As an ex-seaman, I looked on M-D to tell me something about -my- father's father, and his father's trade (mostly the Australian trades, Ireland, Canada and, lastly, munitions) - and the copy I bought in Seattle in '81 seemed to answer it - but, of course, it didn't. None of the quietness; too much neurosis.
I'm not so sure of it's mythic status. I think that M-D was inflated in the way of the Cold War - I mean, like Modernist Abstraction, American Literature has to be better than the Russkies, right? Having eventually read it, it does seem a little - and I grant you its' inventiveness -overblown-, a parade of caricatures maybe.
I think people give Heart of Darkness an undue swerve here - Conrad was an ex-master mariner and the cut of his jib is certainly in the right, sou'west by west. If I were to forward a novel on the same -largeness- of spirit but with a levelled coolness of eye and technical gravitas, then Heart of Darkness gets my vote.
Roger,
The Monocled Mutineer.
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2001 22:12
Subject: Re: Book Review- Moby Dick
> Roger writes:
>
> >He goes on to describe the Australian whaling and seal-trades - most of it
> >not very pretty.
> >
> >Is there an Australian equivalent (in the literary sense) of M-D?
>
> Not that I know of. I suppose the equivalent in terms of iconic status
> (not popularity) might be Patrick White's Voss, which looks at the myth
> of the empty interior, the inner sea, rather than the sea around us; a
> great novel, but nothing like as inventive as Moby-Dick.
>
> Best
>
> Alison
>
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