On the Internet, at least, as compiled by Google.
So yeah.
I have finally decided to read Moby-Dick, that masterpiece of American literature, but my attempts to find my Modern Library copy of the novel have resulted in me living the plot, only my copy of Moby-Dick is my Moby-Dick, as it were.
Thanks to NPR’s pop culture blog Monkey See, however, I’m able to read the whole thing online, meaning that I can read it wherever I am and have my phone or computer with me and don’t have to buy another copy, either physical or electronic, with annotations and all. That’s because Monkey See (and its wonderful, wonderful primary author, Linda Holmes) pointed Power Moby-Dick out when they first made the novel a selection of their “I Will If You Will” book club about a year ago, and theirs, as a matter of fact, is the schedule I’m attempting to follow.
So in case I need Moby-Dick at a moment’s notice, I have a wonderful annotated version on hand whenever I need it. Oh, NPR and American literature, I love you so, but now a-whaling I must go.
(That rhyme was an accident. I’m so, so sorry.)
Nick Mamatas:
Imagine the school board meeting — the kids are reading some dangerous literature in English class. Murder, drunkenness, torture, madness, and not even a sliver of moral instruction. If the students weren’t already so resentful, they might even like what they’ve been given to read, it’s so cool. Imagine the class discussion about the theme of, say, “The Cask of Amontillado,” and that one boy with a heavy metal T-shirt in the back finally joining the conversation with his interpretation: “Some motherfuckers just have it comin’.”
Great things—themes, symbols, imagery, what have you—can be in writing without readers having to work at seeing something there. There’s something to the simplicity of the assertion that “Poe’s triumph is that he portrayed evil without finally blinking and cobbling together some minor moral triumph or life lesson at the end of his tales.” It’s not wrong.
Anyway, a few years old, but still great. I loves (and respects) me some Edgar Allan Poe.
(American poet. Born in eighteen hundred and nine.)
(Also, yes, I know I posted about this article a while back, but I wanted to revisit it.)
![thedailywhat:
Fun Fact of the Day: So it seems one early member of André the Giant’s posse was none-other-than legendary novelist/playwright/poet Samuel Beckett.
Historical Meet-Ups explains:
In 1953, fresh off the success of Waiting for Godot, Beckett bought a plot of land near the hamlet of Molien, in the commune of Ussy-sur-Marne, about forty miles northeast of Paris. There he built a cottage for himself with some help from a group of locals, including a Bulgarian-born farmer named Boris Rousimoff. Over the years, Beckett and Rousimoff became friends and would occasionally get together for card games. Rousimoff had a son, André, known as Dédé, who was something of a physical marvel. By the age of 12, André was over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds. No school bus could hold him, and his family lacked the means to buy a car big enough to schlep him back and forth to school in Ussy-sur-Marne. Enter Boris’ old card-playing buddy Beckett, who owned a truck and was more than willing to pay his friend back for his help with the cottage by giving a lift to his enormous pituitary case of a son on his drives into town. Years later, when recounting his conversations with Beckett (which he did often), André the Giant revealed that they rarely talked about anything besides cricket.
[historicalmeetups.]
I always forget that Samuel Beckett was a grizzled old cuss.
(Cue obligatory Quantum Leap reference.)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbm9chWvqk1qcqz6qo1_500.jpg)
Fun Fact of the Day: So it seems one early member of André the Giant’s posse was none-other-than legendary novelist/playwright/poet Samuel Beckett.
Historical Meet-Ups explains:
In 1953, fresh off the success of Waiting for Godot, Beckett bought a plot of land near the hamlet of Molien, in the commune of Ussy-sur-Marne, about forty miles northeast of Paris. There he built a cottage for himself with some help from a group of locals, including a Bulgarian-born farmer named Boris Rousimoff. Over the years, Beckett and Rousimoff became friends and would occasionally get together for card games. Rousimoff had a son, André, known as Dédé, who was something of a physical marvel. By the age of 12, André was over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds. No school bus could hold him, and his family lacked the means to buy a car big enough to schlep him back and forth to school in Ussy-sur-Marne. Enter Boris’ old card-playing buddy Beckett, who owned a truck and was more than willing to pay his friend back for his help with the cottage by giving a lift to his enormous pituitary case of a son on his drives into town. Years later, when recounting his conversations with Beckett (which he did often), André the Giant revealed that they rarely talked about anything besides cricket.
I always forget that Samuel Beckett was a grizzled old cuss.
(Cue obligatory Quantum Leap reference.)
