215683168015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-22169423398705877422010-10-04T01:49:58.769-07:002010-10-04T01:49:58.769-07:00The link you've provided is excellent. I had ...The link you've provided is excellent. I had thought at some point that the highly informational sections of this book may be more tolerable, possibly creeping into fun, reading it after the advent of online information sources (I think the last time I read Moby-Dick was in the late 1990s.) This makes it even easier. Thanks for the tip.<br /><br />So, I'm just going to toss out this hypothesis and see what happens. America has produced some great art and certainly has promoted itself as a great society since its inception. But there are some fields, partially because of our youth and partially because of other social forces, where we have not seemed to have produced yet something on par with some of the great works to come from other, much older societies (France, England, Germany, Russia, Italy, etc.) <br /><br />Do you know anything about how Moby-Dick came into the public consciousness as a great work? <br /><br />Personally, I feel that Melville hits it out of the park every once in a while, but, to extend the metaphor, then there's the other five hours of the ball game to sit through.Paul Mathershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15951893912611871578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-14987317194327719302010-10-03T18:06:54.037-07:002010-10-03T18:06:54.037-07:00Having read Cetology today, I found it easiest to ...Having read Cetology today, I found it easiest to keep <a href="http://www.powermobydick.com/" rel="nofollow">Power Moby-Dick</a> open to the chapter and use their links to find pics and read more on the various whales.Tuirginhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05081067215683168015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-59277182563126093402010-10-03T08:58:42.014-07:002010-10-03T08:58:42.014-07:00At least we're not the only lit fans who are p...At least we're not the only lit fans who are put off by aspects of Moby Dick:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36898" rel="nofollow">Literature Network Forums : Moby Dick : Is This Truly One of the Great Works in English?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.dailylit.com/forums/book/moby-dick/2007/01/31/is-anyone-else-struggling-with-this" rel="nofollow">DailyLit Forums : Moby Dick : Is anyone else struggling with this?</a><br /><br />I'll also add in response to the comments describing Moby Dick as "experimental" that a finished novel (or movie or painting or whatever other piece of art) is to my mind a failure if it is left in an experimental state. And to back up my opinion, I offer Tarkovsky from <a href="http://goo.gl/THz1" rel="nofollow">Sculpting in Time</a>:<br /><br />"People tend to talk about experiment and search above all in relation to the <em>avant-garde</em>. But what does it mean? How can you experiment in art? Have a go and see how it turns out? But if it hasn't worked, then there's nothing to see except the private problem of the person who has failed. For the work of art carries within it an integral aesthetic and philosophical unity; it is an organism, living and developing according to its own laws. Can one talk of experiment in relation to the birth of a child? It is senseless and immoral.<br /><br />"Could it be that the people who started talking about <em>avant-garde</em> were those who were not capable of separating the wheat from the tares? Confused by the new aesthetic structures, lost in the face of the real discoveries and achievements, not capable of finding any criteria of their own, they included under the one head of <em>avant-garde</em> anything that was not familiar and easily understood -- just in case, in order not to be wrong? I like the story of Picasso, who when asked about his 'search' replied wittily and pertinently (clearly irritated by the question): 'I don't seek, I find.'"Tuirginhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05081067215683168015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7793841573292945810.post-23898074189275466972010-10-02T20:28:58.632-07:002010-10-02T20:28:58.632-07:00Before Chapter XL, we have to get through Chapter ...Before Chapter XL, we have to get through Chapter XXXII - Cetology, which begins the vomiting forth of whale facts.<br /><br />There are chapters in Moby Dick that advance the plot. Those are fine. There are chapters in Moby Dick that develop the metaphysical symbolism. Those are mostly okay. Then there are those chapters in Moby Dick which neither develop the plot, nor the symbolism, but seem to merely seem to speak to "one of the novels themes." Kind of like the discursive sections of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance without being as direct, or as interesting.<br /><br />I find myself very irritable with the book very often. I think Melville wanted so badly to <em>say</em> something that he sinned against his own story. I'm hoping that later on something clicks and I realize that all these extraneous bits suddenly fit into the novel as a whole and manage to win me over. I am skeptical, though. In the hands of my favorite Russians there is never any question that I'm reading something by someone who had mastered his art as much as anyone can be said to have done. In the hands of Chesterton, MacDonald, or C.S. Lewis, the story may not be the most sophisticated, and the telling of it may be uneven, but there is something crucial -- a thought, an awareness, even a sort of revelation of forsaken or forgotten truth. Banville's prose is sculpted and beautiful. Eco's questions and thought-life are admirably played out in skillful story-telling. Borges is peerless for the playfulness that is deadly serious, or is that the other way around? Everyone I love has some distinct genius that compensates for whatever other weaknesses that their writing betrays. I'm impatiently waiting to find Melville's genius -- or will I find that I side with those who reviewed the book prior to the 1920s? Melville commits the sin of alienating me from the story in almost the very next paragraph after I begin to take heart. He starts to build steam, then is off doing something else.<br /><br /><em>And we finally meet Ahab who comes out of his cabin and sees his shadow, which portends eight more weeks of winter.</em><br /><br />This had me chuckling to my nearly sleeping wife's annoyance.Tuirginhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05081067215683168015noreply@blogger.com