Week 15 of the Big Book Club: Oh Boy, Tolstoy!
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
Release Date: 09/18/2018
What's next?
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
A monthly podcast!
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Bonus Moby-Dick episode: Interview with Richard King, author of "Ahab's Rolling Sea"
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
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.
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The End!
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
And so we come to the conclusion of our voyage... was the destination worth the ride? Opinions vary...
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Ahab Turns Up the Insanity
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
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.
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Whale Bones Are Not Made of Ivory
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
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.
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Stuck in the Doldrums with Melville
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
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?
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Whaling: Not for the faint of heart
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
In chapters 60-70 we encountered bloody whale killing, racial stereotyping and ugly power structures.
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Herman "Not Suble" Melville
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
Squid are scary, Fedallah's whaleboat crew are eerie, and and Melville is not subtle.
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To read all of Melville's Cetology, or to skip that chapter...
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
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?
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Our Cast Is Introduced, and We are Underwhelmed...
Big Book Club's "What the Whale!"
180 pages in, and we've barely left port...
info_outlineIn which we try to figure out how we feel about "War and Peace" and why Tolstoy has such staying power. And Jennie sings ALL the songs.
The Chinese proverb Jennie refers to is often translated as either:
- "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away" or
- "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away" (which the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs actually compares to the Russian proverb "God is high above and the tsar is far away").
Kim Pine in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (also check out the graphic novels)
Bridget Jones's Diary - Smug Marrieds
Palate cleansers -
- Megan - Harry Potter series, Anne of Green Gables series, and "Sierra Burgess is a Loser" on Netflix
- Jennie - reading the Cybils Award contenders, and "Making It" on Hulu
- Pete - playing video games: Donut County, Spider Man and Red Dead Redemption 2