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At some point within the last month or so, I realized I had never read Moby-Dick. So, books being cheap on Kindle, I bought Moby-Dick a few days ago and have started to read it. I'm something like 10%-15% through it so far. I've got to say: so far, it's a ripping good yarn - much better than I had been led to expect. Who misled me into thinking it would be a slog of a read? Decades and decades ago, I remember being told by a teacher (which is kind of unforgivable) that the book is very hard to read, extremely long, and filled with digressions. Hey - I've read fat 19th century novels before and not only lived to tell about it, but actually enjoyed the experience. And as for digressions, I'm a fan, if they're interesting.
One of the things that has worked for me is that the edition I purchased is annotated as I would wish it - not too many footnotes, and the footnotes not so lengthy that I lose the thread of the plot, but also not letting too many now-obscure words and phrases pass by without a gloss. One of the footnotes noted that Melville held some views on Christianity which the church media of his day considered heretical, and the opposition of the religious press was a major factor in his not becoming a successful writer during his lifetime. And I suppose Moby-Dick would fail any number of political-correctness litmus tests today, as when Ishmael regularly refers to Queequeg as a savage and a cannibal. But so far, I'm really enjoying it.
What are you reading these days?
I should read Moby Dick again, I actually liked it when we read it for American Lit in high school. I liked the detail. But that has been 50 plus years ago and I have forgotten a lot of it. I only remember two direct quotes. "Call me Ishmael" was one. The other one is from Queegueg; "Damn 'ee, I kill 'ee!" He was apparently mad at someone.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am reading now is our next book club selection, The Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown. It is interesting so far, especially about biographical details of the boys' lives. But too much detail about how brutal training was for a rowing team. I get the picture already!
Jack - I responded to you and Betty on the food threat. Thank you. You and Betty understand the nightmare I’ve been living. The “ new normal” .I’m trying to get a counseling appointment with an LCSW as Betty suggested. Xanax under control but I will watch it. My sister became addicted as did Jean’s mother so I know the warning signs.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
Delete"Now my bug problem is insomnia, no matter how tired up I am. My monkey mind won’t stop thinking about what we will do in three or so months."
See my comment on the food thread.
"The Hundred Years' War on Palestine" by Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi. The other side of the story.
ReplyDeleteAnne, I'm continuing to pray for you and your husband. I hope you can get access to counseling and maybe a support group soon. I wonder if nature shows or travelogues would be soothing to watch. I also find it hard to concentrate on reading a book if I'm ill or stressed.
ReplyDeleteThe bonds of friendship the boys on the rowing team form are one of the best parts of the story.
Katherine, unfortunately I can’t participate in group activities because of my hearing loss. Praying the new hearing aids will help at least a bit. The audiologists tell me to get a cochlear but that isn’t something I can - or want - to do at this point. It’s irreversible, often destroys residual hearing. I have decent hearing of low frequencies but no hearing at all at the highest frequencies. So I don’t hear some consonants in words which makes understanding speech hard.
ReplyDeleteI don’t want to lose the low frequency hearing. Also it takes 6 months to a year of weekly sessions to even learn how to understand the sounds created by the cochlear. Not something I can dream of doing at this point. My husband is a baritone and I can usually understand him. At this point, I’m grateful for that and won’t worry about groups. But I am incredibly lonely here with no friends and no way to make friends. It’s one of the reasons I still hope to be able to move back to Maryland this year sometime. But my husband’s needs have to take priority so we will be here as long as it takes.
We found a wonderful caregiver here and I will need one if I go home. But she will be hard to replace. And she won’t move.
Moby Dick is one of my favorite books. Nothing else like it. If you are only 10 percent into it, you have yet to encounter a lot of the digressions. Whether you find them tiresome will depend on how you think they contribute to the overall work. They are labelled such that you can skip them and just march to the end of the Pequod story without the sidetracks. Lots of people read it that way. Otherwise they find themselves googling pictures of whales for hours on end.
ReplyDeleteI think Melville's own religious ideas were heavily influenced by the wide variety of sailors he knew when he was at sea. It would have been impossible for men of different backgrounds, nations, and religions to be on a whaler for up to five years at a time--often with a lot of time on their hands--without ideas rubbing off on each other.
