
The Original 1851 Reviews of Moby Dick - firasd
http://lithub.com/the-original-1851-reviews-of-moby-dick/
======
fragsworth
Literacy rates in the 1800s were low. Therefore, being literate was a status
symbol, and there was more focus on the idea that you could be more literate
than someone else. I think what happened in that time was a kind of
competition, where critics like these had a tendency to write things that are
more difficult to read, in an attempt to prove how much more literate they
are. If you wrote something that a plebeian could understand, you're
_obviously_ not as literate.

So there was a lot of criticism of the superficial aspects of the writing -
"bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English". The
words and the "English" are excessively focused on.

Today we take literacy for granted, and anyone who tries to sound more
literate is shunned (/r/iamverysmart).

~~~
ashark
> think what happened in that time was a kind of competition, where critics
> like these had a tendency to write things that are more difficult to read,
> in an attempt to prove how much more literate they are.

Are... these reviews considered difficult to read or especially overwritten,
then? Or did you mean something else?

> bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English

Are these _not_ legitimate grounds on which to judge a book? To the extent
that these are smaller concerns for modern reviewers (are they?) I'd guess it
has more to do with our having settled on a style of prose that allows little
variation and is very simple, for a large majority of literature. We now
expect and receive little poetry in our prose, to put it another way.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I don't think Moby Dick suffers from bad rhetoric, etc - although some of
these reviews may do.

Language has become Hollywoodised over the last few decades. We've lost the
ability to express colour and imagination _through language_ \- not just
through plot or predictable genre tropes.

Modern fiction is more like a journalistic description of a movie or TV show,
and less like an independent medium that sculpts language into story
structures for its own sake.

------
firasd
I think the the critic who said there is “abundant choice reading for those
who can skip a page now and then, judiciously” nails it. This book is a
journey, and is like many works mixed together.

I like this Twitter profile that posts random quotes from the book:
[https://twitter.com/MobyDickatSea](https://twitter.com/MobyDickatSea)

A couple quotes I like:

1) “I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a
whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful
courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered
peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a
coward.

2) “How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it,
Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.”...
“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee from
blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab,
seems blasphemous.”

3) “In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and
without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.”

4) The narrator is also pretty open-​minded and gracious towards different
cultures. “Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”

~~~
klenwell
It contains multitudes, to be certain.

The other aspect of the novel that people familiar with it only by its
reputation often underestimate: it's humor.

It's a sly often oblique humor, by turns Shakespearian, Victorian, and almost
anachronistically postmodern. But it permeates the novel and is there right in
the opening paragraph:

 _Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp,
drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing
before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet;
and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it
requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping
into the street, and methodically knocking people 's hats off- then, I account
it high time to get to sea as soon as I can._

By the time I got through that sentence, the fourth in the novel, I was in.

Finally, one additional quote from the novel that stuck with me:

 _for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard._

~~~
mabub24
The next sentences following your quote are also hilarious:

> ...then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my
> substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws
> himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

The humor gives Ishmael an everyman quality. Unlike Cato's grand
"philosophical flourish", Ishmael "quietly" takes to the sea. Simultaneously,
Ishmael has the mind of a poet, such as when he refers to taking to sea as his
response to wanting to shoot himself or someone with "pistol and ball."
Melville is basically saying that men, like Ishmael, go to sea so they won't
go postal.

------
elhorror
Some thought it was the best book ever written, and some thought it was the
worst book ever written... and they were all correct!

Read the book through, I dare you.

~~~
dwighttk
It is very good. Possibly not the best ever written. There is no way it could
be considered the worst book ever written.

Is it possible you got this book confused with Tale of Two Cities?

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quuquuquu
>The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and
abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition.

Sounds like my attempts at answering complex interview questions in 20 seconds
before the recruiter tunes out.

------
rhizome
Next time you're interviewing someone, remember that Melville died poor.

------
gavinpc
They're all right, somehow.

A film teacher of mine used to always quote Northrop Frye as saying "The
category judgement precedes the value judgement." As in: it's a great
thriller, but a terrible romance. Moby Dick is hard to classify, and (by this
logic) harder to judge. Those approaching it as a novel had every reason to
call it a failure. Melville was pushing himself. In jazz I've heard this
called "going out." It's something you earn.

His lesser-known works like "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno" are
much more coherent and approachable (they stick to a familiar category), but
still have much of that slow, mysterious otherworldly quality and are well
worth reading (in my humble opinion).

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Benito_Cereno](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Benito_Cereno)

~~~
wizardforhire
I'm fascinated by this term "going out". I haven't been able to find anything
on it. Do you happen to have any leads or care for discussion?

~~~
gavinpc
In a group improvisation, I understand "going out" as one person, usually a
soloist, exploring another direction (a rhythmic idea, a motif, anything)
where there's some risk that you won't come back, i.e. you might derail the
whole thing. I grew up in New Orleans knowing lots of musicians and this is
just my recollection. The closest documentation I find is about playing
"outside," which is more specifically about using extended or unconventional
harmonies. I've heard this usage in college settings, but I was referring to
the more general concept.

"Stepping out" might be a more mainstream version, and it's apparently the
title of like fifty albums.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_(jazz)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_\(jazz\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppin%27_Out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppin%27_Out)

------
waynecochran
The climax of the book takes 500+ pages to get to (at least that is what I
remember). Finally Ahab fights the dang whale! Too much about whales.. I get
it .. whales are big... get on with it..

------
bmmayer1
"But if there are any of our readers who wish to find examples of bad
rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English, we will
take the liberty of recommending to them this precious volume of Mr.
Melville’s"

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coldtea
The London Athenaeum reviewer comes out as so provincial as only an Englishman
would...

~~~
ttonkytonk
Gotta love the quote, though, "Our author must be henceforth numbered in the
company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of
genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities,
carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring
or disordered ingenuity can devise…"

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pussypusspuss
What kind of hacking is this

~~~
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

