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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
I'm still on Laslett's The World We Have Lost, one of those books from the past that Curtis Yarvin mentions occasionally. Has definitely stimulated some thoughts, but it feels like one of those books which will show its value over time. Also eyeing Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, due to a recent sci-fi related thread here. This is an anachronism, but I'm hoping for something that reminds of Frank Frazetta.
Still Moby Dick.
Moby Dick usually shows up in literary genealogy between Homer's Iliad and McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Sometimes Williams' Butcher's Crossing makes a blip between MD and BM, but I feel it's a lesser beast, a modest Duodecim porpoise between these grandiose Folio whales.
Homer sings, muse, of glory and tragedy in war, in which great heroes kill each other almost without pause throughout the entire story. Homer is sad about them having to die and about what a gruesome affair war is, but he doesn't shy away from describing it in loving detail and it's clear that these men are having the time of their life. It's the only lyrical item out of the four, and obviously also the one that isn't originally in any language I speak.
Moby Dick tells us a story about killing whales for fun and profit and how if you let madness get in the way of that because you can't get over a workplace accident, everybody dies. It's full of awesome prose about the majesty of the world and of labor and of manful courage, and even more full of Melville just shooting the shit and joking about whatever the hell he thinks amusing. The man just cannot shut up, but it works because he's really good at writing. He has some moral qualms about violence, but ultimately that's secondary to what fun one can have with it.
Butcher's Crossing fits in in terms of plot and themes, and it's not a bad book, but it just does much less, less impressively and less beautifully. Hunters accompanied by city kid kill tons of buffalo and go insane in the process, also the buffalo trade dies. The book depicts the killing trade as almost entirely deplorable and debasing, and in my view this one-sided engagement with its subject matter is one thing that makes it a lesser work than the others.
Blood Meridian is another story about violent men going to their doom, but more so than the others it continually highlights the violence that is the entire substance and order of the universe. I'll cut myself short before I write another essay on it.
So, back to Moby Dick. Moby Dick is a bit odd compared to the others here because of the light-hearted chatter Melville keeps up. It feels a little like he can't help himself but insert every joke he feels he can get away with Ishmael making. And yet it floats. It's still a serious book full of serious stuff. It's also the one that most clearly illustrates, or is best known for illustrating, one theme that shows up in all these works: Excessive violence dooms. The Pequod is stove and sunk because Ahab changes its mission from commerce to vengeance. The Glanton Gang rises in war and falls and dies in banditry. Achilles is elevated to great honor when he fights and gets Patroklos killed when he stays in his tent in order to take vengeance on Agamemnon. Butcher's Crossing never has much good to say about hunting, but one might imagine that its issue is specifically with hunting Buffalo en masse and that its the scale of the killing that drives the hunters insane.
I've also been reading Latro, by Gene Wolfe. Fun.
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