Queequeg: Hopefully readers are still open to the fact that Melville recognizes the full humanity of Queequeg and the other two harpooneers on the Pequod despite the "politically incorrect" language Ishmael uses at times. Fedallah, the fourth harpooneer, is a different case.
Imo, the book can be read as a boy's adventure story or as a very complex allegory. Billy Budd, Melville's novella, is similar.
And, of course, the sheer number of characters and references to other literary works in MD could keep you busy for a lifetime!
Happy sailing!
Now reading Camp Zero, climate disaster dystopia. Rich Americans beset with rising tides and temperatures in 2050 try to buy up land in the Canadian north. The Canadian POV is interesting. It will be interesting to see what the author does with the political divide between the eastern and western provinces and the Native lands in the far north, as well as rising tensions with the U.S.
ReplyDeleteKeeping with the nautical theme, I am "reading" [the audiobook of] The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon. The account of life (and a lot of death) aboard 18-century British warships is vivid and detailed. I had never imagined all that could go wrong with the wood used to build ships (rot, termites, shipworms), and though I knew some of the perils of shipboard life not even counting rough seas, storms, and battles, Grann does an excellent job of describing the ravages of scurvy, typhus, and other deadly conditions that took the lives of an astonishingly high percentage of sailors before their causes and cures were understood.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great book! A couple years ago, I read Scott's diary of his last ill-fated Antarctic expedition (as well as The Birthday Boys, a novelist account that draws heavily from journals from othere in the Scott party). Could not put either down. Apparently, improperly secured cargo in the hold could bang holes in the ship or crush people trying to corral it if it got loose. Total nightmare in bad weather. Scott was also obsessed with the idea that ponies could be used to better effect than sled dogs in the Antarctic. Boy, was he wrong, and he felt pretty terrible about what they endured. Herbert Ponting, the expedition's photographer took some stunning photos, though. See them here: https://gettyimagesgallery.com/collection/herbert-ponting/
DeleteJean, looking at those photos gives an inkling of what time travel would be like. Remarkable.
DeleteA fictionalized version of the story of HMS Wager is Patrick O'Brian's The Unknown Shore. I have been meaning for years to read some of O'Brian's Master and Commander (Aubrey–Maturin) series, but so far have read nothing by him. Not all that long ago I read (or maybe reread) two other popular novels of life at sea, The Caine Mutiny (Wouk) and HMS Ulysses (MacLean).
Ponting had a wonderful eye for composition as well as the technical skills to get high quality images in godawful conditions.
DeleteI read some of the Aubrey and Maturin books about 30 years ago, but I didn't click with either protagonist. I liked the Hornblower books.
There are a couple of books about Alaska Native Ada Blackjack out now. Not a ship's adventure per se, but she was stuck on Wrangle Island as cook and servant to a small group of explorerers. She and her cat were the only ones who made it out of that odeal alive, surviving 8 months living off the land by herself.
The Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum also has digital photos available. (There are some nice oyster plates just for Stanley!). https://nyheritage.org/organizations/whaling-museum-and-education-center
DeleteI came on this last week when I learned one of my 18th century ancestors was among the first residents to move to Long Island, where he made barrels for the whalers. He did not go to sea himself, but Long Island was very sparsely populated with permanent residents and exposed to the elements. He died of pneumonia, leaving a widow and several children. He left all his barrel-making stuff to his 13-year-old son, but his widow found another husband asap, and everybody moved inland to take up farming. Must be a family aversion to the sea because I've never seen the ocean except from a plane. It's on my bucket list, but Raber, who was in the Navy, said that we can run over to Lake Huron if I need to see a large expanse of water ...
All the talk of ships and the sea put me in the mood for sea shanties:
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=220&v=lLGLUSzzuWU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
Not to degrade the convo, but this was always a fave when The Boy was little. https://youtu.be/YvUbbYX9BMs?si=IoEZLuaFnBts9JtX
DeleteJean, LOL! That's good! Somehow I missed out on seeing that. My kids liked the Muppets, but they were grown up by then. Don't know if the grandkids have seen it.
