By Arlington VA Public Library
5
88 ratings
The podcast currently has 43 episodes available.
We're starting a new adventure, a monthly Big Book Club Podcast...
http://bigbookclubarlington.libsyn.com/
As a special post-Moby-Dick bonus, Jennie and Megan previewed the new book, "Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick," and interviewed author Richard King by phone from his home in Mystic, Connecticut.
Rich's book does a great job of putting Moby-Dick in context, with lots of maps and photos. And for anyone who might fear that King's style would take after his subject matter, the writing is is compelling and accessible, and we suspect that it may become required reading for anyone tackling Moby-Dick in the future...
Rich mentions the website "Melville's Marginalia" during the podcast.
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And so we come to the conclusion of our voyage... was the destination worth the ride? Opinions vary...
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The gang's all back in town again! In this week's discussion of chapters 102-121, we contemplate biblical history and prophecy, and Megan solves the meaning of Moby-Dick once again.
Want to listen to an early version of The Pacific, from the Moby-Dick musical? Visit Dave Malloy's website.
Read a review of the Moby-Dick performance Megan attended.
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This week, half of Arlington is on vacation, so Jennie and Pete set sail on their own. The two cover chapters 87-101, discussing the unpleasant topics (racism, whale slaughter) and the absurd (Stubb's nose, the ineptness of whale ship captains.) And with no co-hosts, there's no one to stop them from making references to The Simpsons but also no one to correct Pete when he calls whale bone "ivory" repeatedly.
Get Well Soon by Jennifer Wright
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Jennie - Derry Girls on Netflix
Lore Olympus
Pete - The Terror on Hulu (though based on a book)
In chapters 71-86, no amount of action could keep us from feeling sedated by the seemingly endless chapters on phrenology... Although maybe all of Moby-Dick would improve if read like a jazz poem?
Chapter 79: The Prairie - read like an experimental jazz poem by the Mob-Dick Big Read project
Before Dave Malloy's new musical Moby-Dick makes its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University in December, the American Museum of Natural History will present staged excerpts from the production.
"Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick" by Richard J. King - publication date October 2019
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Sparknotes on Instagram and Twitter
This week we tackled the most action packed reading yet, chapters 60-70, in which we encountered bloody whale killing, racial stereotyping, and ugly power structures.
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In discussing chapters 42-59, we mentioned "The Card Turner," a YA novel by Louis Sachar.
Also, giant squid are scary, Fedallah's whaleboat crew are eerie, and and Melville is not subtle.
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Who got the gold star for reading all about whale-fish, including the footnotes? Who is actually caught up on the reading? Who thinks Ahab is headed for a reconning of, well, mythic proportions?
And who is ready to read something completely different this week?
We referenced:
"I''ll Make a Man Out of You" from the Disney musical, Mulan.
On the tv show Friends, couple Ross and Rachel "take a break," and then have a fight about what it meant to "take a break" after Ross slept with another woman during the break.
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180 pages in, and we've barely left port...
This week we discussed knowing that we're reading a "Big Book," and therefore expecting more drama out of Ahab as character. We also wondered whether, if we'd read Moby-Dick when it first was published, would we have been bored out of our minds by this point?
Books we reference:
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The podcast currently has 43 episodes available.