Category: Uncategorized
Moby Dick Read-A-Long Chapters 1-15: Fine Young Cannibals
Welcome back, read-a-longers! We finally get to talk about the actual book. Share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
Lost at sea? For all the details on this read-a-long, including schedule and sign up, click here.
Etymology and Excerpts
The book starts with the origin of the word “whale” and a collection of whale-related excerpts from literature, philosophy, and scripture. This section reminded me of when Homer Simpson tries to teach himself about marketing by reading an advanced marketing book, and trades down to simpler and simpler books until he’s reading the dictionary.
Via 9gag.com
The excerpts are great. They show the huge variety of ways in which people deify and demonize whales. Of course, the excerpts only go up to the mid 1800s, and I couldn’t help but think about the modern ones I would add:
- Blubber by Judy Blume: Talking about bullying before it was cool. She didn’t even have to wear a pink shirt.
- She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb: Just your basic girl meets dying whale, girl goes batshit crazy story.
- Free Willy: Charming children’s movie and popular euphemism for taking one’s dick out.
Okay, onto the actual story!
Chapters 1-15
- Lots of lead up: Chapters 1-15 take us up to page 83 in my paper copy, and we haven’t even got on the boat yet. This section is all about setting the scene, introducing our narrator (call him Ishmael) and his BFF, the heavily-tattooed “Feegeean” Queequeg. We follow Ishmael from New York City to New Bedford to Nantucket as he prepares to go on his first whaling voyage.
- Lots of funny: The tone of this first section is surprisingly light and funny. Hilarious, actually. Ishmael’s roundabout logic as he explains why he decides to take part in Queequeg’s “pagan rituals” made me LOL:
I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolater in worshiping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth – pagans and all included – can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship? – to do the will of God? that is worship. And what is the will of God? – to do to my fellow-man what I would have my fellow-man to do to me – that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow-man. ANd what do I wish that this Queequeg woudl do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolater.
- Heart of Darkness: I can’t help but compare the way Queequeg is introduced to the way Conrad talks about the “savages” in Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s European characters are half thrilled, half disgusted by the thought that they have anything in common with the “savages” they encounter in The Congo. Queequeg is certainly seen as “other,” and Ishmael is terrified of him at first, but Ishmael accepts him so quickly, and so readily, and not just as a shipmate but as a friend (or perhaps more, see below,) despite the fact that he sells shrunken heads and is casually described as a cannibal.
For all this tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.
- HoYay!: For those not familiar with this television-fandom term, HoYay! is short for “Homoeroticism, Yay!” and refers to situations, dialogue, etc. that could be interpreted to have homoerotic undertones, and suggests that fans of the show are generally in favour of this interpretation, usually in a somewhat ironic way. Exhibit A:
California, Here We Come
Ishmael and Queequeg meet in the bedroom and things just get cozier from there. I was most definitely NOT expecting this element of the story, and I think I finally get the “HoYay!” concept, because it is indeed delightful.
Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg – a cosy, loving pair.
Tune in Next Week:
Chapter 16 is called “The Ship” so things are about to get nautical.
- Fashion inspired by Moby Dick: Elizabeth Alice Crum’s woven fashions are inspired by the book and “the theme of chance, how the narrative is woven and broken, how tension is created, and where fate takes you.”
- The BBC is producing a documentary about the events that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick.
Heather of Between the Covers has the distinction of the first person to giggle about the Dick in Moby Dick. I am shocked it took this long.
@ebookclassicsand I are reading neck and neck!
The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 5/5 stars
Release date: August 30, 2011
Publisher: McLelland
Synopsis:
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly “Cat’s Table” with an eccentric and unforgettable group of grownups and two other boys. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys find themselves immersed in the worlds and stories of the adults around them. At night they spy on a shackled prisoner — his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.
With the ocean liner a brilliant microcosm for the floating dream of childhood, The Cat’s Table is a vivid, poignant and thrilling book, full of Ondaatje’s trademark set-pieces and breathtaking images: a story told with a child’s sense of wonder by a novelist at the very height of his powers.
Is there such thing as an earworm, for text instead of music? A wordworm? If so, I have had a wordworm, off and on, since finishing The Cat’s Table. I find myself mentally rereading the end this passage compulsively:
We stepped back, further into the darkness, and waited. I saw the man move the strap of her dress and bring his face down to her shoulder. Her head was back, looking up at the stars, if there were stars. Continue reading
Moby Dick Read-A-Long Post #1: Thar She Blows
What better time to start reading a Victorian novel than Victoria Day? I don’t have much to share about the book yet, as I’ve just dipped my toe in, but here are a few bits and pieces as we get started.
