Yes, dear readers, I have done it! I have finished Moby Dick. I feel awfully (perhaps even unreasonably) proud of myself. I actually hadn't intended to read it, but on the other hand, stuck in an airport likely was my best chance to finish it, and I had no time to get to the library before my trip to MN last weekend. Thanks, work for being even more busy than usual! Seriously.
Anyway, wow. What a book!
I thought that this one would be so much more miserable than it was; I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, but actually, it's not. I am certainly not the target audience for this one, and it felt rather dated. But it was pretty similar to Treasure Island or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in terms of readability and enjoyability.
I actually read the whaling parts, too. I particularly appreciated all of the references to Jonah, since they made me think of Baby Island. Man, I loved that book so much. I didn't actually love Moby Dick, but it could have been so much worse. Some of his odes to the awesomeness of whales does wear thin, but the parts about the actual chase where kind of fun in their way. They had momentum, even if the thought of whaling anymore is pretty disturbing. It had a pretty fantastic ending, of course.
I agree with the person who wrote the commentary for the edition that I read, who said we should really just read this and enjoy it as an adventure travel book, and not get all philosophical. Or more importantly, not get psychoanalytic, I think. I do not want to go there.
Showing posts with label Melville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Melville. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Saturday, September 11, 2010
I'm either bored or traumatized, but it's all good
I don’t have anything to say about Love in the Time of Cholera. Really don’t. I feel bad, because I know that I should love Marquez and that many people thinks this book is amazing, and it has all this nuance I am sure. But I just was bored. I didn’t really enjoy 100 Years of Solitude, per se (I always think of it as 1000 years of solitude; it certainly felt long enough), but it is rich and complex. I found Love in the Time of Cholera surprisingly bland. And that’s really all I have to say. Really. I’m sorry.
Ah, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The question here really is, how do you like your portrayals of violence against women? We’ll take a second shot at this when we get to The Handmaid’s Tale.
But for now, let’s start with Hardy’s novel. It’s beautiful; Tess is an amazing character. I love her voice and the way we are in her head, and yet not in so many ways. But, I found this one extremely hard to read. It may not have been the best week for me to be reading a work where one of the main themes is violence against women. If you do read it, be prepared. There were times when I just had to stop reading for a few seconds.
What really stood out to me was the victim blaming that permeates the novel. Obviously as the rapist Alec is horrible, but Angel is not much better (her parents are equally victim blaming; gah). One way that we justify victim blaming is through dehumanizing victims. Throughout the novel, Hardy repeatedly brings up Tess’s humanness and the ways the different characters view Tess. Angel muses on the fact that Tess is fully human, a full person living her own true and real life, not just a thing defined in relation to him. At the same time, Angel clearly doesn’t fully comprehend this or what it means, which is why Angel ultimately is able to be so incredibly cruel to Tess.
Alec doesn’t even pretend to see Tess as a full person. He completely defines her in relation to him, to his needs and desires. That’s why he rapes her in the first place, and why later, after he thinks he has changed/ “converted,” he still only thinks of his need to absolve his guilt over his actions, not what Tess needs.
Next time, The Handmaid’s Tale and Howards End.
Ah, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The question here really is, how do you like your portrayals of violence against women? We’ll take a second shot at this when we get to The Handmaid’s Tale.
But for now, let’s start with Hardy’s novel. It’s beautiful; Tess is an amazing character. I love her voice and the way we are in her head, and yet not in so many ways. But, I found this one extremely hard to read. It may not have been the best week for me to be reading a work where one of the main themes is violence against women. If you do read it, be prepared. There were times when I just had to stop reading for a few seconds.
What really stood out to me was the victim blaming that permeates the novel. Obviously as the rapist Alec is horrible, but Angel is not much better (her parents are equally victim blaming; gah). One way that we justify victim blaming is through dehumanizing victims. Throughout the novel, Hardy repeatedly brings up Tess’s humanness and the ways the different characters view Tess. Angel muses on the fact that Tess is fully human, a full person living her own true and real life, not just a thing defined in relation to him. At the same time, Angel clearly doesn’t fully comprehend this or what it means, which is why Angel ultimately is able to be so incredibly cruel to Tess.
Alec doesn’t even pretend to see Tess as a full person. He completely defines her in relation to him, to his needs and desires. That’s why he rapes her in the first place, and why later, after he thinks he has changed/ “converted,” he still only thinks of his need to absolve his guilt over his actions, not what Tess needs.
