A Reading Soundtrack was one of my favourite posts to write ever, and I got some good feedback from my readers. I even introduced an American reader to a relatively obscure Canadian band, Wake Owl. I feel like the CRTC owes me some money for pushing the CanCon!
The Book: The Paradise Engine by Rebecca Campbell (my review)
The Song: Of Space and Time by City and Colour Continue reading
Lost at sea? For all the details on this read-a-long, including schedule and sign up, click here. Then, share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
Things get heavy in this section. We’re nearing the home stretch, and you kind of get the sense it’s not going to be a happy ending. I feel the weight of allusions and imagery and stuff I probably don’t fully “get” in this section, but I loved it. I can’t pick out a particular quote, but I felt like we’re decending into hell.
There are some lighter moments in this section too, particularly, when Ahab finds a BFF who lost an arm, but I’m focusing on the dark stuff – as usual! Continue reading
50 Shades and 1001 Books rubbing shoulders. Scandalous!
The Moby Dick Read-a-Long continues through July, but so far? So fun. We’ve got a small group, but I love having the weekly writing prompt, and I’ve had discussions both illuminating and hilarious with my readalongers. I’m not used to having to talk about a book before I’m finished, so it’s taking me out of my comfort zone. That’s a good thing, I believe.
I’ve actually finished Moby-Dick, way ahead of schedule, and I’m not sure how I’m going to sum it up. It’s one of those classics that’s so widely regarded that it seems presumptuous to even give it a rating. Who am I to give it four stars? Continue reading
I finished Moby-Dick way ahead of schedule. I’m still writing weekly posts for the next little while, but in the meantime, I need something to read. So, what does one read after a long, difficult, literary classic? Here is what happens when a book snob looks for a “fun” read.
My criteria:
The candidates:
1. The Worst Book Ever Written Continue reading
Lost at sea? For all the details on this read-a-long, including schedule and sign up, click here. Then, share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
So while reviewing this section I keep thinking about the song “Doll Parts” by Hole. There is actually some logic to this, I’m not just stuck in the 90s. I mean, *am* stuck in the 90s, but there’s more to it than that.
Whale Parts: Taking the title literally, this section is largely about whale parts; breaking this massive thing down into smaller and smaller parts until you’re left with an empty shell, which is kind of the vibe I get from Doll Parts. I also interpreted Doll Parts as a revenge fantasy (“one day you will ache like I ache”) which fits in with Ahab’s quest. So that’s where I started, but then I started to think about it more…
Wait, that lyric is “dog beg?” The hell?: Information access, storage, and sharing all sound like modern concepts but they’re pretty well covered in Moby Dick. Ishmael is constantly giving us interesting tidbits about whaling, or going on tangents about, say, a whale’s skull. He likes to come up with ways to sort and categorize information and seems to delight in instructing the masses. Melville’s audience in the 1850s would have had to decide for themselves whether to trust him or not, and whether the information was presented as fact or as entertainment. Today, not only can I have Sparknotes open in another tab as I write up my thoughts (…not that I do that,) but I can check the definition or words on my Kobo and Google just about anything Ishmael states to see if it’s true.
I was reminded of this when I sort of idly Googled “Doll Parts” and found out some of the lyrics I thought I knew were wrong, AND the meaning I gave the song wasn’t what Courtney Love intended. It’s actually about the beginning of a relationship and feeling rejected because he seemed interested in someone else. Whoa. This is a song I listened to hundreds of times as a teenager, so it’s odd to have all this “corrected” years later. It made me think about the hours upon hours I spent listening to songs and trying to write down their lyrics – you know, the ones where the lyrics weren’t in the liner notes – and how today, we can look up lyrics AND in-depth analysis of the songs meanings. I distinctly remember hitting play – rewind – play over and over again trying to hear the lyrics to Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. Yup, on cassette!
Anyway, I don’t have a clever way to sum this up, but having my beliefs about a song from the 90s exploded did make me think about how people in the 1850s would have received all this information Melville is laying down.
