A review by piccoline
Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville

4.0

As a novel, 4 stars is too high, really. It's about 30% story, 70% description of daily life in the valley of Typee. Melville's first novel, and it's a long way from the mastery of _Moby-Dick_ and _The Confidence-Man_. What's striking, though, is how sympathetic Melville is here to the indigenous people. It ends up a rather melancholy book to read, now, looking back across time at these destroyed ways of life (so similar to so many other destroyed ways of life). You can't help but feel the deep loss of such a way of life.

It's becoming obvious to even the casual observer that I'm now a huge Melville fan.