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Haven't seen this mentioned in the thread yet, but there's a project called Moby Dick Big Read - each chapter read aloud by a different person, each chapter illustrated by a different artist. And I can't second this enough - quote:I always compare it to reading The Koran, or The Bible,” he says. “All of the chapters are discrete as and of themselves, so you read them for their own little inherent, cohesive narratives.” Perhaps more shockingly to the ears of a Mobyphile, he goes on: “I don’t think it’s an issue if you don’t read the whole thing right the way through. People read in very different ways; why should I say what someone should do? I read it 20 years ago. Last year I picked it up again and read about a third of it. I'll go back to it this month, I think. It really is a lovely book. https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat/status/1028820035731517440?lang=en
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Dec 8, 2019 07:22
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I grabbed my copy off the shelf last night and opened it where I last left it a year ago, and I read Ch55, Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales, which, true to the book, is just Melville bitching that none can draw a whale for poo poo. quote:Look at that popular work "Goldsmith's Animated Nature". In the abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged "whale" and a "narwhale". I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the Narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys. It's actually a lovely little chapter, and covers the many mistakes made by artists trying to represent whales, but also why those mistakes were made. There is even a joke attributed to the second mate of the Pequod. Chapter gets 10/10, would read again.
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Dec 9, 2019 05:17
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Read Ch 57 last night, Melville's third (third!) consecutive cahpter about whales rendered in art, and it mentions scrimshaw.quote:Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in their hours of ocean leisure. And that reminded me that I've got some. I've got five small pieces that my wife bought at an auction years ago. No idea of how old they are, or whether they're modern, but I'm pretty sure they're not plastic.  
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Dec 10, 2019 06:59
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From Camus' Lyrical & Critical Essays,  
Somebody fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Dec 18, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 09:26
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