Being read to is nice 😌. I'm trying to read one classic a year. This year I've chosen Gone With the Wind... and next will be Lonesome Dove... perhaps you've convinced me to add Moby Dick... 😉 perhaps. 🐳💙📖☺️📚💙🐳
Such a joyful and thoughtful discussion! Your passion for Melville’s masterpiece is delightful to uphold! You are going to have such a wonderful time here.
Thank you so much Pat! I definitely will, and I certainly am already. I was wondering if you have you ever taught this book, and if you have, what approach you took/would take if you were to teach it now. There's so many directions in which one could go, and I would love to hear your educator's perspective :)
@@RobinSongReads So this is very strange. I left you a long, detailed response, and it has been deleted! I was trying to tell you about a course that is being offered this summer at the graduate school where I got my degree on Moby-Dick. I immediately thought of you, and I'd love to send you this course description. I'm not sure why comment would have been deleted. I also told you which works of Melville we did teach, although we did not teach M-D. It's difficult to incorporate super long novels in the curriculum in high school, though I certainly did teach a number of longish novels. M-D would be a rough one in high schools, although I do know people who did read it in their high school classes. We taught Billy Budd, Bartleby the Scrivener, and some of Melville's poetry. I was also trying to tell you about Nathaniel Philbrick. He wrote the intro to my edition of M-D. He also won the National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea, the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. The ordeal of the Essex was Melville's inspiration for M-D. Philbrick has also written a great book, Why Read M-D? I think you'd love that, if you haven't read it already. Anyway, if this comment gets through, maybe we can figure out how I can get this course description on M-D to you.
@@BookChatWithPat8668 Oh no I'm so sorry your comment got deleted!! That is one of the worst feelings - but this comment you left in its place is very beautiful and made me smile. I get what you mean about it being difficult to incorporate long novels into a high school curriculum, and I think it's probably best that Moby-Dick is not often assigned in high school, lest younger readers get turned off to an author with so much depth and wonder, simply because they were assigned his longest, most bizarre work first. I read Bartleby, the Scrivener in both high school and college, and still think that's an amazing introduction to Melville. I'm very excited to take the dive into his poetry, thank you for putting that back on my radar! And that is a great suggestion to get more into Nathaniel Philbrick. I watched a talk that he gave on Moby-Dick and he read a passage from Why Read Moby-Dick? which I, naturally, loved. After my next re-read of M-D I'd like to read it as a kind of digestif. There's no come-down quite like finishing a great book, and that'll be something I can look forward to :)
I was really hoping that there would be a video about Moby Dick because, yes!!! The book is seriously so overwhelming and beautiful and so descriptive and moving. I haven't seen a person talk about Moby Dick with so much love for the book, and it feels so nice because I feel the same!! Moby Dick is a masterpiece, and it has to be more widespread and just commonly appreciated. Btw, the length of the book makes it so interesting! Like when I finished it, I found myself knowing a ton of things about whalers and stuff, and it felt so nice! The chapters of descriptions -- i love them. Not the plot, but YES, how Melville pays attention to every little thing; the colour white -- the best part of the book, really. Also, an interesting thing about the gory part of the whaling is how Melville comprehends it, because sometimes, as you've quoted, he talks about it being cruel and horrible, but at other times, god, the chapter where Ishmael is just looking at Queequeg butchering the body of the whale and thinking damn, he looks sexy, he looks nice! I don't know what more to say, just that I totally get you and your passion about Moby Dick. Wow. And btw, the thing I really paid attention to while reading, I dont know why, is like the length of sentences and the amount of semicolons???? So beautiful! Also, the fact of the book being Melville's love letter/message to Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Melville is really heartbroken because he can't express his love, so he just sends the nook to Hawthorne and says, 'I've written a wicked book." The quote may be inaccurate, but I do remember something about that!! Anyway, thank you so much! Your video was really heartwarming
