by Daniel Silliman November 30, 2010 FictionThere should be a warning on the cover of Moby-Dick. Beware, it should say, reading this will require blood. Fair warning would only be fair. As it is, the word of caution comes too late. Melville only mentions this cost, this culpability, when one is already hundreds of pages in. It’s only mentioned after we [...]
by Daniel Silliman October 1, 2010 Aesthetics
Herman Melville doesn’t announce the ambition of directly. He kind of sneaks it in. It comes in late and sideways. At the start the feeling is almost haphazard, and Ismael says, as if in afterthought, “I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery parts of the world.” It’s imagined as a [...]
