E. L. Doctorow: "American literature begins with 'Moby-Dick'" 

Melville had a problem with Emerson as he did with God. He liked Christ, but the Christian God not so much. Melville was a modern man in the true sense of the word, a man who had the good fortune to live during the American Renaissance, and who also wrote the first postmodern novel, The Confidence Man, a book more timely today than ever before.

Bullshit.

His theory of history is stupid though.

Huh? Explain...

@@aaronaragon7838 Thanks for asking. I think I was making a superficial observation - simply that Doctorow points out long periods where the story is sidelined (for whaling details) and in War & Peace Tolstoy also sidelines the narrative to talk about his theory of history. Tolstoy was passionate about dispelling the "great man of history" and it was suggested that was one reason he wrote the novel. I am NOT suggesting Melville's motivation was to talk about whaling It made a superficial observation regarding an interrupted narrative - simply to tell that tale about Tolstoy and his passion for history

@@aaronaragon7838 Moby Dick and War & Peace both contain digression, and one critic suggested Tolstoy's digression - to expatiate on historicity, was his reason for writing the novel. Voila.

Tristrams?

@@alexanderbrandt9816 Melville considered Hawthorne to be the greatest writer of his generation…he even dedicated Moby-Dick to him.

@@alexanderbrandt9816 I've read it twice...."In August 1850, with the manuscript perhaps half finished, he met Nathaniel Hawthorne and was deeply moved by his Mosses from an Old Manse, which he compared to Shakespeare in its cosmic ambitions. This encounter may have inspired him to revise and expand Moby-Dick, which is dedicated to Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius". I own 3 copies of the book, all begin with: "IN TOKEN OF MY ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS This Book is Inscribed TO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE."

@@alexanderbrandt9816 you are quoting from chapter 32, I am referring to the dedication page.

@@alexanderbrandt9816 I don’t know what else to say to you lol. On the dedication page, Melville dedicated the book to Hawthorne. The literal point of a dedication page is to dedicate the book to someone. He also dedicated “Typee” to his father-in-law Lemuel Shaw.

@@VideoGameSlang Great point. After he spoke with Hawthrone, the first version of Moby-Dick was rewritten.

Or Washington Irving. Or Nathaniel Hawthorne who inspired Melville.

Charles Brockden Brown was before all of them.

And Rabelais preceded Laurence Stern (though his "assault" was of a slightly different sort, while no less revolutionary).

🤓

At the very beginning, Ishmail travels from Manhattan to New Bedford to find a whaling ship that make take him on.

Then they go to Nantucket

@@HughMorristheJoker I’m proud of you 👍

Scribble, scribble, writes something stupid.