Ok well this comment is just about one of the greatest things I've ever read. I love your enthusiasm too!! As a fellow "Whiteness of the Whale" apologist all I can say is simply that we get to experience more joy and happiness than the digression haters hahahh - What a chapter! I also find that he's able to take these beautiful, shining nuggets (almost like Ambergris??? :0) out of his digressions: Take a chapter like "The Blanket" where he humorously tries to define what the Whale's skin is. It's a lot of whale knowledge stuff, but in that classic great Melville prose, and he ultimately ends the whole thing with this bit of genius: "It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own." I mean COME. ON. If I repeated those words like a mantra for a couple of days and meditated upon them I think I would become a more solid person, someone who feels more steady and confident in a way that's not standoffish or proud. All at the end of a chapter on whale skin. The digression chapters RULE! And, obviously, the plot and the action in the book is simply astonishing. A pure thrill all the way through those last three chapters, it's like you can the sea-salt wind racing through your hair, the white flukes of Moby-Dick rising in the distance. That's a great point about the Hawthorne connection, all that stuff really is crazy. In the Norton Critical edition I had in this video there are all these letters sent to critics, publishers, and friends; and then there's the letters to Hawthorne and they're all just about 4 to 5 times as long as any of the other letters. I heard a writer once say that he developed "something that very much resembles a schoolgirl crush" for Hawthorne; I don't think he was trying to be insulting at all and I think it's probably true. Man what a joy just to think about all these things, thank you again for your wonderful comment :D
Great video Robin! I definitely need a re-read. My last re-read was about 20 years ago while visiting Nantucket (off the coast of Massachusetts). I too love the book and your energy is so inspiring. Thank you!
Wow that's incredible that you read it white actually on Nantucket! Especially considering its significance in the book. I've never been to that particular island, but I was on Martha's Vineyard for about 9 days around one and a half years ago, and I definitely subconciously drew from it in creating my mental landscape/soundscape/smellscape of the early chapters. I'm honored to hear that my energy is inspiring hahah, and thank you so much for watching!
Wow, awesome video! It brings a smile to my face. This is definitely one of those books that I need to take down from my shelf and finally read. I began to read it some years ago, but didn’t know what to make of its strange and unique narrative style, and so gave up a third of the way through. That isn’t a criticism of the book, however - more so just a fault on my part. I think, if I were to return to it (which I now want to do after watching this), I would appreciate it much more. Awesome to see another video by you!
Thank you so much dude! I wouldn't call that a fault on your part at all hahahh - some things just take getting used to, and Melville's style can be, well... a lot. It makes me so happy to hear that you'd like to give it another go one day, and if you ever do return to it I would be super stoked to hear your thoughts!
hahahh it seems my inner monologue was tripping over its words when my mouth was doing just fine. I guess these are the consequences of talking about something that makes you very excited!
I’m currently reading the Norton Critical Edition of Moby Dick, and having a wonderful time. I’m finding the story demands to be read aloud, the language of Melville so beautiful. So far, really enjoyed chapters “The Sermon” and “A Bosom Friend.” Interesting that the chapters are short, like Bible chapters.
That's such a cool point about it working really well being read aloud! I imagine Willem Dafoe's performance in "The Lighthouse" would be a stellar manifestation of how well some Moby Dick scenes would work when read dramatically hahahhh, particularly for some of Ahab's speeches - If you haven't seen that film this clip will show you what I mean: ua-cam.com/video/jfD5u9Ary6M/v-deo.html&ab_channel=Merty Those two chapters you mention are wonderful, I remember reading "The Sermon" on the lawn in college and wishing I had a Bible with me to read Jonah and the Whale. I also love the short chapters, it's somewhat like Anna Karenina in that respect; a chunker book that grants you lot of gratification along the way :)
@@RobinSongReadsI watched “The Lighthouse” for the first time a few days ago and loved the scene you referenced. Perfection. If you ever include the Bible on a future reread of Moby Dick, I recommend the King James Version. I think it would make a great match to Melville’s lyrical language. Reading update: I loved, loved Chapter 15. Chowder. I had to reread it several times. “Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me.” I’m a few pages away from meeting Ahab for the first time. The suspense! I’m also halfway through my reread of Anna Karenina, and may be enjoying it more than War and Peace. Maybe. How much of Tolstoy’s work have you delved into, or of Russian literature in general?
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Robin, Really enjoying your content. Hoping for more soon!
Being read to is nice 😌.
I'm trying to read one classic a year. This year I've chosen Gone With the Wind... and next will be Lonesome Dove... perhaps you've convinced me to add Moby Dick... 😉 perhaps.
