Classics Considered

Though dreadfully behind on Brona's readalong , I am still plugging away at this American tome and really savoring it.  This is my second time reading Moby-Dick, the first time being nearly a decade ago.  The familiar scenes and phrases are coming back to me like old friends. NASA Johnson Space Center - Earth Sciences and Image Analysis (NASA-JSC-ES&IA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons The first 18 or so chapters cover Ishmael's land journey to his ship the Pequod , anchored at Nantucket, and meeting his unexpected, cannibal friend Queequeg.  Much has been written about the exploration of religion and culture that Melville covers in this introduction, where we see both conflict and communality between different characters, both on a broad scale and on a personal level. What really gets at me this time is the range of emotions and "worlds," if you will, which Melville shows us.  You feel Ishmael's wanderlust in the first chapter, his mix of fe...

Every so often, I get an urge to do something crafty.  "Crafty" here means having to do with crafts, not cunning plans (though it may amount to the same thing).  Today was one of those days, so I stopped by ye olde curiosity shoppe Dollar Tree and picked up some frames, because I'm cheap that way. Remember this quote from Heretics ?  I couldn't find a great graphic of it online, so I decided to make one.  Here's the printout (click for full size): ( The flourish is from Pixabay - I know they don't require attribution, but I always feel like I should...habit!) I picked up this little blue frame because it goes with my color scheme, but I wasn't sure what picture to put in it.  I finally settled on the plans for the Nautilus (Disney version), along with Nemo's motto, Mobilis in Mobili ("moving amidst mobility").  Completely nerdy, but I love it.  :) Last bit of craftiness: I love triptychs, so thought I'd try creati...

"'I will have no man in my boat,' said Starbuck, 'who is not afraid of a whale.' By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward." Over the years, I've collected various quotes about or related to courage (it is probably my favorite subject for quotes).  This bit of wisdom from Starbuck is something in particular I've carried with me, I suppose subconsciously.  At work, for example, I have some worries and personal insecurities, and instead of trying to ignore them, I've found it's best to acknowledge, think through, then address them, in that order.  Fortunately, my job is worlds easier than Starbuck's...

The actual title of the book is Billy Budd and Other Stories , published by Penguin Classics.  However, there is such a similarity in the writing, I was reminded of the title of a Hawthorne collection, Mosses from an Old Manse .  Since Hawthorne was the dedicatee of Moby-Dick  and also referenced by name in one of these stories, I'm sure Herman Melville  would take the comparison as a compliment! Overall, I give the book 4 stars , but it's a mixed bag, so I'll review each story on its own: Bartleby, the Scrivener I really loved this story.  It's probably the closest thing to Kafkaesque,  pre -Kafka, that I've read.  Bartleby is an enigmatic scrivener (copier - think Nemo from Bleak House ), and it's hard to say if he's the hero or the antagonist, but he is certainly the mystery.  I'm still not sure what to make of it, but it's one of those stories that is very good at painting atmosphere and the impression of things. The Piazza Another kind of mys...

 ...you glance at a shopping list and, for a split second, read one of the headings as "Whale Fishery".  What it actually says is "Whole Foods". Years ago, when I first tried to read this book (and stopped halfway), I thought it was the most boring classic I'd ever read, as well as one of the hardest books I'd ever read.  The plot is pretty simple--an insane captain sets out to get revenge on a whale.  The book, however, happens to be over 600 pages long.  It alternates between telling the story and talking about whales, with whole chapters that read like encyclopedia articles with author's commentary . Surprisingly enough, though, this time I like it. The writing style is very interesting.  It's first-person, but the narrator is able to tell the reader practically as much as third-person narration does.  Sometimes the narrator tells the story like any other author, with even comic relief.  Other times he goes on for chapters about whaling, and wh...