Tag: Melville

  • We Return to the Wretched Sea, at Last (“Moby Dick”)

    Last time we visited the Wretched Sea, I went on a lengthy side-notion about the idea of Moby Dick as a kind of drone-art novel. I then put the book down and didn’t pick it up for several months: a trip to Thailand, Mardi Gras, and other things interfered, and so when I resumed, it…

  • What I am Reading

    I’m about 1/8th of the way through Hermoine Lee’s biography of Virginia Woolf; I honestly rarely read biographies, unless I develop some sort of obsession with their subject. I’ve read both biographies of John Cage, for example. It’s interesting, in the way that things are; it’s also slow, as it’s an attempt to be definitive.…

  • More “Moby Dick”/Ambient Novels/Sunn O)))/Drone Novels

    I. Apparently it’s “Moby Dick” season. I have learned through a friend that someone I follow on twitter (who’s work/twitter I admire) is also heeding the call of the wretched sea™ and like me is around halfway through. I finished “The Town-Ho’s Story”, and shortly after that “Moby Dick” turns heavy into encyclopedia mode, with…

  • Continuing on with “Moby Dick”/What I am Reading

    This week sees me returning to the wretched sea after a bit of a break; I note that my ‘reading partner’ also took a bit of a break as well. They’re a bit behind me. Of particular interest this week is “The Town-Ho’s Story” which is, I think, the longest chapter in Moby Dick. It’s…

  • “The Deep”/A Difficult Subject/”Moby Dick”/Storygraph/What I am Reading

    *This entry will contain some discussion of sexual abuse; if that’s something you don’t wish to read about, or are not in a place to deal with, I’m going to encourage you not to engage with it. You can scroll down to the first set of *** to skip that part, or not read at…

  • “Moby Dick”/”The Waves”/Choose my Next Adventure/Mortality

    The trip through the wretched ocean continues. We’ve journeyed through a few of the more famous chapters, including “Moby Dick” and “The Whiteness of the Whale”– Melville notes a few things here.. the whale isn’t supernatural, but it gains supernatural powers as the crew talk about him. “The Whiteness of the Whale” spends it’s time…

  • “Cunning Folk”/What is Scary/”Moby Dick”/What I am Reading

    We all have our prejudices, I suppose. I really dislike things written in the present tense, for the most part. It’s fine to add a little spice or create a sense of urgency. For an entire book, it can be a little difficult for me to take. I find it oddly distracting. I finished “Cunning…

  • 32 Short Films about Zombies with a Cameo from Andy Rooney

    “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” -Samuel Beckett I was gonna write about “Ella Minnow Pea” for this week’s long entry, but I’m gonna keep that one in my back pocket for now, and instead go on a bit of a tangent. Here’s a selection of very short essays which are related to writing…

  • Illness/”Moby Dick”/Cough/No List This Week

    I have had a rotten cold for three weeks or so, which has slowed down my reading pace somewhat; I have advanced to chapter 23 in my Moby Dick re-read, so we’re onboard the ship, Starbuck has appeared, and the narration has done one of the weird shifts it does. Melville does not use a…

  • Submissions/What I am Reading

    I got a couple of requests from folk to look at/write about something for The Lithole a bit ago. I’m generally surprised, as the blog is fairly new, and far from famous. I’m not against considering submissions, but there are a few things to keep in mind: 1) It should be literary in nature. A…