Feminism: Hole wasn’t exactly a feminist band, but they were the first female-fronted band I got into that wasn’t, like, Ace of Base, so I associate them with my own awakening as a feminist. Women can be loud and messy and crazy and it’s okay? Who knew? This section of Moby Dick triggered a bit of righteous feminist anger. In case it wasn’t obvious due to the fact that there are zero female characters (Bechdel Test fail,) Melville didn’t write this book for women. OF COURSE I can’t find the link now, but I swear I saw a quote to the effect that he didn’t even think women should read Moby Dick. Ugh.
What set me off in this section was Melville’s celebration of male archetypes. We’ve got the the pack of young lads, having fun and causing trouble:
Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness…
the player with his “harem” of females;
In truth, this gentleman is an luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of his harem.
and my favourite, the lone wolf, who’s outgrown these simple pleasures and is now, like, the most interesting whale in the world, I guess? And gee, even Mother Nature herself is moody! Women!
Like a venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives is she, though she keeps so many moody secrets.
Meanwhile, female whales are – duh- having and caring for babies. Now, perhaps that’s they way whales roll, but Melville is obviously making a comment on humans here, and maybe I’m missing the satire (probably) but I was just kind of rolling my eyes through all this.
I’ve got a whole other blog post brewing in my head about the exclusion of women from great works of literature (see Jest, Infinite) but for the time being, I wish I could find my old Riot Grrrl t-shirt and wear it while I finish Moby Dick because these female whales need to start a revolution, stat.
Tune in Next Week: My favourite chapter so far, The Try-Works. Also, more fun with sperm!
Pretty quiet this week… check in with me, read-a-longers!
What did you think of this section? Link to your blog post below and drop me a line in the comments.
I love this month’s question: What is your favourite opening sentence from a classic novel (and why)?
I could have looked through all my books, but I’m going with my gut:
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
That’s the book in one line. Love, bitterness, regret, memory, fate; it’s all there. *swoon*
For even more first line fun, try this first lines quiz over at CBC Books. I only got one right, so you can probably do better than me… IF you know your CanLit.
What’s your favourite first line?
This section made me uneasy. It was disjointed. They finally kill a whale, but it’s over so quickly… for a narrator that spends pages upon pages talking about the minutia of whale anatomy, it’s very brief. There’s a lot of disorder and upsetting of the natural state of things. Stubbs eats (part of) a whale, which is unusual. The Pequod meets a ship that is in the thrall of a prophet and on the verge of mutiny.
Having read ahead a bit, I now see these chapters as a turning point. Things get real dark after this. I’m reaching a bit of a turning point too, in that I just want to read, read, read and not stop to think or write. But I must, read-a-longers!
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.
Chapters 61-75
I walk The Line: The first chapter of this section is The Line. Like most of the titles, it is very literal. This chapter is about the line that connects the harpoons to the boat. But somehow, while being so literal and documentary-like, Melville brings some heavy symbolism. The line imagery reminded me of the string that connects all the houses and shops in Trachimbrod in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and I’m sure both Foer and Melville were giving a shout out to The Fates of Greek mythology who spin, weave, and cut the threads of life (I totally just had a Grade 12 IB English flashback.)All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.
Tune in Next Week: Feminism for whales.
Easiest “tweet of the week” pick ever:
What did you think of this section? Link to your blog post below and drop me a line in the comments.
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. I am aware that it’s Wednesday. Also, the likelihood that I will read 10 books over the summer is zero, so I am breaking my top ten into top five summer TBR and top 5 summer reads… that I’ve already read. Okay? I’m doing my own thing. Damn the man.
Top Five Books at the Top of my Summer TBR:
1. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen because I am joining #AusteninAugust hosted by the wonderful Room Beam Reader!
2. Bumped by Megan McCafferty because I haven’t read any YA since TFioS and because it’s about teen pregnancy but doesn’t sound horrible like Teen Mom etc.
3. Dance, Gladys, Dance by Cassie Stocks because she’s local, she’s a Leacock medal winner, and I have a signed copy just waiting for me.
4. Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro because it’s Alice Munro.
5. Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant because great historical fiction is so escapist.
