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I'm generally like that with Russian lit, but this was a bit next level.
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# ? Dec 26, 2019 14:49 |
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# ? Dec 7, 2024 05:18 |
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IMO it's fine to want to understand the references and a nice copy like the penguin classics one has annotations for the big ones which are good and unobtrusive. It's just bizarre to think of it as 30% story and 70% encyclopedia. A lot of people read Moby Dick thinking it'll just be a rip roaring tale when it's a rumination on everything in life. There's definitely some small parts where he does seem to be just talking about whaling but that adds to the grand sum, most of hich is wonderful prose about human life. That's what's most baffling about op's take not the references or whatever. How you can think the majority of the book is just an encyclopedia is impossible for me to understand.
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# ? Dec 26, 2019 19:20 |
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let's all post some of our favourite passages Big Man Herm posted:[...] but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Wickliff's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.
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# ? Dec 26, 2019 19:23 |
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Don't have time to dig it up right now, but the the Lee Shore and the chapter on the Blacksmith's skin are my faves.
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# ? Dec 26, 2019 20:55 |
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From Chapter 87: The Grand Armada. I had to stop myself from reposting the entire chapterquote:It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale’s way greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.
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# ? Dec 26, 2019 22:01 |
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I still haven't got too far yet but "The Prophet" might be my favourite chapter so far. I just love Ishmael's exasperation at Elijah to stop ominously foreshadowing at him so much and get to the point, man! quote:“My friend,” said I, “what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don’t know, and I don’t much care; for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of his leg.”
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# ? Dec 26, 2019 22:58 |
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EmmyOk posted:let's all post some of our favourite passages Wow... It's a big loving book and somehow you picked my favorite passage. We are Dick Bros now
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# ? Dec 27, 2019 02:20 |
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Kangxi posted:From Chapter 87: The Grand Armada. I had to stop myself from reposting the entire chapter Yesssss best overall chapter imo. We are Dick Bros now.
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# ? Dec 27, 2019 02:21 |
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Chapter 41: quote:Winding far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here stand—however grand and wonderful, now quit it;—and take your way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath the fantastic towers of man’s upper earth, his root of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come. Melville's use of iambic rhythm is so good. Here's two iambic heptameters So with a broken throne, the great gods mock that captive king... and from your grim sire only will the old State secret come.
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# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:09 |
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so are we gonna have a botm poll for january, orrrr....
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# ? Dec 30, 2019 18:52 |
ulvir posted:so are we gonna have a botm poll for january, orrrr.... A quick poll will go up tonight. I've been knocked flat for the past few days by a fever.
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# ? Dec 30, 2019 20:42 |
https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1211808697057529863?s=20
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# ? Dec 31, 2019 00:38 |
Slowly working my way through the book--I really love it, but am doing a million other things too. The first scenes on the Pequod are amazing. From the baleen hut to the skin flint negotiations with Ishmael to the introduction of Queequeg to Captains Peleg and Bildad when Peleg throws all the money at him, LMAO And the strangeness of the Ramadan scene. I also now want chowder.
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# ? Jan 1, 2020 00:19 |
Continuing to live blog my slow read through...just finished with the cetology chapter. It's always interesting to me who works in the area to read how pre evolutionary classifications were done. Even post Darwin, shaking the essentialism of classification took until the 70s and 80s of last century. As a utilitarian thing though what Ishmael presents is pretty helpful for what will come no doubt.
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# ? Jan 6, 2020 04:39 |
The Whiteness of the Whale is amazing
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# ? Jan 28, 2020 03:38 |
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Bilirubin posted:The Whiteness of the Whale is amazing i've tried to write "on the Xness of the X" allusions in stuff I've written for like the past decade and always had editors cut it at the last minute, alas Tree Goat fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jan 28, 2020 |
# ? Jan 28, 2020 06:19 |
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Tree Goat posted:i've tried to write "on the Xness of the X" allusions in stuff I've written for like the past decade and always had editors cut it at the last minute, alas the whaleness of the whale
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# ? Jan 28, 2020 11:11 |
very whale
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# ? Jan 28, 2020 15:51 |
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CestMoi posted:the whaleness of the whale i swear it was X and Y in my head
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# ? Jan 28, 2020 16:27 |
But anyway I love how Melville dissects the mystique about the symbolism of "white" in building up Ishmael's reaction to the whale, and by extension the rest of the crew's feelings about the whale. The whale don't care though, and I really hope Melville doesn't anthropomorphize it at the end (I believe he does not), which would set up a great counterpoint between nature and man's reaction to nature. Which, again, I think this does. I cannot believe this was written in the mid 19th century, and that I have somehow never read it myself. Its really good.
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# ? Jan 29, 2020 05:23 |
https://twitter.com/cinemashoebox/status/1226905836645179395?s=20
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# ? Feb 11, 2020 00:31 |
The Story of Town-Ho Excellent mutiny tale. Makes me wonder how often mutinies took place back then
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# ? Feb 17, 2020 22:58 |
Nearly done, finally. Holy hell is it ramping up to biblically apocalyptic. The Candles was amazing and to follow up with the Compass. Poor Starbuck He knew, he saw
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# ? Mar 27, 2020 05:01 |
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Any good articles/essays/videos on Moby Dick?
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# ? Mar 27, 2020 19:53 |
That ending. OMG. Also recalling back to the end of V. Thanks for making this the BotM, always meant to read this and this was the impetus I needed!
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# ? Mar 28, 2020 22:26 |
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I thought V. borrowed a lot from Moby Dick; Stencil, obviously, and the beginning of V. reminds me of the beginning of Moby Dick.
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# ? Mar 29, 2020 11:32 |
Yeah I would have missed all of that not having read Moby Dick when we did our read of V. I mean I knew generally that Abab was an embodiment of human obsession for revenge but not any specifics. I still can't believe it's taking this long to get around to reading it. poo poo's really good.
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# ? Mar 29, 2020 15:48 |
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When I was young I fantasized about remaking John Huston's film version of Moby Dick. Updated music, perfectly cast new actors, believably monstrous whale, that sort of thing. This project was, only to a small extent, my personal white whale, for a while. I never pursued it. I didn't get sucked in like Starbuck did. Every now and then I read an article about how scientists have discovered a sea creature, a blind Greenland shark or some other thing, that has been verified to be hundreds of years old. And it makes me wonder if the furious toothed whale that struck and sunk the Essex, with his crooked jaw and his wrinkled brow, might still be alive, swimming all seven seas. If you haven't, for some God-forsaken reason, watched the 1950's Moby Dick movie, fix that immediately, shipmate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5r3g5zhKIM
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# ? May 21, 2020 03:07 |
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There's only one Moby Dick film that I can recommend: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick_(2010_film)
Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jun 30, 2020 |
# ? May 21, 2020 14:25 |
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Safety Biscuits posted:There's only one Moby Dick film that I can recommend: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick_(2010_film) I honestly loved this. Unironically. Barry Bostwick is a great Ahab. Loved the whole updated nuclear submarine thing. This year I read Ahab's Return by Jeffrey Ford, which reimagines the ending and Ahab survives, and it turns out Ishmael was just mistaken. Ahab returns to New York to save his son from gang life. It's fun. Not as good as I had hoped, but still fun and quick little romp. Somebody fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jun 30, 2020 |
# ? May 23, 2020 00:07 |
http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/tom-bissell-unflowered-aloes
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# ? Jun 28, 2020 21:28 |
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# ? Dec 7, 2024 05:18 |
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If you liked that, this review (well, it's more of an essay) starts off by touching on a similar topic: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/on-samuel-delanys-dark-reflections
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# ? Jun 30, 2020 03:49 |