Monday, September 29, 2014
Melville & Hawthorne
"What I feel most moved to write, that is banned,—it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches." -Herman Melville's June 1851 letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had 'pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated'; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists—and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before—in wondering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us." -Nathaniel Hawthorne's notebook entry of November 20 1856.
Notes: Moby-Dick was first published on October 18, 1851. The book was a relative financial failure during Melville's lifetime. The two quotes above appear in Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby- Dick? (Viking, 2011) pp. 59, 125.
"Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had 'pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated'; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists—and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before—in wondering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us." -Nathaniel Hawthorne's notebook entry of November 20 1856.
Notes: Moby-Dick was first published on October 18, 1851. The book was a relative financial failure during Melville's lifetime. The two quotes above appear in Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby- Dick? (Viking, 2011) pp. 59, 125.
Labels: art and literature, Herman Melville, quotations, religion
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Seven Short Stories About Drones
These nine installments, using the first lines of seven literary classics, were all published on January 14, 2013, by novelist Teju Cole via his Twitter feed.
Here are the literary works referenced:
Seven short stories about drones.* According to ProPublica, a "signature strike" is a drone attack targeting "apparent militants whose identities the U.S. doesn't know."
1. Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Pity. A signature strike* leveled the florist's.
2. Call me Ishmael. I was a young man of military age. I was immolated at my wedding. My parents are inconsolable.
3. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather. A bomb whistled in. Blood on the walls. Fire from heaven.
4. I am an invisible man. My name is unknown. My loves are a mystery. But an unmanned aerial vehicle from a secret location has come for me.
5. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was killed by a Predator drone.
6. Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His torso was found, not his head.
7. Mother died today. The program saves American lives.
Everything we know so far about drone strikes: propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-so-far-about-drone-strikes
Here are the literary works referenced:
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- "Here Are Seven (Very) Short Stories About Drones by Award-Winning Author Teju Cole" on Gawker.com
- "7 drone stories: Teju Cole creates literature from US assassination program (Video)" on Examiner.com
Labels: art and literature, drones, Herman Melville, quotations, technology, violence, War
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Quotable: Woe!
Epigraph to the 2005 film, The Dying Gaul:
Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appall!This comes from Father Mapple's sermon in Melville's Moby Dick, chapter 9. Here it is with a small bit more of the sermon:
Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor!
Labels: art and literature, Herman Melville, quotations, resistance