Top Five Books I’ve Read on a Beach, Real or Metaphorical
1. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. Read on my honeymoon in Mexico. I was picturing Johnny Depp even though I read this before the movie came out. Read it on the beach, or at least have a mojito going.
2. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Read in Radium, BC, during one of my first vacations with my husband (then boyfriend.) I was definitely in the mood for romance!
3. Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews. Read on New River Beach, Saint John. Bless my parents for letting me read this as a preteen.
4. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Read while laying on the grass in my ex-boyfriend’s front yard in Beaumont, AB. Okay, clearly not the beach, but this was in the year 2000 (/creepy Conan voice) and I still remember how beautiful it was outside, maybe because it was such a stark contrast to dirty, cold, damp Limerick.
5. Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes. Read on a plane. Marian Keyes is lumped into the same category as Sophie Kinsella (psst – go enter this giveaway if you’re a Kinsella fan!) et al, but I find Keyes much grittier and much more adept at tackling issues like abuse and addiction. Rachel’s Holiday was surprising and dark and fun.
What are you reading this summer?
“digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;-they are the life, the soul of reading”
-Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Only nine of these fifteen chapters have much to do with the main narrative, and of those, maybe five really move the story forward. The rest could kindly be called digressions. I know some of my fellow read-a-longers are probably a little (a lot?) frustrated with all the tangents and biology lessons. The quote above is from another book with multiple digressions that frustrated me so much that I didn’t finish it. However, I’m still loving the oddball chapters in this book! This time around, we get one chapter on “monstrous” pictures of whales and one chapter on “true” pictures of whales. No, they simply couldn’t be combined. We also get chapters on other artistic renderings of whales, on whale food, on giant squid, and, my favourite, a fantastic story about another ship altogether, the Town-Ho.
Share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
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Chapters 46-60
Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves.
Ahab’s Wife: She’s not mentioned in this section, but when Ahab breaks out his secret crew of whalers and just generally becomes more and more intense, I keep reminding myself that he’s got a young wife and baby at home, and wonder, do they figure into his mindset at all? And what is she doing while all this is going on? I mean, MD is clearly a book by a guy, about guys, for guys, and I know Melville’s not going to address it. I Googled “Ahab’s wife” just to see if anyone else was wondering, and found a book called Ahab’s Wife was written in the 1990s and apparently, it’s pretty good! The New York Times says:In ”Ahab’s Wife,” Sena Jeter Naslund has taken less than a paragraph’s worth of references to the captain’s young wife from Herman Melville’s ”Moby-Dick” and fashioned from this slender rib not only a woman but an entire world. That world is a looking-glass version of Melville’s fictional seafaring one, ruled by compassion as the other is by obsession, with a heroine who is as much a believer in social justice as the famous hero is in vengeance.
Tune in Next Week: Well, let’s just say Greenpeace wouldn’t be too happy with what’s coming up next.
Yay, fellow Edmonton Book Blogger Brie is getting into the swing of things!
What did you think of this section? Link to your blog post below and drop me a line in the comments.
My rating: 3.5/5 stars
Published on: April 2, 2013
Publisher: Collins Canada
Synopsis:
Kelly Oxford is …
A wunderkind producer of pirated stage productions for six-year-olds
Not the queen of the world
An underage schnitzel-house dishwasher
The kid who stood up to a bully and almost passed out from the resulting adrenaline rush
A born salesman
Capable of willing her eyesight to be 20/20
That girl who peed her pants in the gas station that one time
Totally an expert on strep throat
Incapable of making Leonardo DiCaprio her boyfriend
A writer
A certified therapy assistant who heals with Metallica mixtapes
“Not fat enough to be super snuggly.” —Bea, age 4
Not above using raspberry-studded sh*t to get out of a speeding ticket
“Bitingly funny. But everybody knows that.” —Roger Ebert
Sad that David Copperfield doesn’t own a falcon
A terrible liar
I’m tempted to write about my opinions and thoughts on Kelly Oxford outside of her book, because we are around the same age and grew up in the same town and now we are both moms. But that’s pretty boring, so I’m just going to get a few non-book-related things off my chest and move on: Continue reading
Reading in Bed 