Why not do a group read of THE great American novel? Moby-Dick?

[Mark Thibodeau]

It's also probably the first novel ever to seriously tackle the
infrastructure and spirituo-enviro-political ramifications of an OIL
based economy. Whether it's from a derrick in open water or from a
whale's protruding head, it's all still about keeping the wheels
greased and the nightlights burning bright.

On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Ian Livingston
<igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would certainly vote for the great white Dick. If it were a summer read, I
> could even follow along, possibly even join in from time to time.
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> It ended around the beginning of November, after my posts on Ch. 7 (to p.
>> 79). There was, however, lively discussion of 100 Best Horror Films, Woody
>> Allen, and literary quotations about beer -- IOW, all the things that have
>> drawn so many new Pynchon readers to the list, and kept old ones so engaged,
>> in recent years.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Michael Bailey <mikebailey at gmx.us> wrote:
>>>
>>> I forget where we were in BE!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Why is Moby-Dick a Great American Novel? Honest question. I've never
>>>> understood it as a novel that grapples with the Americanness of
>>>> America the way so many other novels try to. The way M&D does, or so
>>>> many of the others you list do. Moby-D is a frickin' GREAT novel
>>>> written by an American. If I were one for leaderboards, I'd call it
>>>> one of the greatest books ever written. But it's about the human
>>>> condition as a crisis between epistemologies and ontologies, not what
>>>> it means to be American, right? But, not being an American, I may be
>>>> missing something.
>>>>
>>>> And while I'd love a group read, we got about a quarter of the way
>>>> through the last novel written by the feller we're all subscribed here
>>>> for. The IV read at least managed to limp across the finish line; the
>>>> AtD was a long march that lost many good soldiers by the way. None of
>>>> this is a reflection on the books, just on the world of digital
>>>> disengagement in which the Pynchon List is a Web 1.0 relic. We've been
>>>> offered too many mindless pleasures to engage in the kind of deep and
>>>> ongoing group read these volumes merit.
>>>>
>>>> Prove me wrong, kids, prove me wrong.
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 9:36 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > Traditionally, though, the typical GAN candidate requires heft, range,
>>>> > verisimilitude, and--lest we forget--popularity. While beautifully
>>>> > written and constructed, both William Gaddis's demanding The
>>>> > Recognitions and Peter Matthiessen's Faulknerian Shadow Country have
>>>> > failed to drum up a widespread readership. Thomas Pynchon's Mason &
>>>> > Dixon is, by most measures, a better attempt at a GAN than Gravity's
>>>> > Rainbow, but the latter boasts a hundred times as many fans.
>>>> > Similarly, works on the margin, no matter how fine or insightful about
>>>> > American life, seldom make the grade. One could argue strong cases for
>>>> > the GANship of John Crowley's Little, Big; John Sladek's Roderick, or,
>>>> > The Education of a Young Machine; Thomas Berger's Little Big Man; or,
>>>> > with just a slight stretch, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My
>>>> > Lovely--but, even now, they all remain tainted with the dread word
>>>> > "genre." Yet if Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind can be proposed
>>>> > for GAN honors, why not Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? Not that I'm doing
>>>> > so, by the way.
>>>> >
>>>> > http://www.vqronline.org/big-read-can-single-book-sum-nation
>>>> >
>>>> > On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 7:35 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>>>> > wrote:
>>>> >> Only problem is with the idea of the great American novel, a concept
>>>> >> that has, if nothing else, made for pulp and grist to/for/from the
>>>> >> mill, but it's difficult to dismiss Melville's great white whale as
>>>> >> candidate, and for Pynchon fans, in the world of great books,
>>>> >> Moby-Dick or The Whale is a great influence. The common whiteness
>>>> >> theme alone needs further development, and, as Melville's monstrosity
>>>> >> gained critical mass when the excesses of market capitalism capsized
>>>> >> the nation and the world's economy, it's seem a revisiting Melville
>>>> >> now makes much ado of something, though what that something is has
>>>> >> yet
>>>> >> to be defined, though some will name it and paint it in clear shades
>>>> >> of blackness, it seems so like the mysterious whale itself that
>>>> >> smashes down on the masts of industry and greed, then suck all down
>>>> >> in
>>>> >> a Vortex to the bottomless perdition where God's foot weaves the
>>>> >> tapestry, the mantle of Varo's Earth.
>>>> > -
>>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>> -
>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>>
>
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