E. L. Doctorow: "American literature begins with 'Moby-Dick'"

[@SevenFootPelican]

Beautiful speech, Mr. Doctorow

[@ceocoachrobinson]

This an extraordinary talk about the greatest American novel by EL Doctorow. So well done! Worth a watch for fans of that great book

[@BikeVermont71]

This guy is brilliant. His wit and humor don't keep him from speaking sensibly about Moby Dick.

[@gphilipvirgil355]

Sheer brilliance. Thank you, E.L. D

[@williamseaverii1579]

Love this. Very insightful & well spoken. I agree American literature began with Moby Dick.

[@rachlaw5743]

beautiful talk. thank you

[@nickowchar2001]

Listening to Doctorow as he treats Melville as a working writer, and not some perfect immortal, is awesome.

[@TheMontague0403]

If the video would of ended right after he said the whale-being joke, it would have been the longest most epic dad joke of all time

[@kreek22]

American literature began with its first work of genius: "Nature." Emerson published it in 1836, 15 years before Moby Dick. Melville was one of Emerson's many students, among his most brilliant and unruly students. We have Melville's copies of Emerson's works, much marked up by the great novelist, full of agonistic marginalia and the occasional approbation.

[@horacefleming4481]

Melville had a problem with Emerson as he did with God. He liked Christ, but the Christian God not so much. Melville was a modern man in the true sense of the word, a man who had the good fortune to live during the American Renaissance, and who also wrote the first postmodern novel, The Confidence Man, a book more timely today than ever before.

[@aaronaragon7838]

Bullshit.

[@TheWhitehiker]

Best lecture on MD I've heard online--but that's not saying much.

[@phillipkruger9405]

In deference to Mr. Doctorow, it's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Up to America's first full entrance onto the world stage with the American-Spanish War.

[@guzelaziz]

How wonderful!

[@vinm300]

It reminds me of a Tolstoy critic :- "Many people wish Tolstoy had kept the narrative flowing and left out his theories of history ; but Tolstoy couldn't do that because that was the reason he wrote the novel"

[@ElonMuskrat-my8jy]

His theory of history is stupid though.

[@aaronaragon7838]

Huh? Explain...

[@vinm300]

@@aaronaragon7838 Thanks for asking. I think I was making a superficial observation - simply that Doctorow points out long periods where the story is sidelined (for whaling details) and in War & Peace Tolstoy also sidelines the narrative to talk about his theory of history. Tolstoy was passionate about dispelling the "great man of history" and it was suggested that was one reason he wrote the novel. I am NOT suggesting Melville's motivation was to talk about whaling It made a superficial observation regarding an interrupted narrative - simply to tell that tale about Tolstoy and his passion for history

[@vinm300]

@@aaronaragon7838 Moby Dick and War & Peace both contain digression, and one critic suggested Tolstoy's digression - to expatiate on historicity, was his reason for writing the novel. Voila.

[@PabluchoViision]

Tristrams?

[@monumentofwonders]

Strictly speaking, Moby Dick is not a novel, it's an anatomy, as Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. This explains chapters like the anatomy of the whale, and things that seem superfluous to the adventure story, but they are the cyclonic engine, the background, which makes the adventure story so powerful. Doctorow sounds clever, but he's a little too flippant, and ignores or denigrates as superfluous what is the underlying sea that of Melville's genius. That, this is talk is brilliant.

[@meldtoys5154]

Melville had all the best books piled up in front of him when he COMPILED "Moby Dick"!

[@nativevirginian8344]

I liked it. 🗿

[@sayno2lolzisback]

And Laurence Sterne precedes Melville in the 'assaults' on narrative form and structure by several decades.

[@paulkesler1744]

And Rabelais preceded Laurence Stern (though his "assault" was of a slightly different sort, while no less revolutionary).

[@ElonMuskrat-my8jy]

🤓

[@nledaig]

I can barely hear this.

[@VideoGameSlang]

Smart man but I disagree. Poe and Hawthorne were writing over a decade before Moby Dick.

[@VideoGameSlang]

@@alexanderbrandt9816 Melville considered Hawthorne to be the greatest writer of his generation…he even dedicated Moby-Dick to him.

[@VideoGameSlang]

@@alexanderbrandt9816 I've read it twice...."In August 1850, with the manuscript perhaps half finished, he met Nathaniel Hawthorne and was deeply moved by his Mosses from an Old Manse, which he compared to Shakespeare in its cosmic ambitions. This encounter may have inspired him to revise and expand Moby-Dick, which is dedicated to Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius". I own 3 copies of the book, all begin with: "IN TOKEN OF MY ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS This Book is Inscribed TO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE."

[@VideoGameSlang]

@@alexanderbrandt9816 you are quoting from chapter 32, I am referring to the dedication page.

[@VideoGameSlang]

@@alexanderbrandt9816 I don’t know what else to say to you lol. On the dedication page, Melville dedicated the book to Hawthorne. The literal point of a dedication page is to dedicate the book to someone. He also dedicated “Typee” to his father-in-law Lemuel Shaw.

[@mileshill4804]

@@VideoGameSlang Great point. After he spoke with Hawthrone, the first version of Moby-Dick was rewritten.

[@terencewinters2154]

No it doesn't try james Fenimore cooper

[@Mark-fr7yv]

Or Washington Irving. Or Nathaniel Hawthorne who inspired Melville.

[@ElonMuskrat-my8jy]

Charles Brockden Brown was before all of them.

[@jfamily5626]

New Bedford not Manhattan

[@CanuckEditorguy]

At the very beginning, Ishmail travels from Manhattan to New Bedford to find a whaling ship that make take him on.

[@HughMorristheJoker]

Then they go to Nantucket

[@tobiasyoder]

@@HughMorristheJoker I’m proud of you 👍

[@13579lazlo]

But the book is not very good it is a boring book. I've never finished the book.

[@wagstaffe7]

Mumble mumble...has trouble reading his own notes.

[@HughMorristheJoker]

Scribble, scribble, writes something stupid.