43 pages in and enjoying this Leviathan so far. Have any of you read our edition?
Thoughts?
Feelings?
General Mobile Cock discussion?

Are Ahab and Queerqueg actually gay?

>>24553969 (OP)
This seems like it was a lot of fun and I wish I had gotten off my ass and participated at the time. We should do another unauthorized critical edition, of some other book.

>>24553975
I couldn't agree more, what would be you're recommendation for a new project?

>>24554002
Something of the same stature as Moby-Dick: a great work of literature that most of /lit/ has read.

Honestly what immediately comes to mind is Ulysses. Imagine us all writing interpretive essays on Joyce's masterpiece.

>>24554002
GR

>>24554009
I'd do it kek
t.has never read Ulysses

What is the official consensus on Mardi and Pierre?

Mogged hard by a Dutch guy

>>24554185
mardi was fun, reminscent of gogol's 'dead souls' in that it's a jaunt between regions all with their own absurd rules. for pierre, read as much as you can stand and then drop it without guilt. there are some neat ideas covered in there, but the prose is painfully purple. for example:
>"Now, crossing the magic silence of the empty chamber, he caught the snow-white bed reflected in the toilet-glass. This rooted him. For one swift instant, he seemed to see in that one glance the two separate beds—the real one and the reflected one—and an unbidden, most miserable presentiment thereupon stole into him. But in one breath it came and went. So he advanced, and with a fond and gentle joyfulness, his eye now fell upon the spotless bed itself, and fastened on a snow-white roll that lay beside the pillow. Now he started; Lucy seemed coming in upon him; but no—’tis only the foot of one of her little slippers, just peeping into view from under the narrow nether curtains of the bed. Then again his glance fixed itself upon the slender, snow-white, ruffled roll; and he stood as one enchanted. Never precious parchment of the Greek was half so precious in his eyes. Never trembling scholar longed more to unroll the mystic vellum, than Pierre longed to unroll the sacred secrets of that snow-white, ruffled thing. But his hands touched not any object in that chamber, except the one he had gone thither for.
>“Here is the blue portfolio, Lucy. See, the key hangs to its silver lock;—were you not fearful I would open it?—’twas tempting, I must confess.”
>“Open it!” said Lucy—“why, yes, Pierre, yes; what secret thing keep I from thee? Read me through and through. I am entirely thine. See!” and tossing open the portfolio, all manner of rosy things came floating from it, and a most delicate perfume of some invisible essence.
>“Ah! thou holy angel, Lucy!”
>“Why, Pierre, thou art transfigured; thou now lookest as one who—why, Pierre?”
>“As one who had just peeped in at paradise, Lucy; and——”
>“Again wandering in thy mind, Pierre; no more—Come, you must leave me, now. I am quite rested again. Quick, call my aunt, and leave me. Stay, this evening we are to look over the book of plates from the city, you know. Be early;—go now, Pierre.”
>“Well, good-bye, till evening, thou height of all delight.”

>>24553969 (OP)
I think Melville's polytheism is misguided. He seems to think you can apply a polytheistic mindset to modernity by "collecting" the sacred of varying cultures when you happen upon it. But this just leads to a relativistic game you're playing akin to playing dress up. It is in the end a facade lacking an actual subumation thus defeating the purpose of the sacred. Ishmael himself goes around exploring these varying sacred but ultimately seems to have a pathetic attitude to them, as I said embracing them all they became relativistic, mere playthings. He also seems to be of the opinion that polytheism does not contain itself within its own culture but is simply open to "all" unlike Christianity, which is clearly wrong given that Pagans persecuted early Christians. The only viable solution I see is a sacred that is beyond polytheism and monotheism and ironically the best options looks like a kind of naturalistic pantheism or perhaps a kind of scientific Taoism which is exactly what he was critiquing in Transcendentalism. I doubt that will happen either though and if anything comes it will likely develop slowly over centuries into something well beyond our current comphrension. He also seems like many modern Pagans to take for granted the Christian influences imbued within him not realising how conflicting true Paganism would be with his own world view. His insights are revelatory but his solutions are ridiculously simplistic, idealistic and sentimental.