Next time, The Handmaid’s Tale and Howards End.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The End is in Sight
It's a long way off, but in theory I will get there someday. Someday when I am middle aged if I keep pace and elderly if I don't, but someday nonetheless. When I began this project, finishing wasn't the goal at all. I thought maybe I'd get to around book 500, which will be an accomplishment in and of itself. This was definitely a project where the journey mattered much more than the destination. My aim really was to read books off of the list and see where I ended up. The list guided what I read, but I didn't expect to ever exhaust it.
Until one day when I calculated my reading speed and discovered that I should finish around age 32. When I tell people my projected end date, push this out to age 35, so I have a few years of flex time if I need it. I always give the caveat that this depends on keeping my current pace, which may not be at all sustainable (particularly if/when I go back to school, or if I lose my mind and decide to procreate).
Knowing that I might actually finish this project, and that it might happen in the relatively near future and not when I'm an 85-year-old woman in a nursing home who can't even remember the first 200 or so, has change the project in ways I did not expect.
Perhaps most obviously, I think it has helped me speed up my pace of reading. Some of that may be due to the fact that I am increasing my reading fitness. But being able to have a sense of the finish line, even one so far away, has played a role, too, I think. This is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, so keeping a sustainable pace matters a great deal in terms of my ability to actually finish. At the same time, knowing I won't be going forever has given me something to strive for, and has made speed take on a more tangible meaning, which has lead to increased speed.
I've also realized that I need to do a better job of reading authors who have a lot of works on the list. Starting to tackle Dickens and Coetzee has been a direct result of this knowledge, since they are the two with the most works on the list. I like to spread out works by the same author or in the same genre. Therefore, I know that I'll get to all Dickens eventually, which has meant that I need to start sprinkling him in if I don't want to end up having to read David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist back to back.
Similarly, I've started to tackle some of the more unpleasant or intimidating works on the list. Before, I never thought I'd actually have to read Moby Dick; now, it's only a matter of time. It's moved up in my mental queue, though I've not been able to face it yet (The Idiot was read because of this phenomenon).
The main consequence has been more subtle, and I'm not sure how to put it into words. It's more of a perspective change than anything else. The journey still matters way more than the destination. If it didn't, this would be both a pretty shallow project and a pretty unrewarding one; I don't think you'd be able to keep it up. At the same time, knowing the destination is there means the destination does matter more. Checking off books and see the number I've read climb is rewarding, and I've started setting short-term goals for numbers, which I hadn't done before.
Until one day when I calculated my reading speed and discovered that I should finish around age 32. When I tell people my projected end date, push this out to age 35, so I have a few years of flex time if I need it. I always give the caveat that this depends on keeping my current pace, which may not be at all sustainable (particularly if/when I go back to school, or if I lose my mind and decide to procreate).
Knowing that I might actually finish this project, and that it might happen in the relatively near future and not when I'm an 85-year-old woman in a nursing home who can't even remember the first 200 or so, has change the project in ways I did not expect.
Perhaps most obviously, I think it has helped me speed up my pace of reading. Some of that may be due to the fact that I am increasing my reading fitness. But being able to have a sense of the finish line, even one so far away, has played a role, too, I think. This is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, so keeping a sustainable pace matters a great deal in terms of my ability to actually finish. At the same time, knowing I won't be going forever has given me something to strive for, and has made speed take on a more tangible meaning, which has lead to increased speed.
I've also realized that I need to do a better job of reading authors who have a lot of works on the list. Starting to tackle Dickens and Coetzee has been a direct result of this knowledge, since they are the two with the most works on the list. I like to spread out works by the same author or in the same genre. Therefore, I know that I'll get to all Dickens eventually, which has meant that I need to start sprinkling him in if I don't want to end up having to read David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist back to back.
Similarly, I've started to tackle some of the more unpleasant or intimidating works on the list. Before, I never thought I'd actually have to read Moby Dick; now, it's only a matter of time. It's moved up in my mental queue, though I've not been able to face it yet (The Idiot was read because of this phenomenon).
The main consequence has been more subtle, and I'm not sure how to put it into words. It's more of a perspective change than anything else. The journey still matters way more than the destination. If it didn't, this would be both a pretty shallow project and a pretty unrewarding one; I don't think you'd be able to keep it up. At the same time, knowing the destination is there means the destination does matter more. Checking off books and see the number I've read climb is rewarding, and I've started setting short-term goals for numbers, which I hadn't done before.
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