ViewUpHere wrote:
Moby Dick makes interesting reading for a couple of reasons, one of which is all the information on cetatians. If that's not your cup of tea, those chapters will bore you out of your skull. Another reason is that Melville started with a central character, but then decided he really wanted to focus on someone else. Rather than go back and re-write, he killed off his initial central character and just kept going. From a writing standpoint it's a really curious read.
Claradoon, thanks for the info on the Gregory Peck version of the movie. I had no clue Ray Bradbury wrote that screenplay. Super cool!
Yes, Moby-Dick is all over the place, wandering in a wonderful kind of way. At the time the critics rejected it as "the ravings of a disordered mind." (re time-machine, add lit critics to list of people to smack.)
I was surprised about Bradbury too. I think he wrote a book about how to write a book, and in that book he tells about writing the screenplay, which he did in Ireland at the instance of the world-famous director whose name escapes me, and Bradbury hated Ireland because he's more a sunshine kind of guy. He couldn't wait to leave. But later, much later, he wrote a book of Irish stories - he thought he'd never think of Ireland again but it eventually became a book. And that book is good, too, if you haven't read it. Very funny.
I have been criticized for my lack of Proper Nouns. Sorry about that!
15 Nov 2011, 10:16 pm