What’s All This Then?
We’re reading Moby Dick from May 20 – July 22. For all the details and to sign up, click here. Here’s the schedule:
- Start date and Introductory Post: Monday, May 20th, 2013.
- Etymology + Chapters 1-15: May 27th
- Chapters 16-30: June 3
- Chapters 31-45: June 10
- Chapters 46-60: June 17
- Chapters 61-75: June 24
- Chapters 76-90: July 1
- Chapters 91-105: July 8
- Chapters 106-120: July 15
- Chapters 121-136 + Epilogue : July 22
My Editions of Moby Dick
I bought a second hand, no-nonsense, 2004 edition of the physical book. No intro, no biography, just the text.
Henry’s ready.
I attempted to replicate 101 Book’s hilarious My 2-Year-Old Judges Books By Their Covers by asking my three year old what he thought this book was about. I’m a little alarmed by what he came up with: “The whale swings his tail. Swish swish. Then the men come and BANG HIM!”
I’ll do most of my reading on my Kobo. I’ve had bad luck with free ebooks, but local MD fan @Wittermeir tells me this is a good one. He’s also kindly lending me Why Read Moby Dick by Nathaniel Philbrick, so I’ll be able to share tidbits with you. Moby Dick fans are the best!
Click for the free ebook
My Hopes for Moby Dick:
- That I’ll be surprised by something. I’ve peeked at the first few chapters, and so far, I’m surprised by how funny it is. I’m often surprised when big scary classics are funny or romantic. If there’s a romantic element in MD, that’ll be something.
- That reading and understanding Moby Dick will give me a deeper appreciation of other literature. After reading Dostoyevsky and Mann last year, I found allusions to and reflections of their writing in all sorts of surprising places. I suspect Melville’s influence is just as large as theirs, if not larger.
My Fears:
- The descriptions of the whale and whaling will put me to sleep. After years of sleep deprivation, it doesn’t take much.
- That I won’t get it. That the meaning of this book will fly over my head. You guys will help me out though, right?
Here are a couple features that I hope to include every Monday.
Slightly cooler than D&D.
- The Kickstarter for this Moby Dick card game has racked up nearly $80,000 in funding. Tons of buzz on this one. There’s still about a week to get in on the action.
- If the book is a little wordy for your liking, try Emoji Dick.
- A beer made with pages from Moby Dick. I don’t get it either!
- A much more robust introduction to Moby Dick, including why you shouldn’t skip the boring bits. And he makes a good point:
I’ve always found it strange that a culture that creates a clear demand for television programs about things like crab fishing, tuna fishing, logging, trucking, duck hunting, and working in pawn shops is a culture that poo-poos the sort of documentary view Melville often gives us of whaling.
Comment below to share which edition you’re reading, and your thoughts going into this crazy read-a-long. Once you’ve written this week’s post, add a link to it (and check out the others) by clicking the Mr. Linky icon:
Anna From Away: Too Sexy for the States
I was notified by Goodreads that D.R. MacDonald has a new book coming out this month called The Ice Bridge. I really enjoyed his last novel, Anna From Away (see a brief review here,) so I clicked over and started reading the synopsis. Soon I realized that The Ice Bridge is Anna From Away under a different title. And different cover image. And a just slightly different description.
A little digging revealed that Anna From Away was published in Canada by Harper Collins Canada on September 11, 2012, and The Ice Bridge was published in the USA by Counterpoint on May 14, 2013.
Let’s compare and contrast:
Compare this line from the synopsis of Anna From Away:
Part erotic love story, part quest for home and heart, Anna From Away is a superbly crafted tale of love after love, a novel rich in atmosphere and infused with lyrical descriptions of land and sea.
To the synopsis of The Ice Bridge:
Part love story, part moral fable, and part quest for home and heart, The Ice Bridge is a superbly crafted tale of love after love, a novel rich in atmosphere and infused with lyrical descriptions of land and sea.
Why was this book positioned as an erotic love story in Canada, and as a love story/moral fable in the States? In my opinion, “erotic love story” is pushing it a bit, but, sexual attraction and betrayal do play a big role in the story, and there is one sex scene in particular that is pretty darn steamy. In this post-Fifty Shades world, what is the American publisher afraid of but putting that out there?