🐳💙📖☺️📚💙🐳
Such a joyful and thoughtful discussion! Your passion for Melville’s masterpiece is delightful to uphold! You are going to have such a wonderful time here.
Thank you so much Pat! I definitely will, and I certainly am already. I was wondering if you have you ever taught this book, and if you have, what approach you took/would take if you were to teach it now. There's so many directions in which one could go, and I would love to hear your educator's perspective :)
@@RobinSongReads So this is very strange. I left you a long, detailed response, and it has been deleted! I was trying to tell you about a course that is being offered this summer at the graduate school where I got my degree on Moby-Dick. I immediately thought of you, and I'd love to send you this course description. I'm not sure why comment would have been deleted. I also told you which works of Melville we did teach, although we did not teach M-D. It's difficult to incorporate super long novels in the curriculum in high school, though I certainly did teach a number of longish novels. M-D would be a rough one in high schools, although I do know people who did read it in their high school classes. We taught Billy Budd, Bartleby the Scrivener, and some of Melville's poetry.
I was also trying to tell you about Nathaniel Philbrick. He wrote the intro to my edition of M-D. He also won the National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea, the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. The ordeal of the Essex was Melville's inspiration for M-D. Philbrick has also written a great book, Why Read M-D? I think you'd love that, if you haven't read it already.
Anyway, if this comment gets through, maybe we can figure out how I can get this course description on M-D to you.
@@BookChatWithPat8668 Oh no I'm so sorry your comment got deleted!! That is one of the worst feelings - but this comment you left in its place is very beautiful and made me smile. I get what you mean about it being difficult to incorporate long novels into a high school curriculum, and I think it's probably best that Moby-Dick is not often assigned in high school, lest younger readers get turned off to an author with so much depth and wonder, simply because they were assigned his longest, most bizarre work first. I read Bartleby, the Scrivener in both high school and college, and still think that's an amazing introduction to Melville. I'm very excited to take the dive into his poetry, thank you for putting that back on my radar!
And that is a great suggestion to get more into Nathaniel Philbrick. I watched a talk that he gave on Moby-Dick and he read a passage from Why Read Moby-Dick? which I, naturally, loved. After my next re-read of M-D I'd like to read it as a kind of digestif. There's no come-down quite like finishing a great book, and that'll be something I can look forward to :)
I was really hoping that there would be a video about Moby Dick because, yes!!! The book is seriously so overwhelming and beautiful and so descriptive and moving. I haven't seen a person talk about Moby Dick with so much love for the book, and it feels so nice because I feel the same!! Moby Dick is a masterpiece, and it has to be more widespread and just commonly appreciated. Btw, the length of the book makes it so interesting! Like when I finished it, I found myself knowing a ton of things about whalers and stuff, and it felt so nice! The chapters of descriptions -- i love them. Not the plot, but YES, how Melville pays attention to every little thing; the colour white -- the best part of the book, really. Also, an interesting thing about the gory part of the whaling is how Melville comprehends it, because sometimes, as you've quoted, he talks about it being cruel and horrible, but at other times, god, the chapter where Ishmael is just looking at Queequeg butchering the body of the whale and thinking damn, he looks sexy, he looks nice! I don't know what more to say, just that I totally get you and your passion about Moby Dick. Wow. And btw, the thing I really paid attention to while reading, I dont know why, is like the length of sentences and the amount of semicolons???? So beautiful! Also, the fact of the book being Melville's love letter/message to Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Melville is really heartbroken because he can't express his love, so he just sends the nook to Hawthorne and says, 'I've written a wicked book." The quote may be inaccurate, but I do remember something about that!! Anyway, thank you so much! Your video was really heartwarming
Ok well this comment is just about one of the greatest things I've ever read. I love your enthusiasm too!! As a fellow "Whiteness of the Whale" apologist all I can say is simply that we get to experience more joy and happiness than the digression haters hahahh - What a chapter! I also find that he's able to take these beautiful, shining nuggets (almost like Ambergris??? :0) out of his digressions: Take a chapter like "The Blanket" where he humorously tries to define what the Whale's skin is. It's a lot of whale knowledge stuff, but in that classic great Melville prose, and he ultimately ends the whole thing with this bit of genius:
"It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own."
