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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
Until the 1920s, this was Melville's best-known work. In other words, "Moby-Dick" was 80 years ahead of its time. When first published, "Typee" was praised for its realistic portrayal of an indolent life amongst cannibals on a tropical island (Nuku-Hiva in the Marquesas Islands). It was sensational entertainment that satisfied a public hungry for first-person travelogues in exotic locales. They and most literary critics missed the deeper symbolism of Melville's depiction of a Fall from Eden. They were unable to appreciate Melville's irony of so-called paganistic savages behaving more civilized and humane than the white Euro-American society that, with its "Christian" missionaries and insatiable appetite for dominion, ultimately poisoned and destroyed it. But time has a way of balancing the score, and today "Typee," while not as profound as "Moby-Dick," is justifiably ranked with the literary classics. I read this book as entertainment, allegory, and as a layman's wide-eyed anthropological observation. It works on all those levels, and is the next place to go (along with its sequel, "Omoo") after reading "M-D."
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It took me so long to read this book! The style is a little difficult to get used to; in addition, my interest flagged somewhat after I found it is only "semi-"autobiographical, so you really can't tell what is true and what is a product of Melville's imagination.
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Melville's first book, a novel very roughly based on his life and observations when he was on a whaling ship in the South Pacific (which led, of course, to the later masterpiece, Moby Dick). Not nearly as compelling a tale as that brilliant volume, but certainly an interesting introduction to his travels and his worldviews.
The story is told by a young man who runs away from his ship in Polynesia with a shipmate, and wanders into a native village where he is treated as both a guest and a hostage. The book consists mostly of his observations and reflections on the "savages," as he calls them, but he comes to believe that their lives, and the land they inhabit, are in many respects far preferable to those of his home in the developed world: "there were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity . . . to sum it all up in one word: no Money!" He also became very critical of the role and impact of Christian missionaries in these "heathen" lands. All in all, a well-written, if some slow and repetitive, vision of Melville's early interest in the very different peoples and lands of the South Pacific islands.
The story is told by a young man who runs away from his ship in Polynesia with a shipmate, and wanders into a native village where he is treated as both a guest and a hostage. The book consists mostly of his observations and reflections on the "savages," as he calls them, but he comes to believe that their lives, and the land they inhabit, are in many respects far preferable to those of his home in the developed world: "there were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity . . . to sum it all up in one word: no Money!" He also became very critical of the role and impact of Christian missionaries in these "heathen" lands. All in all, a well-written, if some slow and repetitive, vision of Melville's early interest in the very different peoples and lands of the South Pacific islands.
Reading the free ebook version http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4592
Pretty edgy for 1846, I imagine. Here are some of the less edgy bits I found interesting:
"Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventures; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as common-place as a jacket out at elbows" (xi).
"...however ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortal spirit yearning after the unknown future" (255).
"...in every case where Civilization has in any way been introduced among those we call savages, she has scattered her vices, and withheld her blessings" (291).
"Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventures; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as common-place as a jacket out at elbows" (xi).
"...however ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortal spirit yearning after the unknown future" (255).
"...in every case where Civilization has in any way been introduced among those we call savages, she has scattered her vices, and withheld her blessings" (291).
3.5. I love Herman Melville's prose, but the travel book form makes for tough sledding sometimes. ("Let me now relate the history and many uses of breadfruit..."). Still, the book is great fun.