Seems like there's a new Moby-Dick thread every week at this point, and while it certainly merits discussion, it is rather sad that all his other works have been underlooked, considering that they are also exceedingly well written and generally contain enough interesting happenings to warrant a read. Anyone read his first biographical adventure novels? His short stories? His poetry? Pierre, The Confidence Man, Israel Potter, Mardi? What did you think of them? Nobody talks about them at all despite many of them being nearly as good as Moby-Dick.I'll start, with Typee, his first work; though this was his most popular well into the 20th Century, I would be very surprised for basically anyone else to have read it, since it contains essentially no literary merit unless you're curious about Melville's beginning. I read it after Moby-Dick and the difference between the two is so jarring it was hard to believe it was written by the same man at all, and only 5 years apart at that. Moreover, the novel is so fun, fast paced, and completely the opposite of what people tend to think of when they think "Melville" (long dissertations on the biology of whales & a plot that takes ten chapters to actually get anywhere); yet, I think that Melville's beginnings as an adventure writer were actually far more vital to the seemingly languid Moby-Dick than most realize, with Captain Ahab and Queequeg being the result of a background in epic fiction that ventured far out into strange, unknown lands.
pynchon said he based gravity's rainbow on the confidence man or sth i got copy but didn't read lol no but i bet u read bartleby at least
>>25125801Billy Budd is apparently good
>>25125808man i got a copy of that, signet classics version, and it has a quote from joyce carol oates on the cover and it always make think of some organic oats cereal my parents made me eat as a kid and i get like slightly hungry. wtf kind of last name is oates anyways. needless to say, didnt' read.
>>25125801We just had a Pierre thread >>25122579. A wonderful book, somehow even more poetic than Moby-Dick:>No Cornwall miner ever sunk so deep a shaft beneath the sea, as Love will sink beneath the floatings of the eyes. Love sees ten million fathoms down, till dazzled by the floor of pearls. The eye is Love’s own magic glass, where all things that are not of earth, glide in supernatural light. There are not so many fishes in the sea, as there are sweet images in lovers’ eyes. In those miraculous translucencies swim the strange eye-fish with wings, that sometimes leap out, instinct with joy; moist fish-wings wet the lover’s cheek. Love’s eyes are holy things; therein the mysteries of life are lodged; looking in each other’s eyes, lovers see the ultimate secret of the worlds; and with thrills eternally untranslatable, feel that Love is god of all. Man or woman who has never loved, nor once looked deep down into their own lover’s eyes, they know not the sweetest and the loftiest religion of this earth. Love is both Creator’s and Saviour’s gospel to mankind; a volume bound in rose-leaves, clasped with violets, and by the beaks of humming-birds printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies.Though also ten times as difficult. Looking forward to reading Clarel, I hope his poetry is just as good as his novels.>>25125804I can definitely see it:>overtly comic tone hides a tragedy underneath (GR is one of the most depressing books I've ever read)>Slothrop undergoes various metamorphoses, just like the titular confidence-man in Melville>little to no plot, just vignettes
>>25125905>little to no plot
I wonder why his epic poem isn't discusssd.
Redburn, Clarel, Billy Budd, Bartleby >>25126205Moby dick is about finding God,. Clarel is about rejecting him once you've found him. It's obvious why one is more popular than the other
>>25125801It's hard to discuss other works with Moby Dick being what it is. I really enjoy White Jacket, a absolute amazing novel and a classic of naval literature. I do not remember much from Redburn, Typee, Omoo, or Mardi. Billy Budd is great. Have only read a bit of his poetry and was not super captivated but will give it another shot at some point.
Confidence man is unique and ambitious. The first half is fast-paced. The relationship between mark and knave is fairly good natured. There seems to be a wider ongoing, networked conspiracy, but accomplices are suggested never confirmed. The second half of the novel focuses on a character referred to as the Cosmopolitan, or Frank Goodman. His con game is also only suggested, never defined, so some readers may question if he was truly a conman at all. I think his motivation was to convince people to have confidence in humanity, like a blind doctrine of faith. Hypocrisy and self-deception are major themes along with the meta irony of Melville, a knave posing as author, diddling the reader.
Why did he hate lightning rods?
>>25126883Shocking, isn't it?
