#herman melville
reading Billy Bud for the first time and the stranger danger vibes are real
by Herman Melville
What’s it about?
A captain obsessed with hunting down the white whale that bit off his leg.
Surely there’s more to it than that?
You’d like to think so. But you’d be wrong.
My copy is like 500 pages long…
Right. Let’s say you’re a writer, and you want to write a book about whaling. So you research whales and whaling and maybe some history of the areas around the whaling and so on until you pretty much know more than anyone about whaling. Then you take that knowledge and you use it as the background for your whaling story.
What you do not do is put every tiny detail of what you learned about whaling into your book. Or, if you can’t shoehorn it into the main plot, write a preface about it or stop the story to make space for some irrelevant whale-gibberish.
Despite the length of this book, it seems to be a lost opportunity. Think of the things Melville could have done with all that space which he instead uses to talk about whales. No effort, for instance, is made to explore the seemingly obvious sexual symbolism (legs have been substituted for penises in literature since the dawn of time), although the sex life of whales is described in a relatively straight-forward manner. However, he couldn’t find the time to develop the characters.
What should I say to make people think I’ve read it?
“I donate to Greenpeace and this book made me hate whales.”
What should I avoid saying when trying to convince people I’ve read it?
“Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy
But here’s my number, so call me Ishmael.”
Should I actually read it?
Unless you’re interested in a comprehensive guide to whaling in the 1800s, no. It’s a great idea for a book, and you can see where he was going with it, but it’s like Melville forgot that real people are going to have to actually sit down and read the thing. Nevertheless, if you’ve read Game of Thrones and you think the problem with Moby Dick is that it’s too long, you should probably present yourself to the relevant authorities at first light.
I leave my desk for five minutes…
The overview.
Zen construction.
The Third Doctor on top once again.
Cassidy gets a… staff?
Have yourself a Grendel litle Christmas, now.
And now we know what Prisoner Zero was in for.
Spider, no.
This is like a while miniseries of ideas here.
My actual favorite. Bat under Glass.
Never let artists near your things, honey. That’s all I know.
Tumblr Book Club Master Post
Updated as new projects are announced
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The Classics:
Dracula Daily: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the one that started it all. Began May 3rd 2022, running through November 6th 2022
Edgar Allan Poe Daily: Various Poe stories sent on days there is no Dracula. Began May 13th 2022, runs through at least the end of Dracula
Whale Weekly: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Begins December 2022, runs through 2025
Letters From Watson: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, the short stories. Begins January 1st 2023, runs through December 2023
Frankenstein Weekly: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Begins February 1st 2023, runs for several months
The Penny Dreadful: the original Penny Dreadful stories. TBA
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The New:
What Manner of Man: original queer Vampire novel by @stjohnstarling. Begins January 2023
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See anything missing? Send an ask or DM and it’ll be added asap
Herman Melville mood board
Made with Photoshop Express (Android)
It’s epistolary time. After all, where’s the fun in writing a story set in a (dead) letter office and not writing an epistolary!fic?
ChapterTwo of Then All The World Would See (How Much in Love We Are) includes:
- Text Chat between Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes; or, The Holmes Brothers being chatty. It’s all about The Work, and Alan Turing. A Story in Five Parts.
- E-Mail exchange between John Watson and Mike Stamford; or, Cupid is on a mission. His name is Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes. A Story in Two E-Mails.
Then All The World Would See (How Much In Love We Are)by@a-different-equation:John Watson (33) meets Sherlock Holmes (28) and falls in love instantly. However, Sherlock looks for a different kind of fix and John is an ex of many things and people. Also, he’s his boss.
A story about warzones beyond Afghanistan, second chances in life, and how to not be a fuck-up anymore. Told in (dead) letters, notes and texts. It’s a Johnlock love story, elementary. (BBC!Johnlock, mature, ca. 25k)
Thanks to @doctornerdington&@redscudery for hosting @sherlocksundaysummerserial!
Chapter Two is Up. And OMG does it look differently now. It took ages but hell, I know why I *love* epistolary. There’s not much more fun than “spying” on the Holmes’ brothers bickering & bantering (which they would deny, of course) :D
Read it for yourself here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15210941/chapters/35498841
reblog with your favorite literary friendship in the tags!
Herman Melville “Moby Dick’s father”
He was born in New York on August 1, 1819, into a family of eight children between brothers and sisters. Son of a rich merchant, from a very young age his father stimulated in him with the stories of his travels, the desire for adventure. He spent a comfortable life until the summer of 1830, when his father suffered a financial meltdown declaring the bank broken, later manifested a mental illness that led to his death. The impoverished family moved to the Hudson River village of Lansingburgh. Herman’s restlessness began to be felt, the desire to be economically independent and his adventurous spirit pushed him in June 1839 to embark as a hub on the “St. Lawrence”.
In 1841 he enlisted again as a sailor on the whaler “Acushnet”, bound for the Pacific Ocean, once in Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, Melville deserted with a companion.
Two Typee novels followed and its continuation Omoo, autobiographical, relate precisely to this story, even if fictionalized. Probably from the experience of 18 months aboard the “Acushnet”, Melville reworked his memories, and from the information gathered by the sailors, he drew inspiration for his novel “Moby Dick”.
Queequeg - harpooneer
His life now set, he embarked continuously, and from his experiences he wrote autobiographical novels. In 1847 Melville married Elizabeth Shaw in Boston, and here his seafaring adventures ended, he bought a farm in Pittsfield, and in February 1850 he put his hand to Moby Dick, who finished and published in 1851.
After the successes of Typee and Omoo his works were received with decreasing favor; in 1867 the eldest son Malcom killed himself in his parents house, the second son died later after a wandering life. Melville died in New York on September 28, 1891; in 1892, new editions of his four most successful novels were published by Arthur Stedman: Typee, Omoo, White-Jacket and Moby Dick.
NOTE: The name of the species “Leviathan melvillei”, a Miocene cetacean similar to modern sperm whales, has been dedicated to Melville, with reference to the beast protagonist of his novel Moby Dick.
Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck) Moby Dick, the white whale 1956 - film director John Huston.
Moby Dick, the white whale
The novel by Herman Melville (1819-1891) is today considered the greatest example of an American novel of the nineteenth century, even if the work was rediscovered only in the 20s of the last century, when it was indicated as the cornerstone of the literary tradition American.
Queequeg (Friedrich von Ledebur) Moby Dick, the white whale 1956.
The novel is the first person account of the protagonist Ismaele of the expedition of a whaling ship, the Pequod, in pursuit of the mythical “white whale” Moby Dick.
In command of the ship is the charismatic figure of Captain Ahab, obsessed with revenge against Moby Dick who in a previous hunting trip, had torn his leg. Moby Dick, alternating with white whale hunting scenes (partly based on real events), is a work of extreme complexity and for over a century critics have tried to illuminate the numerous dark corners of this vast and so articulate.
If at first glance the novel seems dominated by the theme of adventure and exploration, in the course of reading the mythical and almost mystical-religious dimension of Moby Dick’s pursuit is stratified, so much so that the parallels with the Bible, explicit or under understood, they are innumerable, assuming then a theatrical aspect, to the Shakespearean tragedy, from an adventure by sea to a grandiose epic poem.