Moby Dick: Why is this considered the great american novel?

I left out a word... "I would prefer not to."

I checked my memory against Wikipedia.

Mark Twain was one of seven children, only three of whom survived childhood. His beloved brother was killed when a steamboat exploded.
His father died when he was only 11.

He out lived his wife, two of his three daughters and his infant son.

He had personal reasons not to trust in a benign universe.

And he didn't. Still, a great wit and writer.

Re: Moby Dick: Why is this considered the great american nov




I used to know a guy named Pip...

and then of course there was Gladys Knight she had 3 Pips...you don't suppose they got the name after reading this book do you?



(on a side note I have never read anything by Melville)

Popping up.

I have read it over 7 times and everytime I experience something new and enlightening. Melville's genius is told in his personal experiences on a whaling ship of the era; it is part true and part fiction; it is cultural and civil in it's dialect to America at that time. It far exceeds other novels i.e. Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Adventure's of Tom Sawyer, and later The Grapes of Wrath, because of it's length and duty to it's characters, which are expressed to minutely. It is close in performance to Shakespeare's works and the truisms of the novel leave us to contemplate personal characterizations, opinions, religion, and other moral issues.
As for Pip(Pippin) the minute cook-ship-watcher; who is left to die the 2nd time he jumps overboard on Stubb's whaleboat; but survives. He is a small black talisman who lies in opposition to Ishmael. He is needed and Ahab comes to love him.

Bartlby the Scrivener

❤️

I still have a copy of Moby Dick. I bought it some years ago. I started it perhaps four times, but always gave up. Now I don't feel so bad about that. I don't see how there could ever be "The Great American Novel." We are too divided, divers and screwed up to to deserve that.

It isn't. But it's rightly considered a great American novel.

I remember being so surprised that many people here really didn’t like MD. I loved it, and held Melville in awe. Perhaps I’m not as discriminating about my lit.

Thinking of The Great American Novel.

I’m betting some Hawthorne title will get those props. I never appreciated him as I’m told I should.

Mulling.

I wish I had thought of this a decade ago, but I was just thinking about his Wayward Bus. It wasn't about anything, and nothing really happened, but it held my attention all the way through. Not every writer can pull this off.

Steinbeck's angst-ridden tragic novels East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, were made into great films. James Dean in East of Eden is unforgettable. I think, at least, Eastl of Eden is on par with Huckleberry Finn as a great American novel. But they're a century apart.

Steinbeck bought a pickup with a camper later in life and traveled around the country with his standard poodle Charly and wrote about it in his book, Travels with Charly.

It's hard for me to be objective, where Steinbeck is concerned. Foremost, Grapes of Wrath is very much in parallel with the story of my mother's family. Book and movie are at the top of my favorites. Others of his books and short stories are at least as great.

I remember liking Steinbeck, though not all of his work equally, and I likely missed some.
I've a small claim to fame in that I once had an art show put on/fostered by the California Arts folks in Sacramento. A woman I knew and her boyfriend helped me to get the paintings up there from Los Angeles. Hell of a ride, the boyfriend was a somewhat crazed driver as many can be on CA highway 5.

My point, friend knew a couple who lived in a place Steinbeck had, and we all went over there for drinks/coffee, so went inside. I've a faint memory of the house. No big deal, but a small episode I enjoyed getting in on.

Moby Dick? I don't remember considering reading it.

I just reread, and now I'd like to check out the Wayward Bus.

There is not nor can there be one definitive great American novel. Why? The answer is in this thread. The word "great" is subjective. Everybody has an opinion.

BTW, Coluber, I read all of Steinbeck. Travels with Charlie is a wonderful book. If it's somewhere on my shelves, I'd like to read it again. Thanks for reminding me of it.

I think somebody said Raintree County was the great American novel.


(It coulda been me, but then again mebbe not.)

Debacle? For real?

whoa whoa whoa!


Dillpickle's here?!