DeleteAnd here's Pirate King Kevin Kline singing upside down from Gilbert & Sullivan: https://youtu.be/05AHp8MgSjk?si=J4KSX7s9_8KlR_EP
DeleteKatherine that sea shanty video is great - that bass is insanely low
DeleteIn John Huston's movie based on "Moby Dick", I believe he hews rather closely to the novel minus the diversions. Ray Bradbury was the scriptwriter. At the end, during the battle with the whale, the script diverges from the novel. Ahab is dead, tied up in netting to the whale, but his free arm swings. Starbuck, the last representative of reason and prudence, yells "He beckons" and leads the rest of the men to their destruction. I thought Bradbury added something important with that last shred of sanity evaporating.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, Stanley. I have never seen the movie, though Bradbury makes for quite a different ending, especially since Starbuck's sanity and reason never fail him.
DeleteHis last speech:
“The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman’s fainting fit. Up helm, I say—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!”
He feels abandoned by God and his captain, he fears fainting away, he knows he is caught in forces beyond his control, that death is moments away. But he continues to give orders to the helm and to face what's coming with bravery.
I listened to the last chapter of Moby Dick again. I wonder if Bradbury was bullied by Huston to make the change. I'm not sure Bradbury would easily disrespect the great writer so. Perhaps it was because he had to fit the novel into the procrustean bed that movies are to books.
DeleteWell, now I have a whole new line of literary inquiry to pursue! I'll have to see if I can find the movie. I will enlist the help of my friend Karen, who used to teach a course in book-to-film adaptations. Should be fun. Possibly "he beckons" is more nuanced than it sounds?
DeleteWatched Dev Patel's The Green Knight. I liked it, but now I have to re-read the poem to compare to the movie. Arthurian legend is fun for awhile, but then it makes your head hurt.
I'll stop before I start in on "what is the point of reading all these damn books?" In old age, reading sometimes just feels like killing time before the Big Zapper calls your name.
Writing fiction is not something I could do well so I enjoy it like listening to a virtuoso musical performance. Music is something I think I could have done a lot better if I pursued it. There's no doubt reading good fiction makes me smarter in some ways than I would have been otherwise. Enlarges that space inside my head. Reading literary criticism is good, too. I think it does improve the experience. I had a good literature course in my freshman college year. Fr. Loughrey (a secular priest at a Jesuit college) made us read a novel a week and write an essay on it by Friday. I got them back redlined to death but the red stuff became less and less as the semester progressed.
DeleteI would have liked a class like that better than my freshman English class in which we read The Aeneid and Oedipus Rex. Though looking back, I'm not sorry to have read those.
Delete"Moby Dick" is free on Prime (coming to the end of that streaming rotation).
DeleteIt's Stubb who says "he beckons," and the previously cautious and reasonable Starbuck is now wild-eyed and urging the men to chase the whale because "we are whaling men."
I like what Bradbury does, even though it makes for a story that is more driven by psychology than theology. The movie is almost 70 years old, and it would be interesting to see how a younger author now might rework the story.
There was a novel a decade or so called "Ahab's Wife." I might get it from the liberry and see if it deals with the themes if the original or is just a gimmicky historical romance.
Thanks for letting me blabber on about books, history, etc. I guess I sorta hogged the thread.
Jean, I don't come here to listen to myself. As I said, I like literary criticism, yours included.
DeleteFound a good movie on Netflix called "Johnny". Polish movie about an offbeat priest who founds a hospice and a thief doing public service at the place. At the beginning of the movie as the priest comes out to celebrate Mass, a woman in the pews says, "Oh no, we got that weirdo." And it proceeds from there. And then I was surprised by the epilogue.
ReplyDeleteStanley, did you watch it with subtitles or did you get conversant enough in Polish on your trip that you didn't need it?
DeleteSo I'm curious about the surprising epilogue.