Sexiness aside, the American title and cover are so BORING. I was really drawn to the cover of Anna From Away, but there’s nothing about The Ice Bridge that makes me want to read it.
I’m going to see if I can find anyone at Harper or Counterpoint who can tell me more. What do you think? The States just can’t handle all that maritime sexiness?
The Magic of Saida by M.G. Vassanji
My rating: 4.5/5 stars
Release Date: September 25, 2012
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Thank you Brie of Eat Books for giving me a copy of this book.
Synopsis:
The Magic of Saida tells the haunting story of Kamal, a successful Canadian doctor who, in middle age and after decades in North America, decides to return to his homeland of East Africa to find his childhood sweetheart, Saida. Kamal’s journey is motivated by a combination of guilt, hope, and the desire to unravel the mysteries of his childhood–mysteries compounded by the fact that Kamal is the son of an absent Indian father from a well-to-do family and a Swahili African mother of slave ancestry. Through a series of flashbacks, we watch Kamal’s early years in the ancient coastal town of Kilwa, where he grows up in a world of poverty but also of poetry, sustained by his friendship with the magical Saida.
This world abruptly ends when Kamal is sent away by his mother to live with his father’s family in the city. There, the academically gifted boy grows up as a “dark Indian,” eventually going to university and departing for Canada. Left behind to her traditional fate is Saida, now a beautiful young woman. Decades later, Kamal’s guilt pulls him back to Kilwa . . . where we discovers what happened to Saida during a harrowing night of sinister rites. This complex, revelatory, sweeping and shocking book, is a towering testament to the magical literary powers of M.G. Vassanji.
This book humbled me, repeatedly.
When I read the blurb and saw “East Africa,” I thought, great! I just did a bunch of research on East African culture (for work,) so I am gonna get ALL the cultural references. I was hardly past the first page when I realized that, um, no. First of all, my research was on Somalia and Ethiopia, and East Africa encompasses way more than just those countries. Continue reading
Classics Club May Meme
I haven’t been answering the monthly questions (like, it’s a question, not a meme, right? Do I not understand what a meme is?) because while I like reading lists of top ten this, or favourite that, I’m not great at writing them. This month is pretty straightforward so I’ll give it a go:
Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).
Rather than talk about Moby Dick, which is my next classic read, I want to rant a bit about The Turn of the Screw. I thought it would be the perfect quick read before I start a massive read. 100ish pages, author I love, gothic, yes please. I loved Portrait of a Lady. LOVED. Got angry when I watched the film adaptation because it WASN’T PERFECT LIKE THE BOOK. Anyway.
I found The Turn of the Screw so difficult to get into! I kept falling asleep while I was reading (yes, I was reading in bed, but still,) and I just didn’t get creeped out like I thought I would. The prose was just so thick. It was tough slogging with no payoff.
And just like with North and South, the free Kobo edition was quirky… lots of words were in ALL CAPS which didn’t feel right… I felt like I was reading Kayne West’s Twitter stream. I’m looking at another edition online and it doesn’t have any words in all caps. What the hell? I’m gonna have to start shelling out $0.99 for these classics.
Classics Club and Kanye in one post. Yes.
It picked up a little at the end, say the last 20 pages or so, but I was already checked out by then.
Have you ever been disappointed by an author you love?
Heart of Darkness
Two times this year, a book has let me down by not being dark enough. I felt like the authors held back to make things a little more palatable – The main characters got off too lightly. There wasn’t enough at stake. Things resolved themselves a little too neatly.
I don’t like it when a story feels reigned in. I want the characters to hit bottom and keep falling.
I do feel a little guilty about this. Why do I want bad things to happen to good characters, and why do I roll my eyes at a happy ending? Schadenfreude? Shock value? Or, am I not quite over my goth phase of 1996-1997? I think it’s a bit of all of those things. I need an emotional connection to really enjoy a story, and the dark and depressing route is the easiest way to my heart.
Here are the two examples that came up this year, the darker alternatives I found, and even more dark recommendations for the long winter nights ahead. BONUS: All four books featured below are by Canadian authors!
Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Confessions
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. I am inspired by Eat Books and the many others who participated today. I’m going to try to slip under the wire here, as there are only about 30 mins left of Tuesday!
1. I used to steal my mom’s Harlequin Romances and secretly read them. I was so scandalized! I’m glad 50 Shades wasn’t around in the 90s.
2. I don’t have much attachment to my books. I mostly read library books, but even the ones that I do own, I wouldn’t care if someone borrowed and didn’t return, or spilled something. I feel like the words are still “out there,” so the physical copy that I own doesn’t matter too much.