I mean COME. ON. If I repeated those words like a mantra for a couple of days and meditated upon them I think I would become a more solid person, someone who feels more steady and confident in a way that's not standoffish or proud. All at the end of a chapter on whale skin. The digression chapters RULE! And, obviously, the plot and the action in the book is simply astonishing. A pure thrill all the way through those last three chapters, it's like you can the sea-salt wind racing through your hair, the white flukes of Moby-Dick rising in the distance.
That's a great point about the Hawthorne connection, all that stuff really is crazy. In the Norton Critical edition I had in this video there are all these letters sent to critics, publishers, and friends; and then there's the letters to Hawthorne and they're all just about 4 to 5 times as long as any of the other letters. I heard a writer once say that he developed "something that very much resembles a schoolgirl crush" for Hawthorne; I don't think he was trying to be insulting at all and I think it's probably true. Man what a joy just to think about all these things, thank you again for your wonderful comment :D
Great video Robin!
I definitely need a re-read. My last re-read was about 20 years ago while visiting Nantucket (off the coast of Massachusetts). I too love the book and your energy is so inspiring. Thank you!
Wow that's incredible that you read it white actually on Nantucket! Especially considering its significance in the book. I've never been to that particular island, but I was on Martha's Vineyard for about 9 days around one and a half years ago, and I definitely subconciously drew from it in creating my mental landscape/soundscape/smellscape of the early chapters. I'm honored to hear that my energy is inspiring hahah, and thank you so much for watching!
I love your energy :)
hahahh thank you very much, you are very kind :)
Wow, awesome video! It brings a smile to my face. This is definitely one of those books that I need to take down from my shelf and finally read. I began to read it some years ago, but didn’t know what to make of its strange and unique narrative style, and so gave up a third of the way through. That isn’t a criticism of the book, however - more so just a fault on my part. I think, if I were to return to it (which I now want to do after watching this), I would appreciate it much more. Awesome to see another video by you!
Thank you so much dude! I wouldn't call that a fault on your part at all hahahh - some things just take getting used to, and Melville's style can be, well... a lot. It makes me so happy to hear that you'd like to give it another go one day, and if you ever do return to it I would be super stoked to hear your thoughts!
I’ll definitely return to it. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
😂 you said "notes to read" right the first time. But that got me laughing, you thought you said rotes-to-need lol!
hahahh it seems my inner monologue was tripping over its words when my mouth was doing just fine. I guess these are the consequences of talking about something that makes you very excited!
I’m currently reading the Norton Critical Edition of Moby Dick, and having a wonderful time. I’m finding the story demands to be read aloud, the language of Melville so beautiful.
So far, really enjoyed chapters “The Sermon” and “A Bosom Friend.” Interesting that the chapters are short, like Bible chapters.
That's such a cool point about it working really well being read aloud! I imagine Willem Dafoe's performance in "The Lighthouse" would be a stellar manifestation of how well some Moby Dick scenes would work when read dramatically hahahhh, particularly for some of Ahab's speeches - If you haven't seen that film this clip will show you what I mean: ua-cam.com/video/jfD5u9Ary6M/v-deo.html&ab_channel=Merty
Those two chapters you mention are wonderful, I remember reading "The Sermon" on the lawn in college and wishing I had a Bible with me to read Jonah and the Whale. I also love the short chapters, it's somewhat like Anna Karenina in that respect; a chunker book that grants you lot of gratification along the way :)
@@RobinSongReadsI watched “The Lighthouse” for the first time a few days ago and loved the scene you referenced. Perfection. If you ever include the Bible on a future reread of Moby Dick, I recommend the King James Version. I think it would make a great match to Melville’s lyrical language.
Reading update: I loved, loved Chapter 15. Chowder. I had to reread it several times. “Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me.” I’m a few pages away from meeting Ahab for the first time. The suspense!
I’m also halfway through my reread of Anna Karenina, and may be enjoying it more than War and Peace. Maybe. How much of Tolstoy’s work have you delved into, or of Russian literature in general?
ok you've convinced me it's on the tbr !
hahahhh heck yes, just goes to show that monologuing for 30 minutes will get you just about anything you want ;)