Obviously Herman Melville’s most famous/influential book is Moby Dick, but if you were forced to choose one other book that exemplifies his genius, whioh would it be?
Oh damn. I accidentally posted this here instead of Cafe Society. My apologies.
Anyway, the answer is “Billy Budd”.
I second the nomination of “Billy Budd.”
Yup. Billy Budd.
Looks like Billy’s got it. Take that, Claggart.
‘Billy Budd’?!?!?! Oh god, the horror!! That book is nothing but a series of amped-up clichés; it’s terrible, unoriginal and scares innocent high school kids away from Melville, often for the rest of their lives, and Melville should not be shunned.
Oh man, it is not ‘Billy Budd.’
I would recommend ‘Bartleby the Scrivener,’ which is simply fantastic.
…stomps off, still muttering…"‘Billy Budd’?! What’s wrong with these people?"
Bartleby’s good, but Billy Budd is better. (IMO)
If we are indeed allowed to include short stories, then Bartleby would go to number 1 for me so I guess it loses the #2 ranking anyhow.
Bartleby is one of the few instances where Melville actually came up with a subject he wanted to discuss, and proceeded to do so in a well-formulated and entertaining manner.
Any ten page segment of Moby Dick might be amazing as its own separate entity, but as a complete work the whole thing is very sloppily put together and largely seems to be Melville showing off how big his literally shlong is. Personally I don’t appreciate people whipping out their shlong on my brain.
Trip out on aurelian ranting on “Billy Budd”! I swear there’s enough passion on these boards that I could post something like, “For my money, Cypraea moneta is the best of the gastropods. A real gastropod’s gastropod,” and get shouted down by dissenting opinions.
OK, that was a tangent. Anyway, since I read “book” to mean novel, or at least novella, I was basically choosing from “Billy Budd”, “Typee”, and “Omoo”. Fine though the others may be, I haven’t read them.
Y’all are all philistines. Benito Cereno is Melville’s greatest work.
Personally, I think Melville’s “Mondo Beach Blanket Party” was by far his best work.
A book written by someone else that doesn’t have a chapter about “The Whiteness of the Whale”…anyone else,
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
I agree this rocks, but if memory serves it is more of a short story, yes?
The only other Melville work I’ve read is Typee which I wouldn’t call either great or influential.