No, Katherine, I'm far from fluent. I had to use Englisg subtitkes. But I catch words and sentences. I am considering taking lessons over the internet. I'm pretty sure I could become pretty conversant if I tried. Hearing Polish in my childhood gives me a good start. First two lines of the Polish national anthem: "Jeszcze Polska nie zgineła, Kiedy my ziemy." Poland is not finished yet, as long as we live.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/N057iKYUj0c?feature=shared
Unrelated, just venting. There was an article on the America site by John Davenport, "Can Donald Trump be banned from the ballot?". I made the mistake of engaging in a comment box argument. I need to make a resolution to not even go to the comments. A couple of guys were trying to mansplain to me that I didn't see what I saw, and did I realize that there was such a thing as the Civil War in which 700,000 people were killed? Unlike the Jan. 6 peaceful protest in which only one unarmed protester was killed. Honestly smarminess makes me madder than a spirited difference of opinion.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, the America Forum has been invaded by boneheads. I took a break from an exchange with the turkey proclaiming climatologists had continuously and unsuccessfully predicted the "end of the world". His answers to my challenge were ridiculous. The America Forum monitor will probably delete me for too many posts. If this happens, I'll have to abandon the America Forum because bald faced lies should be countered.
DeleteStanley, You should make that point to Sam Sawyer - the editor.
Deletesawyer@americamedia.org
Yes. They deleted my reply and the following exchange, leaving the turkey's original falsehood intact and unanswered. I was also given a private message lecturing me on being nice. I'm not nice to slanderers and liars or those that spread slander and lies because of a combination of ignorance and smugness. They are free to destroy the environment. They are not free to gaslight about it.
DeleteMaybe I will contact Fr. Sawyer, Anne. I guess it's not nice to say someone is ignorant. It's just saying they don't understand the subject matter about which they're making authoritative statements.
DeleteStanley, I didn't think your comments on that thread were rude. It's a characteristic of the MAGA Dunning-Kruger club that they don't know they're in the Dunning-Kruger club. Yeah the smugness and arrogance is tiresome.
DeleteI've only made a couple comments over there about feature stories I have liked, but I get the impression from reading their Church Lady-type rules for posting that they are more concerned with tone than accuracy. For God's sake, let's not offend people with facts! I guess they haven't heard that the truth will set them free.
DeleteStanley, I understand. Some of the posters there have bought the right- wings claims ( without any evidence) that the economy has been horrible under Biden, and that crime is the worst ever. All untrue. I provided the accurate economic data , and crime data, including source links, to correct the misinformation, America deleted all my comments with citations and let the misinformation with no supporting evidence provided remain. The Jesuits there are more conservative these days except on gay issues and Francis. And most do seem to accept the realities of climate change . But many of them now seem to be secret trump supporters - because of the abortion issue.
DeleteAnne, they did the same to you on economics and crime statistics they did to me on climate. It wasn't even science but the denier ascribing to climatologists things they never said. Outright falsehood. These people are sick. They just say anything they want without basis.
DeleteJean: I get the impression from reading their Church Lady-type rules for posting that they are more concerned with tone than accuracy.
DeleteI agree. I developed my blogging style by attending meetings in
the mental health system.
A participant whose background was in electrical engineering described that as: people talk and talk. When they disagree with each other, they pretend not to notice. After a while everyone understands everyone else. They are all happy but do nothing about it. (Good description of talk therapy).
When we electrical engineers tackle a problem we “fight like hell” about the best solution. When a decision is made, we all pitch in and try to make it work.
As a staff member at board meetings my job was to help board members who ran and chaired the meetings. That meant limiting my time to essentials. If some participant (board, or visitor) tried to hijack the meeting, I would bring things back on course without however indicating that was what I was doing.
Board members were wise enough to pick up on what I was saying. I never directly addressed the person or the errors they were making. That would just make them and their agenda the focus of the meeting.
So, when I comment on any blog, I always assume that my audience is every that reads the blog. My aim to give them the information I think they need without engaging anyone in particular, except when I can give a little “shout out” as I did with Jean above.
America really does not have a blogging community like NewGathering, Commonweal, or PrayTell so I don’t find it a very attract place to comment.
However, I have tried it several times, and not encountered any problems using my style. In the next few months, I will be developing my own blog (by without room for comments). My style then will be to comment briefly at America with a link to relevant material on my own blog. That will be the test of whether there is any ideological bias: Do they begin to delete my comments with links to my blog? or do they decide that I have well formed opinions but limit myself of the sake of the other boggers.
"People talk and talk. When they disagree with each other, they pretend not to notice. After a while everyone understands everyone else. They are all happy but do nothing about it. (Good description of talk therapy)."