3. I am HARD on my books. I put glasses of water on top of them. I break bindings. I fold pages. They fall down the side of my bed and get squished. This sort of goes hand in hand with #2.
4. I’ve never listened to an audio book.
5. I resist reading anything that’s too popular (see my post Book Snob.) Sometimes I break down and enjoy myself (The Help) and sometimes want to poke my eyes out (The DaVinci Code.)
6. I read in the bathroom. I have a drawer that always has a few books. Growing up, we always had books of quotations in our bathroom, and so did my grandparents. I kind of want to buy one for this purpose, even though those books must be pretty archaic, as I gather everyone gets their inspirational quotes from Pintrest these days.
7. I didn’t read for six months after my first son was born. I think it was a symptom of postpartum depression. Thinking back, I have no idea how I didn’t read for that long.
8. I judge people who don’t read. I’m sure this surprises no one.
9. My husband was a non-reader for a long time. He’s set a goal of a book per month this year, but he’s reading mostly non-fiction. I do not get how anyone can no read fiction. Gah!!
10. I’m reading about ten pages per day, due to wild children and sleep deprivation. It kills me, because it’s really hard to keep a story straight at this pace, but it’s what I can do for now. I cannot wait until I can read like a normal person again.
Okay, this was far too easy. I could probably write 10 more. Anyone else want to share?
More Snobbery
I came across this article satirizing book clubs on Jezebel. The article had me chuckling, but the comments are even better, and are in the same vein as my “Book Snob” post the other day. Hunger Games, Twilight, Fifty Shades; it’s all there. And Franzen, who I seem to talk about a lot, judging by my “most used tags.”
My feelings are summed up by an article title, referenced in the comments: “Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.” It’s a review of Harry Potter by Harold Bloom, full text here. A great moment in book snobbery!
I had better finish The Idiot if I want to have any book snob cred. I ordered a Kobo reading light which should help that cause considerably. In the meantime, I added the full list of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (see “The List” tab up top), with the ones I’ve read crossed off, for your perusal. I love crossing items off lists, so pressing Alt-Shift-D one hundred times (to format the strike-throughs) was quite enjoyable!
Book Snob
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” Henry David Thoreau
(A bit of humility before I go into why I’m so good at reading and you’re not: I spent half an hour searching for the above quote. I could remember the jist, but not the actual words or the author. Then I noticed that it is literally the first thing I ever posted on this blog.)
This about sums it up. Via Perez Hilton.
I’m a book snob. I’ve been feeling extra snobby lately, and I blame Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s all I hear about on forums, Facebook, and Twitter. But wait – isn’t it a fan fiction of a young adult novel, not to mention very poorly written and edited? Okay, it’s racy, but so are lots of novels, from romance to erotica. That’s nothing new. So, what gives? And why does it bother me?
“Fifty Shades Fever” feels like the culmanation of a bigger trend towards adults reading “young adult” and/or just plain *bad* novels. And I do not mean “so bad it’s good.” I lurk in a few book challenge discussions online (people trying to read 25 or 50 books in one year), and lots of them are reading chick lit after chick lit book. Why bother? What’s the point of a challenge if it’s not challenging?
I realize that these feelings make me a snob of the worse kind. Why do I care what people read? Who am I to decide what’s worthy of a reader’s time? But… I can’t help myself! As the Thoreau quote suggests, there are SO MANY good books. More than anyone will ever read. I’ve been working at the 1,001 books list for FIVE YEARS and I’ve read 10% of it. And I started at around 5%. I get that people are looking for a fun read or escapism, but it’s unfathomable, and even offensive, that people spend so much time reading terrible books!
The bad book by which all other bad books will be judged.
Of course, like most snobs, I think it’s okay to go slumming as long as it’s done ironically. Some work colleagues are running a fantastic bad book club. I was lucky enough to sit in on a discussion of “Flowers in the Attic”, that classic and horribly overwrought ode to family dysfunction (and incest.) But, most of us read it for the first time as children, not adults. (Which, upon reflection, is pretty messed up – due to all that incest!)
It will probably surprise no one that I’m also a music snob, and in a former (pre-kids) life a clothes and bag snob. What can I say? I appreciate quality. And I’m judging you. Sorry. But, if you must read bad books, at least William Faulkner’s got your back:
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read!”
What do you think? Do you consider yourself a book snob? Why are people freaking out about Fifty Shades and the like?
Reading in Bed 