#Herman Melville

[dzgrizzle]

[prokopetz]

Everything Tumblr has told you about Moby-Dick is absolute bullshit, and everything that Tumblr has told you about Moby-Dick is 100% true. It’s a travelogue fantasy. It’s proto-science fiction. It’s cosmic horror. It’s shockingly original and it’s shamelessly plagiaristic. It’s a misotheistic Christian parable in which the whale is the mask of a cruel, uncaring God and Ahab is Satan himself, not as trickster or as tempter, but as doomed hero. It’s the most gripping thing you’ll ever read. It’s boring as shit. But above all else – and I cannot emphasise this enough – it is filled with Facts About Whales.

[booty-uprooter]

rip herman melville you would've loved adding several chapters about whale falls to moby dick

[karhun-kallo]

niche and self indulgent valentines that cater to me specifically (if they cater to you as well, i will be so happy)

[oldshrewsburyian]

This is (I think) a beautiful read about the experience of reading great literature -- specifically Moby Dick, and that specificity does matter -- in community.

To recite the whole novel in one unbroken sequence only intensifies Moby-Dick’s legendary obstinance. We are all trapped here, in the belly of the beast, one page at a time.

[thatsbelievable]

[soracities]

“You were as deep down as I’ve ever been. You were inside me like my pulse.”

Marilyn Hacker, “Nearly a Valediction”

"I felt pantheistic then— your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s."

Herman Melville, in a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Listen, / how your heart pounds inside me."

Wislawa Szymborska, “Could Have”

[c0riiander]

two guys from the guild

[pocketsizedquasar]

whale weekly folks are at the squeeze of the hand chapter happy gay whaler sex saturday to all who celebrate. happy have an orgy on deck day

[anony-geist]

Melville himself apparently thought of Moby-Dick as a man's book and wrote to one of his female friends, Sara Moorehead, to dissuade her from reading it for fear of offending her feminine sensibilities: "Dont you buy it—dont even read it, when it does come out, because it is by no means the sort of book for you. It is not a piece of fine, feminine, Spitalfield silk—but is of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ship's cables and hausers.[2]" When Sophia Hawthorne wrote to Melville praising the book, his response was one of astonishment: "I have hunted up the finest Bath I could find, gilt-edged and stamped, whereon to inscribe my humble acknowledgment of your highly flattering letter of the 29th of Dec:—It really amazed me that you should find any satisfaction in that book. It is true that some men have said they were pleased with it but you are the only woman—for as a general thing, women have small taste for the sea.[3]" "Next time," Melville tells Sophia, he shall not send her a "bowl of salt water. . . . The next chalice I shall commend, will be a rural bowl of milk." He then inquires politely about the state of her "domestic affairs."[4] Melville's remarks to these women suggest that he was working under certain gender-determined notions of genre.

Content warning: This book contains the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ship's cables and hausers.

I don't think it's just something period-typical because it implies it now isn't, gender-determined notions of genre are still a thing around the world.

I do feel that in Moorehead's place, I'd have gone WELL NOW I'M GONNA. It's funny to me that in general the boys in my American Literature class would comment things like how it's mostly boring (you don't get it) or about how this is about the national identity of a young country, meanwhile girls would pipe in about multiple facets.

Amerilit girlies: I have so much to say about Moby Dick!

Herman: absolutely flabbergasted

[greypetrel]

Some illustrations I made last year, following Herman Melville's 100% true, so accurate descriptions of whales he shared in Moby Dick.

And by the way on this matter I also wrote a little thing to be continued...

Tagging @shivunin because she gave me the idea, @salsedinepicta because she actually was the one that convinced me to read Moby Dick and I can't thank you enough 💜🐳, and @melisusthewee because hi Mel there's a right whale!

[calvinandhobbes]

The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one did survive the wreck.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (Ch. 1) // Franz Wright, “Empty Stage” // Gregg Araki, “Nowhere” (1997) // Gwendolyn Brooks, Selected Poems // Ana Mendieta, “Silueta Series” (1976) // Hieu Minh Nguyen, "My First” // The Gibsons of Scilly, “The Minnehaha” (1874) // Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (Epilogue) // Euan MacLeod, Figure in Sea above Figure on Hill, 2002 // Ilya Glazunov, Wave, 1987

[prokopetz]

I was thinking about that post arguing that Moby-Dick is one of the principal forerunners of the cosmic horror literature of the early 20th Century again, and it just occurred to me that both of the major scenes in the book where Captain Ahab performs arguably supernatural feats, the forging of the lodestone and holding lightning in his hand, specifically involve electricity and magnetism – which is also a recurring motif for inhuman characters in early literary cosmic horror.

There's probably an essay lurking in that, if I had the time or the energy to chase it down.

[thatrandomblogsays]

Dracula Daily first email:

Vs Whale Weekly Second Email

**edit! It seems some of you would like to follow whale weekly without having to read Moby dick (understandable, Ishmael never shuts the fuck up) I will be making an abridged version a La memes for those friends! Follow #whale weekly memenotes & #moby dick memenotes get it? Like spark notes? to stay updated!

[myrmeraki]

james flint + the sea

our wives under the sea - julia armfield / black sails screencaps 2x9, 1x1, 1x8, 1x8 / moby dick - herman melville

[tintin-official]

redditor on whether herman melville was gay