Moby-Dick

Ian Scuffling

Ian Scuffling

Well-known member
To my recollection there's no mention of his actual name beyond what he asks the reader to call him. Been a few years though
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Just started a re-read of this, I’d listened to a very podcast on it and it inspired me to get it off the shelf. Going to take it slowly, just three chapters a night. It already seems so much more playful than I remember.
 
versh

versh

Well-known member
jenks said:
Just started a re-read of this, I’d listened to a very podcast on it and it inspired me to get it off the shelf. Going to take it slowly, just three chapters a night. It already seems so much more playful than I remember.
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I've only read it the once, but still get images from it flashing up from time to time: the severed whale heads, Ahab as the 'captive king' on the broken throne, the ship carrying the flame. I'll have to read it again at some point, felt like I only scratched the surface first run through. My copy's some old Penguin thing with commentary by a bloke called Harold Beaver and a Turner on the cover, so maybe I'll do it with the commentary next time.

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There's a certain mystique to Melville. Everything I've read of his has been greater than the sum of its parts, even if I didn't like Bartleby that much. I can feel something huge behind his writing. He reminds me of Borges in the sense of the books feeling like portals opening onto something vast and incomprehensible.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Yeah mine has the Beaver notes which are often more gnomic than Melville. I think MD, Bartleby and Billy Budd are just three perfect stories - looming large and somehow undefined- to have that ambition for your work. Is there anyone like that writing now?
 
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