Omoo by NOVEL Herman Melville Herman Melville 9781542630405 Books
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Omoo A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is the second book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1847, and a sequel to his first South Sea narrative Typee, also based on the author's experiences in the South Pacific. After leaving the island of Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel that makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and the majority of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti.In the Preface to Omoo, Melville claimed to have written "from simple recollection" strengthened by his retelling the story many times before family and friends. Yet a scholar working in the late 1930s discovered that Melville had not simply relied on his memory and went on to reveal a wealth of sources. Later, Melville scholar Harrison Hayford made a detailed study of these sources and, in the introduction to a 1969 edition of Omoo, summed up the author's practice "He had altered facts and dates, elaborated events, assimilated foreign materials, invented episodes, and dramatized the printed experiences of others as his own. He had not plagiarized, merely, for he had always rewritten and nearly always improved the passages he appropriated." Hayford showed that this was a repetition of a process previously used in Typee, "first writing out the narrative based on his recollections and invention, then using source books to pad out the chapters he had already written and to supply the stuff of new chapters that he inserted at various points in the manuscript
Omoo by NOVEL Herman Melville Herman Melville 9781542630405 Books
If you always wanted to know what the Tahitian Islands were like in the middle of the nineteenth century, this is the book for you. If you were not sure of the misery of life before the mast in the sailing ships of the nineteenth century, this book will provide you with a few good insights. If you are looking for a book that will exercise your mind in the way that Moby-Dick did, you may want to pass up the opportunity of reading Omoo. It is well written -- but then it is Melville -- so how could it not be well written? It is not particularly engaging. And, oh yes, a spoiler alert -- the only place the word "Omoo" appears, is on the title page.Product details
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Tags : Omoo by: NOVEL Herman Melville [Herman Melville] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is the second book by American writer Herman Melville,Herman Melville,Omoo by: NOVEL Herman Melville,CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1542630401,General,FICTION Science Fiction Action & Adventure,Fiction,Fiction General,FictionGeneral
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Omoo by NOVEL Herman Melville Herman Melville 9781542630405 Books Reviews
As Melville stated himself, Omoo is only a sequel to Typee in that it follows the events that occur to the narrator after his experience with the Typee people from his first book. Only referred to once by his nickname Typee, the otherwise unnamed narrator agrees to temporary employment on the whaling ship Julia but finds himself in the middle of a crew that is dominated by a first mate while the captain has abdicated his responsibility and retreated into his infirmity. Upon the rejection of appeals to the local British consul to be exempt from active duty due to their own infirmity and the insistence of the mate that they get back to work, the narrator joins a group of mutineers that are taken ashore at Tahiti and confined to a makeshift jail from which escape is absurdly easy.
Along with his fellow escapee and roving companion Doctor Long Ghost, the narrator proceeds to wander among the islands, seeking nominal employment only when it requires little effort and changing plan and direction upon momentary impulse. The two wanderers work for a pair of Australian and British planters briefly, then hear of other Westerners obtaining respectable employment as translators/private secretaries to chiefs of some of the clans and consider that that prospect might be enjoyable as well as respectable. As soon as they settle on one occupation they discard the idea in favor of something more appealing.
The book takes on the rambling, episodic shape of their wanderings and lacks the cohesive narrative arc of Typee. In that book a thread of tension inherent in fear of the narrator that his benevolent captivity masked the true intentions of his cannibalistic captors of preparing him for a nice, hearty meal. In Omoo there is no realistic sense of danger. The rovers roam freely, escape captivity easily and possess an ease of mobility that the character in the first book never attained. This book is a loose narrative that merely serves the purpose of providing a framework in which Melville can describe the local culture, including brief explanations of dress, history, lifestyle, industry and so on.
