Not too keen pmath - thanks for finding it though. Sounds a bit too romantic for cynical old Moi
pmath wrote:
Is anyone interested in reading Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife, or, The Star-Gazer in February, and discussing it on the Fiction General Discussion board?
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9780060838744
We'll miss you Ziki
Melville also jumped ship!
There are two books here I think - one full of often boring facts and the other full of philosophy and action. I have been sticking to the latter as the facts on cetology do not really interest me (they might when I come back from the Canaries). If I feel I have missed something I go back. As you say, it is all too easy to drown in the blubber. (There are those who dip in and out of Tolstoy or only see the romance in it - perhaps all large books have this drawback.)
Melville also jumped ship!There are two books here I think - one full of often boring facts and the other full of philosophy and action. I have been sticking to the latter as the facts on cetology do not really interest me (they might when I come back from the Canaries
). If I feel I have missed something I go back. As you say, it is all too easy to drown in the blubber. (There are those who dip in and out of Tolstoy or only see the romance in it - perhaps all large books have this drawback.)
ziki wrote:
I'm in "chapters 70ties" and I am going to take a short break and read some other books in between. Sorry to say but this is getting too boring (perhaps that would be the right word, although I am not totally sure). The book is too much of its own 'grand-statement' like a monument of itself and IMHO it leaves the reader behind.
I'd say that I agree with a lot of what the critics said against it, but I think those who saw the genius in it were also right.
I definitely see the value in reading the book and wish to persist but it gets just too uninspiring. Reading it is like chewing a whalemeat.
I am not a friend of the approach to jump some chapters because it misses the point with the book. Each short chapter can have a gold nugget in it and the book should be read as it is. No one tells you to jump this and that in Tolstoy etc.
I feel that reading this book is just a long climbing and then it all collapses under the water in a couple of chapters. As Melville said himself: after all blubber is just blubber. A lots of the factual info it too old now (we know much more nowadays). I also hope other people who are reading the book now start posting more so that the discussion takes off.
CU soon shipmates
zikiMessage Edited by ziki on 01-12-200705:13 AM
As it is, it seems readers here are finding just getting through Moby Dick a challenge, and perhaps wouldn't want more of Ahab so soon afterward!
Choisya wrote:
Not too keen pmath - thanks for finding it though. Sounds a bit too romantic for cynical old Moi
pmath wrote:
Is anyone interested in reading Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife, or, The Star-Gazer in February, and discussing it on the Fiction General Discussion board?
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9780060838744
I am sure Xmas pud can be made with butter Ziki although it won't have the distinctive flavour of suet. Let me know what you think - make one with butter and one with suet perhaps? Suet does make a difference to the light texture of the pud as well as to the taste. It has a lower melting point than butter and so combines with the ingredients more slowly. At least that's what my grandma said
ziki wrote:
Chois,
today I found a recipe in an English vegetarian cookbook by Rose Elliot (Brit she is I believe) for Christmas pudding made with butter, not suet. I think I will try that, even if Christmas is now gone.
I stumbled on the suet thing....
BTW today I made a chili con carne ( new recipe from a cookbook with Swedish food of all things) and it was just ...well... orgasmic...very good and easy to make (made with ground meat). Different from the recipe I had when you cut bits of meat. I will now reread Karen Blixen (Danish) Babette's Feast. It is a great story.
You posted a link that Italians eat fish during Christmas. It has to do with religion, BOb said. Czechs do that, too, eat fish but they eat carp. I was just reading about it.
zikiMessage Edited by ziki on 01-14-200705:01 PM
