Oh no I have a lot of thoughts about that, and it mostly has to do with why they're doing the retelling and what they're adding by doing the retelling, then how well they accomplish that

See it's not like I'm against all retellings, I actually really like some retellings, but I think it really really depends and needs to add something the original story didn't

anyway I am accumulating a LOT of thoughts about retellings, particularly of literature (opposed to historical events or folktales or legends) and I have a feeling this is one I'm going to get picky about

I'M DONE I'M FREE I'M SO MAD

I finished MD and now I have to force myself to finish the retelling and I'm just increasingly mad about it

today's MD hilarity is ishmael revealing that his tattoos are *a bunch of stuff we don't know* DIMENSIONS OF A WHALE SKELETON, and then A POEM HE WROTE HIMSELF

his tattoos sound 100% like what I scribbed on the sides of my converse in high school

I told my mother that Melville wrote about her steak ordering style (including a lot of "why" when I told her I was reading moby dick) and then she agreed that melville was very funny if a lot verbose (YEAH OKAY SURE BUT THAT'S FINE HE'S FUNNY WHILE HE DOES IT)

Pre-Ordering Books Makes You More of a Citizen of Literature Recently on Bluesky, I was shouting as usual about Lessons in Magic and Disaster, my novel that comes out in about a month. (It's about a young trans woman...

All caps: PREORDERS MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN THE LIFE OF A BOOK

as @charliejane.bsky.social explains here: ”When you pre-order a book, you are taking a more active role in supporting that book and that author, and it makes your relationship with both quite a bit more meaningful.”

his calling various whales "distinguished gentlemen" or "a very retiring gentleman" lives in my head rent free

today's delightful melville-ism is talking about right whales' "crown" of barnacles and crabs and calling it a diademed king, and then IMMEDIATELY going "but look at how sulky he is! what a huge sulk and pout his lower lip has! what a sulky fellow to grace a diadem."

delightful

oh I am writing up a verrrrrrrrrrrrry long review of it (we have yet to see if I will finish before the book publishes) and potentially some blog piece about retellings in general because this is just becoming an epidemic, but also this one in particular hits almost every wrong way to do a retelling

I haven't been talking about the MD retelling I've been reading alongside, but THIS IS EXACTLY WHY IT DOESN'T WORK - its Ishmael is CONSTANTLY TALKING AND BEING ANNOYING OUT LOUD AT PEOPLE AND INSERTING HERSELF INTO THE STORY and no, Ishmael works because he's just in the background scribbling

sorry for the level to which I might make moby dick a part of my personality I'm really having a great time

I can't believe I forgot to add Strange Beasts to this 😅, but yeah, if you like Strange Beasts, you'll hopefully like the sequel, Wayward Souls, out in two weeks!

"hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear?"

this is 100% the ship version of my mother's "just have the cow pass by the stove" ordering a steak method

or at the VERY least, are extremely salty that no one will let you climb up and tell them how accurate your whale weathervane is

"on some spires...you will see sheet-iron whales place there for weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit"

MELVILLE THIS SOUNDS LIKE YOU TRIED THOUGH

the phrase "A butterless man" is now eternally etched into my lexicon

exhibit 2093849 about Meville being extremely funny

I'M SORRY???

MELVILLE NAMES DOLPHINS "HUZZA PORPOISES" BECAUSE THEY THROW THEMSELVES INTO THE AIR LIKE THREE CHEERS AND YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO CALL HIM BORING????

that's from the retelling that I'm not having fun with; it's trying SO, SO hard to be witty and snarky and failing on all fronts

it feels like a combination of 'hello fellow kids' and 10-year-old boys giggling at learning a sperm whale exists at the same time

"I can give you a breakdown if you follow us. That's a literary device, obviously. You aren't actually following us, you're reading a book written years after this event. I'm not really talking to you and you have no control over this story."

STOP I'M SO TIRED this isn't witty or funny

still going to hate faulkner to my grave. you cannot get me to like faulkner

there's so many issues with the education system in the us, but particularly english, that I think the first step almost has to be getting kids to get the tone and actions before diving into the themes

I think in general there's such a view of The Classics as dry and boring and "you have to get through them for class" because of the difference in language and grammar that does them such a disservice. most of these are absolutely unhinged!

at which point I got through it, but it was so broken up and a slog and I had better things to be doing (reading things on ff dot net), but while I'm more immediately seeing the fun and enjoyment of it, I think it would be extremely meme-able in the classroom

I really liked Billy Budd and so was like "oh maybe I'll like moby dick too" but due to a variety of factors (life, school, other assigned books, other books that were more immediately fun, who wants to carry around a book that big on top of textbooks, etc), it took a few yearst

anyway I'm having a great time, and it's really interesting seeing how differently I'm coming to this 20 years after initially

so long story short, we had to read Billy Budd for class as freshmen, and it was my, a baby queer's, first encounter with the term "homoeroticism"

also the extremely loud snort I let out at the "double-bolted country Japan" and my immediate

OPEN THE DOORS STOP HAVING THEM BE CLOSED

I'm still very early in (they've only just left nantucket), but I think one thing I'm really enjoying is how much Melville stressed a "live and let live" mindset and even the moments when Ishmael confronts Queequeg are still presented as Ishmael being the one who needs to accept it

what started as a "I just want to see how closely this is trying to stick to the original" quick look back at moby dick has evolved into a full-fledged re-read
extremely helped by the stupendous audio performance - there have been full-on cackling moments in the lab today