December 3, 2012
"In the operative opinion of this world, he who is already fully provided what what is necessary for him, that man shall have more; while he who is deplorably destitute of the same, he shall have taken away from him even that which he hath. Yet the world vows it is a very plain, downright matter-of-fact, plodding, humane sort of world. It is governed only by the simplest principles, and scorns all ambiguities, all transcendentals, and all manner of juggling. Now some imaginatively heterodoxical men are often surprisingly twitted upon their willful inverting of all common-sense notions, their absurd and all-displacing transcendentals, which say three is four, and two and two make ten. But if the eminent Juggularius himself ever advocated in mere words a doctrine one thousandth part so ridiculous and subversive of all practical sense, as that doctrine which the world actually and eternally practices, of giving unto him who already hath more than enough, still more of that superfluous article, and taking away from him who hath nothing at all, even that which he hath,—then is the truest book in the world a lie."

— Herman Melville, Pierre or the Ambiguities

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Filed under: Herman Melville Pierre quote literature 
October 5, 2012
"If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of conception and those of life. As elsewhere, experience is the only guide here; but as no one man’s experience can be coextensive with what is, it may be unwise in every case to rest upon it."

— Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man

10:27am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZY511yUhIGif
Filed under: Herman Melville The Confidence-Man quote literature 
September 12, 2012
"No; the superstitions and dogmas concerning Sin had not laid their withering maxims upon our hearts. We perceived how that evil was but good disguised, and a knave a saint in his own way; how that in other planets, perhaps what we deem wrong, may there be deemed right; even as some substances, without undergoing any mutations in themselves, utterly change their colour, according to the light thrown upon them. We perceived that the anticipated millennium must have begun upon the morning the first worlds were created; and that, taken all in all, our man-of-war world itself was as eligible a round-sterned craft as any to be found in the Milky way. And we fancied that though some of us, of the gun-deck, were at times condemned to sufferings and slights, and all manner of tribulation and anguish, yet, no doubt, it was only our misapprehension of these things that made us take them for woeful pains instead of the most agreeable pleasures."

— Herman Melville, White-Jacket or, The World in a Man-of-War

12:46am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZY511yTEjC0O
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: Herman Melville White-Jacket quote literature 
November 28, 2011
"The enormities perpetrated in the South Seas upon some of the inoffensive islanders wellnigh pass belief. These things are seldom proclaimed at home; they happen at the very ends of the earth; they are done in a corner, and there are none to reveal them. But there is, nevertheless, many a petty trader that has navigated the Pacific whose course from island to island might be traced by a series of cold-blooded robberies, kidnappings, and murders, the iniquity of which might be considered almost sufficient to sink her guilty timbers to the bottom of the sea."

— Herman Melville, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life

11:02pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZY511yCZtBOR
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: herman melville typee literature quote 
October 22, 2011
Personal Reading This Semester

The books I’ve completed this semester/winter break, ranked in order by personal preference. I’ll update it as I go along…

Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville (1851)
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (1959)
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller (1938)
The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1941)
Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997)
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (1962)
On Writing by Stephen King (2000)
Song of the Silent Snow by Hubert Selby Jr. (1986)
Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway (1927)
The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller (1941)
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930)
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway (1925)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (1962)
Hollywood by Charles Bukowski (1989)
Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville (1846)
Junky by William S. Burroughs (1953)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood (1972)
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (1987)
Different Seasons by Stephen King (1982)
The Covenant by Irving Layton (1977)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
The Willow Tree by Hubert Selby Jr. (1998)
Fierce Departures by Dionne Brand (2009)
‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King (1975)
The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway (1988)
Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim (1996)

2:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZY511yA_CCyw
(Notes: 20)
  
Filed under: as i lay dying borges charles bukowski colossus dionne brand don delillo ernest hemingway f. scott fitzgerald fahrenheit 451 fierce departures h.g. wells haruki murakami henry miller herman melville hubert selby jr. irving layton literature margaret atwood maroussi moby dick naked lunch ray bradbury reading rez sisters salem's lot stephen king the covenant time machine tomson highway underworld 
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