>>24553969 (OP)
I think Melville's polytheism is misguided. He seems to think you can apply a polytheistic mindset to modernity by "collecting" the sacred of varying cultures when you happen upon it. But this just leads to a relativistic game you're playing akin to playing dress up. It is in the end a facade lacking an actual subumation thus defeating the purpose of the sacred. Ishmael himself goes around exploring these sacreds but ultimately seems to have a apathetic attitude to them, as I said embracing them all they became relativistic, mere playthings. So I'm not sure why he thinks this is the best way to be in the modern world, better than nothing I guess? He also seems to be of the opinion that polytheism does not contain itself within its own culture but is simply open to "all" unlike Christianity, which is clearly wrong given that Pagans persecuted early Christians. The only viable solution I see is a sacred that is beyond polytheism and monotheism and ironically the best options looks like a kind of naturalistic pantheism or perhaps a kind of scientific Taoism which is exactly what the sort of stuff hewas critiquing in Transcendentalism. I doubt that will happen either though and if anything comes it will likely develop slowly over centuries into something well beyond our current comphrension. He also seems like many modern Pagans to take for granted the Christian influences imbued within him not realising how conflicting true Paganism would be with his own world view. His insights are revelatory but his solutions are ridiculously simplistic, idealistic and sentimental.

>>24554212
It isn't even the best Dutch book

>>24554002
Gatsby. Public domain, and short

>>24554271
he never suggests that paganism is open to other religions, unless you mean that queequeg visited the church. it is mearly that ishmael himself is open to other religions, and queequeg too, to an extent. further, what is the "purpose of the sacred"? you present this as if sacred things have an obvious use, like a hammer. in the context of the story, religion is not presented as a tool for some purpose, such as social order as ivan karamazov would have it, but as an understanding of reality, akin to a theory of phyiscs. ishmael's embracing of multiple religions is his acceptanve of the limits if his knowledge, the acceptance that ahab fails to reach. where ahab seeks out a definite knowledge, to "strike through the mask", ishmael goes about the masked things and looks at them from all angles, aware that he will never gain the full picture, but piecing together the most informed conception of it that he us able.

>>24554002
I've been mulling over the idea of a paragraph-by-paragraph re-write of the Metamorphosis. I've imagined it as those re-draws I used to see way back on /v/, where you break an image into a grid and everyone calls their box. The risk is slop though, so I try to picture doing it by whichever reply rolls dubs, but that'd take ages for the whole book.

>>24554311
Oh man, this would be fun. Gatsby, as mentioned, is short, and I legitimately haven't read it in 20 years or more. Reading it and banging out a critical essay on it would be a lot of fun.

>>24554330
You'd need an editor to run the whole thing, /lit/ and 4chan in general these days is too anarchic to keep everyone on-topic. Or some set of rules that you follow at the outset so it's not an endless NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER (though it would be funny trying to re-write books to be as high-content n-word as possible like that one anon did)

>>24553969 (OP)
>Are Ahab and Queerqueg actually gay?
Ishmael is high yeller black.

>>24554346
l'd reserve the right to veto, but editing would be tough considering the charm would likely be in the inconsistencies (plus it'd be a full book). I'm not sure I or the board would really have the stamina to pull it off; a few diehards might stick around, but that'd risk making it samey.

>>24554306
>>24554212
It is THE book

>>24554574
sell it to me, then.

>>24554574
I'll admit that it's a phenomenal book, it just feels too much like it was written between 1989 and 1991 and written for the same audience that likes Umberto Eco.

>>24554318
I would argue that the sacred is inherently mystical and unknowable, but that its "use" (very crude term to use in this context) gives a "healing mood" the exact criteria for the sacred again not able to be clearly explained due to the very nature of such, but to have a shot a sort of transcendental ritualized value system. Ahab on the other hand wants a definite answer which is really more the domain of secular reasoning in contrast to the faith and subsuming of the sacred. I would argue however that Ishmael's embracing of the varying sacreds leads to nihilism and Melville himself seems to make this point in the metaphor of the rainbow.

>And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor- as you will sometimes see it- glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor.

The colours (worldviews) of being (the whale) are seperate, together they simply become the blankness (nihilism) of the whale. The only justifiable way I could explain this is the Ubermesch... Ishmael being one or at least closer to one.

im at chapter 102, its my first read im loving it so much

>>24554580
>>24554838
from Goodreads
>1) continues to be blatantly misogynistic
>2) lacks the promised philosophical exploration and extrapolation and
>3) has such a ridiculous plot and ending. How naive and undeserving of my time.
It makes the right people seethe