Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Moby Expectations, chapter 12

As I mentioned yesterday, I'll be leaving tomorrow for Haystack and won't be home till Sunday afternoon. There's no Internet access there, so you won't hear from me unless I happen to venture off the property and find myself in a library or a coffeeshop or something. So as regards my function as official Moby-Dick and Great Expectations termagant: today is the only nagging you'll get.

I'll be bringing the novels with me, and I've already reached chapter 8 in both books. What if we aim for chapter 12 in both of them? And what if you use this post as your discussion base for the week's reading? To propel your comments, my only leading question is this: what is making you most uneasy?

I'm beginning to compile a list of the other books I'll be packing. So far I've got The Collected Shorter Poems of Hayden Carruth and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. I'm also considering King Lear and possibly Dorothy Sayers's Busman's Honeymoon. Wordsworth's Prelude ought to come along, and possibly George Herbert's poems as well. . . .

I know this is beginning to sound ridiculous. Book separation anxiety is why I never go to writers' retreats.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my, I also experience major book separation anxiety and thus, whenever we travel anywhere, (even for an overnight trip to a family get-togther at my brother's cabin in PA when I know I will have zip time to read) I must bring along a book for every possible reading urge, low to high. If we're travelling by car it's not much of a problem but if we're travelling by plane...well then I spend hours deciding what books must go with me.
Hope you enjoy the retreat and your workshops.

Maureen said...

Thought you might enjoy reading this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/22/john-milton-filthy-poem-oxford

Anonymous said...

Chapter 6 MD I love this comment about Queequeg reaching over the heads of the other boarders in order to harpoon a beefsteak. "But THAT was certainly very coolly done by him and every one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly." I think that very often holds true now too.

Ruth said...

Okay..that last comment was me, Ruth...what is going on here with blogger {-:

Teresa C. said...

Ruth:I had the same problem with a comment (the one about book separation anxiety) tagged as from "Anon." Maybe Blogger likes to play tricks on us...

Teresa C. said...

What is making me most uneasy? Miss Havisham’s creepy, bordering on voyeuristic, behavior towards Pip and Estella. In fact, I felt slightly nauseated by the scene in which she demands that Pip and Estella play cards in front of her because it seemed to have sexual undertones. In fact the whole set-up—of Havisham’s request to have Pip come over to “play” and then her manipulation of P & E—has undertones of a client and a prostitute. I’m curious: How did everyone else respond to this scene?

I too liked that comment by the narrator about “to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.” I also liked his comment, in Chapter10, about Queequeg’s face: “You cannot hide the soul.”

I’ve been mulling over the meaning of the Jonah sermon (beyond the obvious “it has a whale in it” one). Strikes me that Father Mapple’s telling of the story parallels, to some extent, Ishmael’s telling of his story: there’s a LOT of lead up to the moment of action (i.e. Ahab’s encounter with MD and Jonah’s repentance). Again I’m curious to know what others make of it.

Ruth said...

Well, I just finished the GE assignment and I too am very uneasy about Miss Havisham’s behavior. It's as though she is manipulating little figures on a child's stage or playing with living dolls. In MD, I am worrying about all those young lads draining out of the surrounding states and who wish to go to sea.

Dawn Potter said...

Oddly, my reaction to the Jonah sermon in MD was similar to my reaction to most sermons: attention followed by distraction followed by attention followed by distraction, ad infinitum. I kept wondering if Melville had meant that to happen to me.

Ruth said...

perhaps there should be a readers'retreat..one could bring all those "I can't put down books" or those"I always meant to read" books or just "what is intriguing me right now" books or even those "I found this on sale" books.

Al and Adam said...

I think it would be hard not to feel uneasy about the creepy Miss Havisham and her crumbling wedding cake and yellowing wedding clothes and her apparent determination to push poor Pip toward the chilly Estella. It was interesting to see that Pip himself is much more frightened by the "stranger" in the bar with the file who seems to simply want to repay him for his help than he is of Miss Havisham whose motives seem much more murky to me at this point.

It also makes me very uneasy to witness the beginnings of Pip's self-doubt and class consciousness and the pain it causes him.

I love the comic relief of Miss Havisham's fawning visitors, especially Camilla; she reminds me of some of Jane Austen's funnier characters.