tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post4190198509248992258..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: On the beginning of Moby-DickAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80131719556888281152014-02-28T11:07:06.758-06:002014-02-28T11:07:06.758-06:00If we were interested in efficiency, we would not ...If we were interested in efficiency, we would not spend so much time with literature, would we?Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-57818759342228031292014-02-28T10:03:38.523-06:002014-02-28T10:03:38.523-06:00I had an American Lit professor who told students ...I had an American Lit professor who told students -- tongue-in-cheek, though most students did not recognize that caveat -- to read Moby-Dick efficiently by skipping all the "fish science" sections.<br /><br />I confess to being dismissive of the opening section(s) when I was a student. R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-54887743847959555262010-09-08T12:41:57.694-05:002010-09-08T12:41:57.694-05:00Just for the fun of it...
All AboardJust for the fun of it...<br /><a href="http://eqcomics.com/comics/all-aboard/" rel="nofollow">All Aboard</a>Dwighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688525659034403580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-50870169035157959172010-09-08T00:07:00.726-05:002010-09-08T00:07:00.726-05:00Kevin, that's excellent, but not the way I'...Kevin, that's excellent, but not the way I'm going to go here. I need to identify all three characters as aspects of "not-knowing." Tomorrow, it's going to be full-steam Gnosticism. I have no idea what I'm talking about.<br /><br />Faulkner's schema better describes Faulkner's characters!<br /><br />"Encyclopedic narrative," taken is a metaphor, is perfect for <i>Moby-Dick</i>. The key is that everything, all knowledge or truth or whatever, has to emanate from the symbolic patterning of the novel, which is obviously impossible, but we can pretend, can't we? Melville and his disciple Pynchon make it easy to pretend. <br /><br />I have good evidence that people skip the etymologies and extracts - how many times have people misidentified the first line of the novel? How many people skip the beginning of <i>Lolita</i>, another one where the first line is routinely botched.<br /><br />"The Try-Works," yes, awesome, incredible. It ends with that eagle - again! - plunging into the blackest gorges, forty chapters too early.<br /><br />Thanks for that link, nicole. I must have seen it, but it did not register. Your comment there is useful - my edition (an old Modern Library with no notes at all) messes up Melville's design, but productively, weirdly - we get the Usher, but have to turn the page to get the etymologies.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-59359669620132790022010-09-07T19:28:06.173-05:002010-09-07T19:28:06.173-05:00I admit to having a hard time believing many peopl...I admit to having a hard time believing many people really <em>skip</em> the front matter of <em>Moby-Dick</em>—I mean...who would skip the beginning of a book...I have to give people the benefit of the doubt there. But I'd be willing to bet the majority forgets it, even if they don't ignore it. On one level, how could you blame them? On another, it's so critical to <em>preparing you for what you are about to read</em>—for the big, dare I say it, baggy thing you are about to read!<br /><br />I'm looking forward to reading about "The Try-Works"; I feel like that chapter struck me more this time than it has in the past, mostly for the visual that it ends with.<br /><br />Did you happen to see <a href="http://infinitezombies.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/front-matter-and-end-matter" rel="nofollow">this</a>, by the way?nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-30530027168731658712010-09-07T18:21:34.259-05:002010-09-07T18:21:34.259-05:00Your post reminded me of a post I did on Parade...Your post reminded me of a post I did on Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford in which I pondered if that work should be classified as an "Encyclopedic Narrative"-(a term coined I believe by Edward Mendelson in essay on Gravity's Rainbow-Moby Dick was one of his prime examples of such a narrative-one of the qualifiers for inclusion in this category is that the novel somehow sets out as theory of how we acquire knowledge-I have read Moby Dick twice for sure and maybe three times-In The March of Literature FMF makes no mention of MelvilleMel uhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08714473754458914681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-60811516546264573192010-09-07T16:49:59.691-05:002010-09-07T16:49:59.691-05:00"Moby-Dick is a novel about knowledge, about ..."Moby-Dick is a novel about knowledge, about knowability."<br /><br />Or per Faulkner: not-knowing (Queequeg), knowing-and-caring (Ishmael), and knowing-and-not-caring (Ahab). A trinitarian take on conscience...<br /><br />Just a thunk.<br /><br />KKevinhttp://interpolations.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com