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

[Ian Livingston]

Yeah, well, somebody had to post it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbBB8QEbUtg


On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> A summertime GR (pun-ish) might be a good time had by some, including me.
> Since I didn't get to do BE, I'd vote for that, or Melville, or M & D, or
> any of a long list....
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 12:13 AM, Michael Bailey <mikebailey at gmx.us>wrote:
>
>> You make a good point!
>>
>> That part about fast fish and loose fish isn't so much about the america
>> that could've been as about the law of having & holding - Mr Dick maybe
>> represents that wonderful america, turtle island, this huge intelligent
>> being that was minding its own business - colonizing krill, if you will -
>> till Ahab came along. Oh yeah
>> And with his harpoon
>> Pricked Moby-Dick - Owey! O weh!
>>
>>
>>
>> alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Great questions and comments. Yeah, hard to keep folks engaged. But
>>> thee has been talk of reading M-D here for years so...
>>>
>>> Yeah, we would certainly take on the American novel question. M-D
>>> doesn't go west across the continent sized nation, cutting it open,
>>> exposing its buried voices, it doesn't race through the dust to the
>>> grapes of wrathful California, it doesn't even take a road less
>>> traveled or go into the woods to suck deeper from the bone marrow of
>>> land. Most of the action takes place far from America, on ships,
>>> boats, islands, though it does begin, as Melville's life begins, in
>>> NYC, it quickly ships off with an international crew, islanders
>>> mostly, and with one noted exception, none of the crew return to
>>> America. But that one voice is American, it does return to America and
>>> the yarn Ishmael spins is American, is told from an American Point of
>>> View, and is about America, albeit, about a subjunctive America, one
>>> that might have been, one that had promise but lost its way. So, in
>>> theme, the book is most Pynchonian or Pynchon's are Melvillean. And
>>> Ahab, the tragic captain has much to say about how America has
>>> organized its sick crew of of islanders and chased whiteness and oil.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 7:55 AM, 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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> www.innergroovemusic.com
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