DeleteI got some insights from talk therapy at a few times in my life, but after a few weeks it made me feel too exposed. There was no way in hell I was going to blubber and cry in front of someone I hardly knew, and that seemed to be what the therapists wanted after a certain point, as a sign that I was "processing and letting go." I got very good at steering the conversation away from anything too "real" and telling the therapist I felt loads better, thanks, I won't be back. If i want a good cry, I'll drive out to the lake by myself.
I have an idea that the people who monitor comments on a site such as America Media are interns or lower level employees. It probably isn't a primo assignment.
DeleteWhen I ran my cancer support group, blocking people posing as patients and selling quack cures or correcting misinformation became so time-consuming that I was less and less able to do anything else. The dishonesty of people can make you really jaded (and I'm already jaded enough), which can make you err on the side of cutting people off. That and dwindling energy is why I moved to the Mayo Clinic's support group. They have group monitors and algorithms that help them spot nuts and crooks.
DeleteOn Jim's questions about reading, I'm also reading a history of Poland : "Poland: the First Thousand Years" by Patrice M. Dabrowski. Up to the latter part of the 16th century and the election of kings after the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. So far, I'm proud of my ancestors. Amazing religious tolerance at this point. Any resident of Poland could belong to any religion. As opposed to the west of them. By the Treaty of Augsburg, you had to follow the religion of your ruler. And, of course, Muscowy is Muscowy. But already the storm clouds are brewing. I am really being drawn into this fascinating story with so much hope that turns tragic. I knew the story in pieces and generalities but I'm finally following it in detail.
ReplyDeleteI gather that eastern European countries were often at trading crossroads, and more tolerant of outside religious and cultural influences. I had a nice chat with a Hungarian priest one time about Unitarians who flourished in the Transylvania region without persecution.
DeleteDid you ever read James Michener's book "Poland"? It was historical fiction, but I thought it was good. Michener always did his research. I liked reading his books even though they were quite lengthy.
DeleteStanley. The town my daughter- in-laws mother grew up is called Kazimierz Dolny. During the war, her grandfather and his two brothers were arrested. One brother was killed immediately. Among a group of thousands taken to Lublin castle - they believed that this brother was part of the Polish resistance . Most killedcthere were Jews. My d-i- law’s grandfather was taken to Auschwitz. He was later moved to a labor camp in Germany. He was Catholic not Jewish. But few taken to the labor camps survived. Somehow he survived. The third brother disappeared. They never found out what happened to him.
DeleteHalf the town population was Jewish - none of them survived. Way back - hundreds of years ago - thé rulers welcomed people from different backgrounds. Jews were given equal rights to Christians, so it attracted many Jewish immigrants.
My youngest son and his wife got married there, where her grandparents still lived. Her mother married a Frenchman, so my d- I -l was born and raised in France. But she loves Poland more. The beloved grandparents have passed away, but the family home is still there and they gather there during the summer and Christmas. It’s a charming little town, now known as an artists colony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Dolny
Jean, the second king Stephen Bátory elected by the Polish nobles (the first one from France was a dud) after the formation of the Commonwealth was from Transylvania. They liked how he had made peace among factions in Dracula Land. And he was good as King of Poland.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, never read "Poland" by Michener but I should. Michener and the previous archbishop of Philly, Cardinal Krol were friends.
Anne, thanks for sharing the personal and family experiences. One of my tour drivers said his great uncle visited a cousin during the Nazi occupation. Nazis came to the house and asked him his last name. They took him away to a labor camp because he had the same last name as his cousin, suspected of being in the resistance. The resistance offered to break him out of jail but he refused because he was afraid they'd massacre the whole village. He actually survived, married, had children but never spoke of the camp.
My son told me that his wife’s grandfather never talked about his experiences until a few years before he died. Then he spoke about it a little to my daughter in law. Too horrible for the survivors to talk about. I’ve encountered that with some of my contemporaries - men who went to Viet Nam. The parents of my Viet Namese daughter in law , boat people who escaped and survived, never talk about the war according to my son.
DeleteStephen Bathory's wife, Anna Jagiellon, a native Pole, is also a very fascinating person! Thanks for putting me onto that, Stanley!
Delete