Recent reading
May. 26th, 2025 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeThe Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales by Frank R. Stockton (1887), which I read a little while ago when one of the stories from it caught my attention in the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
once_upon_fic tagset. Although I didn't end up matching on or writing for it, I'm glad I read the collection! The stories are weird and sideways in their priorities in an enjoyable way that I really like in original/modern fairytales—especially 'The Griffin and the Minor Canon', the story that was nominated for once_upon_fic; many of them, including that one, aren't centred around romances, which was refreshing; and Stockton's writing style is also enjoyable.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851). Things I had osmosed about this book before reading it: 1) it's about a mad quest for revenge after a whale; 2) it's really gay, 3) it contains a lot of long digressions full of dubiously accurate whale facts and 4) it's completely bonkers. These are all true; osmosis failed to prepare me for just how true. It's an amazing book, well worth reading, and I can't quite sum up what it's like. It's kind of like if Victor Hugo was American and the French Revolution was whales, perhaps. The structure and style are very funny, even besides the passages—they take up too much of the book, both in length and significance, really to call them digressions—in which the narrator Ishmael tells us everything he knows about whales and whaling. While Ishmael's voice is very important throughout, he's not really the POV character of a lot of the narrative sections, which frequently include scenes he's not apparently there for, focus on other characters and explore their thoughts in detail; much of the dialogue consists of theatrical soliloquies, quite a few chapters open with stage directions and occasionally the whole thing actually switches into script format for a chapter. This book is also incidentally the most ethnically-diverse nineteenth-century novel I've ever read.
As for being really gay, the book opens with canon There Was Only One Bed (and I do mean the fanfic trope There Was Only One Bed, not simply bedsharing) between Ishmael and Queequeg the fascinating Pacific Islander harpooneer; a day or two later they're declaring that they are now married and going off happily to sign up on a whaling ship together, whence the rest of the plot. Though there are occasional good moments, Ishmael/Queequeg is rather neglected later on in the book in favour of whale drama and whale information, which was a bit disappointing. On the other hand I very much enjoyed the whale drama and whale information—Melville(/the narrative written by Ishmael) sees the whole world in whales and whaling, and has an amazing talent for making things significant, besides a distinctive, chaotic and frequently hilarious narrative voice.
As for the main plot, however, I was on Moby Dick's side. What a conservation icon.
once_upon_fic tagset. Although I didn't end up matching on or writing for it, I'm glad I read the collection! The stories are weird and sideways in their priorities in an enjoyable way that I really like in original/modern fairytales—especially 'The Griffin and the Minor Canon', the story that was nominated for once_upon_fic; many of them, including that one, aren't centred around romances, which was refreshing; and Stockton's writing style is also enjoyable.Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851). Things I had osmosed about this book before reading it: 1) it's about a mad quest for revenge after a whale; 2) it's really gay, 3) it contains a lot of long digressions full of dubiously accurate whale facts and 4) it's completely bonkers. These are all true; osmosis failed to prepare me for just how true. It's an amazing book, well worth reading, and I can't quite sum up what it's like. It's kind of like if Victor Hugo was American and the French Revolution was whales, perhaps. The structure and style are very funny, even besides the passages—they take up too much of the book, both in length and significance, really to call them digressions—in which the narrator Ishmael tells us everything he knows about whales and whaling. While Ishmael's voice is very important throughout, he's not really the POV character of a lot of the narrative sections, which frequently include scenes he's not apparently there for, focus on other characters and explore their thoughts in detail; much of the dialogue consists of theatrical soliloquies, quite a few chapters open with stage directions and occasionally the whole thing actually switches into script format for a chapter. This book is also incidentally the most ethnically-diverse nineteenth-century novel I've ever read.
As for being really gay, the book opens with canon There Was Only One Bed (and I do mean the fanfic trope There Was Only One Bed, not simply bedsharing) between Ishmael and Queequeg the fascinating Pacific Islander harpooneer; a day or two later they're declaring that they are now married and going off happily to sign up on a whaling ship together, whence the rest of the plot. Though there are occasional good moments, Ishmael/Queequeg is rather neglected later on in the book in favour of whale drama and whale information, which was a bit disappointing. On the other hand I very much enjoyed the whale drama and whale information—Melville(/the narrative written by Ishmael) sees the whole world in whales and whaling, and has an amazing talent for making things significant, besides a distinctive, chaotic and frequently hilarious narrative voice.
As for the main plot, however, I was on Moby Dick's side. What a conservation icon.
no subject
Date: May. 26th, 2025 12:41 pm (UTC)What a conservation icon.
SO true.
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Date: May. 26th, 2025 05:59 pm (UTC)