Friday 21 September 2012

moby dick

it should be that there are more posts relating to moby dick swimming about on this blog. come to that there are many things that should be floating about on this blog but i can't seem to figure out how to get those extra hours in the day. but dodging a bit of work to post about the whale seems like time to be well spent.

the whale is in my head at the moment anyway - it always is when i see the margaret atwood scores jump up on the stats and i look again at progressive insanities of a pioneer which, it seems to me, just about the perfect moby dick poem (avoiding of course the obvious irony that there could ever be such a thing as the perfect moby dick poem). i like the ahhabian

The house pitched
the plot staked
in the middle of nowhere


with all its resonances right down to that final image

the green
vision, the unnamed
whale invaded


that says to me that once you're opened up to all the possibilities of this strange, troublesome book then things really are never quite the same again.

get yourself along then to the moby dick big read. it seems unlikely that i'll be able to make it down to englandshire to see the events so if you feel the need to make me profoundly jealous please indulge yourself fully! as ever it seems that moby dick, that fast and loose fish of a book, continues to manifest itself in ever different ways

5 comments:

Roxana said...

oh this is a magnificent project!!! despite my current lack of time, i couldn't resist listening a bit to Tilda Swinton's marvelous reading...

and i love this:

the green
vision, the unnamed
whale invaded

(i wish i could have a photo to match the intensity of this vision, but no image can convey it - oh maybe a painting, i am not sure about photo)

swiss said...

yes, you should be working...

but it is great - i'm just disappointed not to be reading any of it! but listening to a chapter a time while i'm working is rather sublime

Marion McCready said...

never read moby dick but I've seen the cartoon oh about a trillion times :)

swiss said...

never!?

it's not the easiest read but it'd be one of my all time desert island books for sure. so much in it...

Marion McCready said...

if memory serves me right I thinkit was one of Plath's fav books too, one day I'll get around to reading it!