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Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 130
Those of you who were inclined to doubt whether Ishmael’s depiction of Ahab and Pip is meant to evoke the relationship between King Lear and his fool will be pleased to find that “The Hat” opens with...
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Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 131
It’s the Pequod‘s final gam, and it’s a bleak one. The “most miserably named” whaleship Delight has, like the Rachel, encountered Moby Dick, and the encounter has brought death. Ishmael gives us this...
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Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 133
Like a dog following a scent, Ahab detects “that peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living sperm whale” as the chapter opens. As he is hoisted to his perch atop the main...
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Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 134
In “The Tail,” Ishmael refers to the phenomenon of breaching, when the whale bounds out of the water and elevates itself into the air before plunging down again: As in the ordinary floating posture of...
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Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 135
And so we reach the climactic confrontation between Ahab and the white whale, Moby Dick. It’s a beautiful morning, which prompts Ahab to meditate on the way that feeling often overrules thinking: “What...
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Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 136
And so, finally, we reach the end. When Moby-Dick was published in London by Richard Bentley on October 18, 1851 (using Melville’s original title, The Whale), it seemed to end with the haunting final...
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The Final Pursuit
Last week, I had the privilege of participating in “The Final Pursuit,” a panel discussion at Plymouth University celebrating the “Moby-Dick Big Read” project. My co-panelists were Peninsula Arts...
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The Goats and Hogs Ordinance
Today is the 365th anniversary of the famous “goats and hogs ordinance” passed in New Netherland under the governorship of Peter Stuyvesant. Here’s the text of the ordinance: Whereas the Honble...
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Cosmopolitan Conversation: Open City Book Club, Part 2
As Bryan pointed out in last Monday’s post, Teju Cole’s novel Open City is about wandering: Cole’s Nigerian-American narrator, Julius, is a flâneur, both an observer and a participant in the life of...
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Jonathan Lethem Goes to Queens
Two years ago, we ran a virtual book club devoted to reading Jonathan Lethem’s novel Chronic City. This fall, Lethem published a new novel, Dissident Gardens, which takes us not to Brooklyn but to...
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Kronos Quartet at NYUAD and NYC
Bryan and I had the good fortune last week to be able to hear the visionary Kronos Quartet twice each during their week-long residence at NYU Abu Dhabi where we’re presently teaching. The ensemble...
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