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And another Moby-Dick
Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick is probably my favorite book. *** Years ago at an awful dinner party a man I didn’t know asked me What do you do?, by which he meant how I made money to live,...
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Mass-market Monday | Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories by Herman Melville
Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories by Herman Melville, Herman Melville. No collection editor credited. Bantam Books (1989). No cover designer credited. Cover is a detail of Ships and an Approaching...
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Mass-market Monday | Herman Melville’s Redburn
Redburn, Herman Melville. Doubleday Anchor Books (1957). Cover art by Edward Gorey. 301 pages. Redburn is as good a place as any to start with Melville, I suppose. From Elizabeth Hardwick’s essay...
View ArticleThe American novel starts off with Hawthorne, Melville, Poe—and it’s not a...
BODDY: In In Memoriam you speak of Faulkner as “the American writer.” What is it about Faulkner that makes him “the American”? ACKER: First of all, there weren’t any novelists around then who weren’t...
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On Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno
Near the middle of Herman Melville’s 1855 novella Benito Cereno, our erstwhile protagonist Captain Amasa Delano encounters an old sailor tying a strange knot: For intricacy, such a knot he had never...
View ArticleOnce, I was talking to Herman Melville. He said, “I’m writing book called...
RIP Gilbert Gottfried, 1955-2022
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Melville’s Bartleby, but just the punctation
, . – . . , : — — – . , , , , – , . , . – , . . . , , . , , , , . , , , , , , ; . : , , . , , , , . , ; , ‘ – . , . , , ; , . , , ; , , , , . , ‘ . , . , , , . , . ; ; , , , — — ; – , . . . — — – . – ,...
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Pierre Senges’ Ahab (Sequels) (Book acquired, mid-September 2021)
Ahab (Sequels) is the latest English-language translation of a Pierre Senges novel—and. Again, the translation is by Jacob Siefring (who’s brought us couple of Senges’ marvelous oddities) and Tegan...
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A Careful Disorderliness | Forty Riffs on Moby-Dick
I did not set out to write forty riffs on Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick but that’s where I ended up. I don’t think what I’ve done here is a resource of any worth, but I do hope to encourage...
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The drama’s done | Moby-Dick reread, riff 40
Moby-Dick illustration by Barry Moser I. In this riff, Chapter 135, “The Chase—Third Day” and the Epilogue of Moby-Dick. The beginning of the end begins, “The morning of the third day dawned fair and...
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Wild nights | Moby-Dick reread, riff 35
I. In this riff, Ch. 123, “The Musket.” Here, we—and by which we, I guess I mean Ishmael’s consciousness–or maybe I just mean we—enter Starbuck’s consciousness. Our good Christian co-commander stands...
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That wild simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils | Moby-Dick reread,...
I. In this riff, Chapters 133-134 of Moby-Dick. II. Ch. 133, “The Chase—First Day.” We finally get there. Ahab has posed one question throughout the book: “Hast seen the White Whale?” That is the only...
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The least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost...
I. In this riff, Chapters 130-132 of Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick illustration by Herman Melville. II. Ch. 130, “The Hat.” In which Ahab’s hat is stolen by “one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so...
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A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? | Moby-Dick reread, riff 37
Moby-Dick illustration by Barry Moser I. In this riff, Chapters 127-129 of Moby-Dick. II. Ch. 127, “The Deck.” Another chapter composed as playwright’s drama—mostly dialogue, and a few spare stage...
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Crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail | Moby-Dick reread, riff 36
I. In this riff, Chapters 124-126 of Moby-Dick. II. Ch. 124, “The Needle.” “The Needle” is another one of Melville’s satanic reversals in Moby-Dick. Lightning from the tempest that The Pequod endured...
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All of us are Ahabs | Moby-Dick reread, riff 34
Moby-Dick illustration by Barry Moser I. In this riff, Chapters 120-123 of Moby-Dick. II. Ch. 120, “The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.” A very short chapter with a mediumish-length...
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Thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief | Moby-Dick reread, riff 33
Moby-Dick illustration by Barry Moser I. In this riff, Chapters 118 and 119 of Moby-Dick. II. Ahab has already gone mad before The Pequod sets sail on this particular voyage, but Ch. 118, “The...
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Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them |...
Moby-Dick illustration by Barry Moser I. I “finished” rereading Moby-Dick a few minutes before I started composing this riff. I feel sad and a little deflated. Deflated here is maybe the wrong word....
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Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried | Moby-Dick...
Moby-Dick illustration by Barry Moser I. In this riff, Ch. 112 of Moby-Dick, “The Blacksmith.” II. “The Blacksmith” chapter is neither especially long nor short, and a reader could skip over it without...
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