books you've had to stop reading

[Corpsey]

I think its revolutionary aspect probably can't be understood today, in the same way that, say, this painting no longer looks like something people would be outraged over



I read 'The Trial' when I was about 18 and it completely went over my head. Reread it for an MA and absolutely loved it. One thing I missed the first time was that its supposed to be funny. And it is. To me, anyway.

[rubberdingyrapids]

i think kafka if you read it as a teen and loved it you are probably aspirationally embittered.
when you read it in your 30s or thereabouts, you are likely to be more organically embittered.

[Lichen]

I've been reading Anna Karenina for over two years now. It's pretty readable but I'm struggling to care about the inner lives of over-privileged aristocrats.
Excellent on scything and snipe shooting though.

[Corpsey]

i think kafka if you read it as a teen and loved it you are probably aspirationally embittered.
when you read it in your 30s or thereabouts, you are likely to be more organically embittered.

When I read it as a yoot I knew of its popular reputation as being about totalitarianism, which of course it can be read as being, but at this stage in my life it seems to me more about the absurdity and horror of life itself. Actually when I read it during my MA I was near the bottom of my psychological chasm (i.e. I was depressed), I read it as being ABOUT depression. Certainly Kafka was a rather unhappy fellow, so perhaps it really is?

[Woebot]

Not to say we should revel in it ourselves, but to impugn people living in a prior age for doing so as 'disgraceful' is surely a little harsh? Not worthy of ANY of the respect its accorded? Surely Moby Dick's reputation doesn't rest upon its humane treatment of whales?

i stopped reading it because of the cruelty. where the cruelty is pitched in that book - it's simply wrong. you can write about cruelty certainly - but it's where you place the reader that matters. you could write a proper book about whaling - but this isn't it.

i'm more than happy to judge people in a prior age. i'd say it's up there with that other "classic" mein kampf. moby dick is a throughly ignorant book.

its literary merits are reasonably thin on the ground too. ok, the introduction is breathtaking. but as soon as the boat sets sail melville spends the entire time letting the reader know how erudite and well-researched he is on the subject of whales.

this is a book which owes its reputation to unquestioning readers - and ultimately its attitude to whales is indefensible.

[sadmanbarty]

Woebot, in light of your thoughts on Moby dick, what's your opinion of homophobic dancehall? Are the two equatable?

ps. Sorry if you have already addressed this before.

[STN]

I think Achebe on Conrad is relevant here, with reference to cruelty precluding greatness, and the expectation that authors transcend the era in which they live

http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html

[Corpsey]

So if it's literary merits are thin on the ground, it owes it's reputation ENTIRELY to unquestioning readers? This reminds me of Tolstoy's critique of King Lear. You happen to be the one reader who saw through the conspiracy.

As for likening it to Mein Kampf! Well, it's certainly an original opinion. At least I think it is. Nothing comes up on Google. Mein Kampf isn't held in high esteem as a work of prose. It's interest lies entirely in giving insight into the mind of Hitler. (But then, I guess you'd argue Melville is to whales what Hitler was to Jews.)

Anyway, I wouldn't attempt to refute your opinion entirely, as I only got halfway through lol Perhaps I need to read the cruel bits. I don't doubt your disgust, but I wonder if it's colouring your appreciation of its literary merits. And certainly most would agree it's hard going, even boring for long stretches. But then too, not many great novels are perfect. Dostoevsky's "baggy monsters" e.g.

I've never encountered the argument about it being cruel, actually, either. I find it interesting for that very reason. (The critique, is.)

[Leo]

never finished don delillo's "underworld". i got all caught up in the critical acclaim when it came out, maybe i was expecting too much.

[Corpsey]

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n21/jeremy-...g/call-me-ahab

This review seems to touch on the issues you've raised Woebot. Don't have time to read this evening but I'll read with interest tomorrow.

I'm intrigued by the fact that in this book of cruelty towards whales, the head whaler is a madman and the whale ends up winning. (Right?)

One issue in which Melville was ahead of his time was slavery, as evinced by "Benito Cereno". Although his can probably be read as a racist text, I rememeber it being more subversive and subtle than that.

[Corpsey]

The elaborate descriptions of cruelty provide the justification for the whales madness, its righteous fury. Amongst other things, the whale symbolises nature placing a limit on man's dominance, unwillingness to be exploited - an exploitation condemned by Melville, the murder of whales being "in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all."

actually you can safely ignore my comments in this thread and engage with droid's. He's more articulate and better informed than me. After all, he's read it!

[Mr. Tea]

Woebot, in light of your thoughts on Moby dick, what's your opinion of homophobic dancehall? Are the two equatable?

Given the rampant homoeroticism in MD, I like the idea of the circle being completed by a dancehall tune that's anti-gay but also really pro-whale.

I'm intrigued by the fact that in this book of cruelty towards whales, the head whaler is a madman and the whale ends up winning. (Right?)

Only if you ignore the 'it was all just a dream'/'Ahab is himself a Replicant' interpretation.

But yeah, Ahab is hardly the 'hero' of the piece, is he? He's basically painted as a total nutter right from the start and his monomaniacal obsession with the whale leads to his own death and the deaths of his entire crew. It's hardly a moral manifesto for the wonders of killing large animals, at least I didn't read it that way.

[droid]

i stopped reading it because of the cruelty. where the cruelty is pitched in that book - it's simply wrong. you can write about cruelty certainly - but it's where you place the reader that matters. you could write a proper book about whaling - but this isn't it.

i'm more than happy to judge people in a prior age. i'd say it's up there with that other "classic" mein kampf. moby dick is a throughly ignorant book.

its literary merits are reasonably thin on the ground too. ok, the introduction is breathtaking. but as soon as the boat sets sail melville spends the entire time letting the reader know how erudite and well-researched he is on the subject of whales.

this is a book which owes its reputation to unquestioning readers - and ultimately its attitude to whales is indefensible.

A cataclysmically, astoundingly (but entertainingly) bad opinion. Have you read Mein Kampf? This is like comparing Mozart to the vengaboys.

Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

[droid]

Given the rampant homoeroticism in MD, I like the idea of the circle being completed by a dancehall tune that's anti-gay but also really pro-whale.



Only if you ignore the 'it was all just a dream'/'Ahab is himself a Replicant' interpretation.

But yeah, Ahab is hardly the 'hero' of the piece, is he? He's basically painted as a total nutter right from the start and his monomaniacal obsession with the whale leads to his own death and the deaths of his entire crew. It's hardly a moral manifesto for the wonders of killing large animals, at least I didn't read it that way.

Ahab is a villain to rival McCarthy's Judge. If there is a hero it is Ishmael, or the whale itself.

[Mr. Tea]

A cataclysmically, astoundingly (but entertainingly) bad opinion. Have you read Mein Kampf? This is like comparing Mozart to the vengaboys.

Doubly ironic given Hitler's well-known love of animals and the obsessive greenness of the Nazis generally.