The most riveting portion of the book occurs early, with the description of the whaler and its crew. Notably, Melville's experience on a whaler such as the Julia not only enabled him to describe a whaling ship with verisimilitude but also provided him with the setting for Moby-Dick. The Julia and its crew is a greatly inferior forerunner of the more vividly realized Pequod and its array of memorable characters. No real whaling is described in Omoo and the conditions that precipitate the mutiny and subsequent Tahitian adventures are never sufficiently conveyed. The mate John Jermin is a weak predecessor of Captain Ahab.
Omoo is intermittently interesting and the depiction of the native life varies in the extent to which it is successful. After reading the facts of Melville's experience from which he derived the narrative, I can see that he indulged in a great deal of fictional invention, conflating events and creating composite characters. What he failed to do was to create a compelling story. I would recommend the book only to readers who, like me, are curious about the books that Melville wrote before Moby-Dick changed the course of his career and secured his position in world literature.
Do you want to know what life was like 200 years ago in the South Pacific? This is not light reading. Every sentence is filled with parenthentical expressions comparing life in the South Pacific to the mores the sailors arrived with when they left England or the States. The righteous missionaries changed the islanders but not always in a positive way.
OK deal
Reads like a travel log. Good descriptions and some good character development too. I read it mainly because it was an early Melville book that I hadn't previously read.
Nice readable, old-fashioned font and one of my favorite books in the world! Melville tells a damn good story. Characters are adorable ruffians and there's a history lesson in here too. I bought this as a gift and I'm going to reread this myself. I like this better than Moby Dick. They should've made a movie of this one. Again, there's a million printings of this but the publishers did a nice job on the pages.
The word that keeps coming to mind as I think about this book is "charming". Melville was in a good mood when he wrote "Omoo", no doubt enjoyed looking back on a very pleasurable period of his still-young life. While it is true that "Omoo" wasn't nearly as successful as "Typee" had been, it is still an impressive work for a young man in his mid-twenties.
I enjoyed his portraits of the people he meets, and especially of his doctor friend, "Long Ghost". His descriptions of Polynesian life and the historical context are quite interesting. And it's funny Melville had very good sense of humor, displays it throughout "Omoo".
While the book is mainly a picaresque story of adventure, recounting the details of daily life in an exotic setting, and is a much happier book than "Typee", there are a few scenes that preview Melville's later narrative power. Here is the "Julia" in a tropical Pacific gale
"Under such a press of canvas, and with the heavy sea running, the barque, diving her bows under, now and then shipped green glassy waves, which, breaking over the head-rails, fairly deluged that part of the the ship, and washed clear aft."
And here is a glimpse of the brooding quality of his later work
"But my meditations were soon interrupted by a gray, spectral shadow cast over the heaving billows. It was the dawn, soon followed by the first rays of the morning. They flashed into view at one end of the arched night, like - to compare great things with small - the gleamings of Guy Fawkes's lantern in the vaults of the Parliament House. Before long, what seemed a live ember rested for a moment on the rim of the ocean, and at last the blood-red sun stood full and round in the level East, and the long sea-day began."
But these are very isolated examples. By and large, "Omoo" is a great contrast with Melville's other books. It is a light, easy, and amusing read. Highly recommended for Melville fans.
Helpful critical works on Melville
Newton Arvin - "Herman Melville"
D.H. Lawrence -"Studies in Classic American Literature".
F.O. Matthiessen - "American Renaissance"
Note This particular edition is from the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville's works, and is an MLA Approved Text. As such, it is authoritative, but it lacks an explanatory introduction, which may be a slight drawback.
If you always wanted to know what the Tahitian Islands were like in the middle of the nineteenth century, this is the book for you. If you were not sure of the misery of life before the mast in the sailing ships of the nineteenth century, this book will provide you with a few good insights. If you are looking for a book that will exercise your mind in the way that Moby-Dick did, you may want to pass up the opportunity of reading Omoo. It is well written -- but then it is Melville -- so how could it not be well written? It is not particularly engaging. And, oh yes, a spoiler alert -- the only place the word "Omoo" appears, is on the title page.
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