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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2020 7:51:20 GMT
CHOOSE
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Post by stephen on Jul 16, 2020 18:56:45 GMT
The greatest American novel of the 1800s and the greatest American novel of the 1900s.
McCarthy edges out Melville by a hair's breadth for me.
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futuretrunks
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Post by futuretrunks on Jul 17, 2020 0:06:22 GMT
Moby-Dick, no contest. Blood Meridian is a very fine book, but the aspects of Faulkner/Melville derivativeness, and its less grand design make this an absolutely easy decision. This is like comparing Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater (a book I love, by the way, as much as Blood Meridian) to War and Peace.
Edit: Also, for me, the best "novels" of the 20th century are Henry James' The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl, D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Too much of Ulysses is unreadable to me.
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Post by jimmalone on Jul 22, 2020 9:28:25 GMT
A bit of a strange comparison and I can't even vote, cause I haven't read "Blood Meridian".
However I want to take this opportunity to state I've always felt that "Moby Dick" doesn't quite deserve it's status. I like it, but it is by no means one of the greatest novels ever written. Therefore it's build-up in the middle section is way to callow. Melville drifts away so much and there are whole chapters that read more like scientific book about whales and whaling than him being really interested in telling his story.
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Post by stephen on Jul 22, 2020 12:53:16 GMT
A bit of a strange comparison and I can't even vote, cause I haven't read "Blood Meridian". However I want to take this opportunity to state I've always felt that "Moby Dick" doesn't quite deserve it's status. I like it, but it is by no means one of the greatest novels ever written. Therefore it's build-up in the middle section is way to callow. Melville drifts away so much and there are whole chapters that read more like scientific book about whales and whaling than him being really interested in telling his story. It's not really that strange a comparison. McCarthy has stated that his favorite novel is Moby Dick and both books share a lot of similar themes. I actually think the chapters about whaling and whales themselves are what propel the novel over the top for me as a classic. Melville makes sure that we understand the painstaking obsession these men have over these great beasts, to understand not just the industry but the drive to hunt them, and the way he treats them with both a biblical reverence as well as pondering their scientific mysteries is as compelling as the actual pursuit of Moby Dick, at least to me. Yeah, they don't really help if you're trying to read Moby Dick for the narrative, but for me, it's about the prose and the experience. Because so much of that journey is just a bunch of dudes drifting aimlessly in the ocean looking for whale sign. |
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Post by jimmalone on Jul 22, 2020 13:09:36 GMT
A bit of a strange comparison and I can't even vote, cause I haven't read "Blood Meridian". However I want to take this opportunity to state I've always felt that "Moby Dick" doesn't quite deserve it's status. I like it, but it is by no means one of the greatest novels ever written. Therefore it's build-up in the middle section is way to callow. Melville drifts away so much and there are whole chapters that read more like scientific book about whales and whaling than him being really interested in telling his story. It's not really that strange a comparison. McCarthy has stated that his favorite novel is Moby Dick and both books share a lot of similar themes. I actually think the chapters about whaling and whales themselves are what propel the novel over the top for me as a classic. Melville makes sure that we understand the painstaking obsession these men have over these great beasts, to understand not just the industry but the drive to hunt them, and the way he treats them with both a biblical reverence as well as pondering their scientific mysteries is as compelling as the actual pursuit of Moby Dick, at least to me. Yeah, they don't really help if you're trying to read Moby Dick for the narrative, but for me, it's about the prose and the experience. Because so much of that journey is just a bunch of dudes drifting aimlessly in the ocean looking for whale sign. That could be a reason.
To me those chapters don't feature a great prose (of course I've read it on german, so can't fully judge it) and are a rather dry read, full of listings, specifics and measures. I usually don't mind it that much if an author includes such details, cause they can be highly interesting and educate you about a topic, which I usually love if it interests me and whales fulfill this request. It's just that Melville overdoes this. By much. He actually achieves exact the opposite of myth of the whale here for me. He makes it more ordinary. To me he much better tells about the obsession and the myth of the whales in some other chapters, but maybe we talk about different parts of the novel anyways.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2020 1:47:03 GMT
A bit of a strange comparison and I can't even vote, cause I haven't read "Blood Meridian". However I want to take this opportunity to state I've always felt that "Moby Dick" doesn't quite deserve it's status. I like it, but it is by no means one of the greatest novels ever written. Therefore it's build-up in the middle section is way to callow. Melville drifts away so much and there are whole chapters that read more like scientific book about whales and whaling than him being really interested in telling his story. Moby Dick isn't primarily about the literal narrative. It's more about the ideas behind that narrative, and it's all told so beautifully through the unbelievable mastery over language Melville possesses (who also establishes a very immersive atmosphere). Those sections are about the inability of men to actually grasp/confront certain things, even when they can break them down into such careful detail and label every part of them. (and yeah as Stephen said, the books have plenty of similarities and have been compared a lot by scholars/critics) |
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Post by jimmalone on Jul 23, 2020 7:45:45 GMT
A bit of a strange comparison and I can't even vote, cause I haven't read "Blood Meridian". However I want to take this opportunity to state I've always felt that "Moby Dick" doesn't quite deserve it's status. I like it, but it is by no means one of the greatest novels ever written. Therefore it's build-up in the middle section is way to callow. Melville drifts away so much and there are whole chapters that read more like scientific book about whales and whaling than him being really interested in telling his story. Moby Dick isn't primarily about the literal narrative. It's more about the ideas behind that narrative, and it's all told so beautifully through the unbelievable mastery over language Melville possesses (who also establishes a very immersive atmosphere). Those sections are about the inability of men to actually grasp/confront certain things, even when they can break them down into such careful detail and label every part of them. (and yeah as Stephen said, the books have plenty of similarities and have been compared a lot by scholars/critics) It's clear what it is meant to be, but as a reader (or movie watcher) you always have to judge especially what it is meaning to yourself.
Those sections I talk about are just like entries in bioligical books. I may got partly tired of them, because I read a lot about whales when I was a child and much of it was repetitive for me.
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