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Title: Typee (New Riverside Editions) by Geoffrey Sanborn, Paul Lauter, Herman Melville ISBN: 0-618-30007-4 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.96 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary:
Look Mom, I understand "Classic American Literature"
Comment: I just finished Typee and enjoyed the book a great deal (I'm 38, male, and love reading for general education and enjoyment). A few months ago, I made a noble attempt to wade through Moby Dick (I jumped to the last chapter after about a quarter of the book) and I was curious to see if "early Melville" was any easier.
Typee is billed as both an adventure novel and as shocking anthropology. I found Typee well written, but a bit dense with long, detailed, descriptions about trees, landscapes, etc. that don't apply to characters, nor plot (and did put me to sleep). These long passages make it hard for me to call this an adventure novel, but this style seems to be standard fair when reading early American adventure novels (like "Last of the Mohicans" by J. F. Cooper).
Reading Typee in 1997 doesn't produce the same moral outrage as it did when it was first published in 1846. But, looking for Melville's cultural observations and comparisons was a great part of what made Typee so very enjoyable. So, for me, it is isn't the adventure that makes the book worth reading, but the author's, and my own, observations and comparisons of different lifestyles.
While reading Melville's observations on a primitive culture, I began to marvel at the his ability to transcend his culture and to describe the vastly different culture he had experienced. In Typee he writes about everything from eating raw fish, primitive idol worship, polyandry (multiple husband) marriages, and cannibalism, all without the negative judgment or superiority one might expect from an American in 1847. I must admire the observer when, discussing cannibalism, he writes: "But here, Truth, who loves to be centrally located, is again found between two extremes;..." When reading Melville's cultural observations he inspired me to keep an open mind.
I also enjoyed Melville's comparisons between the island culture and his home culture. It is great fun to read Melville's comparison of the stress free, non-capitalistic islanders and the debtors prisons of America. It is unique to see that Melville was able to say maybe his culture isn't the best and that western influence might not be the best influence. He writes early in the book: "Thrice happy are they who, inhabiting some yet undiscovered island in the midst of the ocean, have never been brought into contaminating contact with the white man."
But my greatest pleasure, when reading Typee, was in making comparisons between the changes in American culture since the books publication and today. To a buttoned-up, victorian society the descriptions of island women dressed only in tropical flowers must have been a mind bender indeed. However, to our post-flower child generation these descriptions seem tame. When Melville states: "The varied dances of the Marquesan girls are beautiful in the extreme, but there is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character which I dare not describe." it is hard to believe that he could describe something that our current generation hasn't seen in the movies (and with a PG-13 rating!).
In conclusion, I encourage you to read Typee. I think it is an enjoyable book and today's readers can find the value of the book without having to get someone else to explain it to you. In addition, I believe that everyone can finish it and thereby allow you to proudly claim that you have indeed read Melville. And, once you have finished a "classic" and been able to see its value, you can begin to understand the common thread that caused your American Literature professor to label Melville, together with F. Scott Fiztgerald and Jack Kerouac, as one of the observers of American society. I am now off to read "The Great Gatsby" and "On the Road."
- Anthony J. Godwin
p.s. Did you know that Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, but that Moby Dick never wrote him back!
Rating: 5
Summary: A cross-cultural classic from the 19th century
Comment: Herman Melville's "Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life" tells the story of a white sailor who lives for a time among the Typees, a native people of a Pacific island. According to a "Note on the Text" in the Penguin Classics edition, this book first appeared in 1846 in no less than four different editions.
"Typee" is a marvelous story of cross-cultural contact. It is also a fascinating glimpse at a pre-industrial culture; Tom (known as "Tommo" to the Typees) describes in detail the food, dress, tattooing, physiology, musical instruments, architecture, warfare, religious practices, and social customs of the Typees. The book is full of vividly portrayed characters: the gentle beauty Fayaway, the "eccentric old warrior" Marheyo, the talkative "serving-man" Kory-Kory, and more.
Melville's prose style in "Typee" is irresistible: the writing is fresh, lively, and richly descriptive. There is a satirical thrust to much of the book. And there is a lot of humor; at many points I literally laughed out loud. Such scenes as the description of a wild pig's frustrated efforts to break open a coconut really showcase Melville's comic flair.
A major theme of "Typee" is that of the "noble savage" (Melville actually uses the term). The narrator often wonders whether Typee life is in some ways better than Western life, and is quite critical of the work of Christian missionaries among Pacific Island peoples. The book is richly ironic, as Melville's narrator reflects on the problematic nature of cross-cultural observation: "I saw everything, but could comprehend nothing" (from Chapter 24).
"Typee" is more than just a colorful travelogue or a philosophical reflection; it is also a genuinely exciting and suspenseful adventure story. Melville's story of a visitor to a strange alien world curiously anticipates a major theme of 20th century science fiction; thus a novel like Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" would make a fascinating companion text. Also recommended as a companion text: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," another 19th century American classic which casts a critical light on Eurocentric Christianity.
Rating: 3
Summary: Narrative account
Comment: Typee is a narrative account of the three months that Herman Melville spent among the Typee tribe after deserting from a whaling ship. It goes into minute details about the everyday life of the Typee. At times I felt a bit glassy eyed and skimmed forward over some sections.
Melville comes across a bit dense and self centered, and obviously applied a double standard, one for whites and one for natives. After toying with the affections of a young native woman, he casually abandons her and does not seem to understand why her family would object. Perhaps he would have had a better understanding if he was abandoning the daughter of a prominant politician in New England.
He was somewhat a nosy Parker, inserting himself in situations where he was not wanted, and showing little regard for the customs of the Typee. Overall, it is an interesting account of life among the natives.
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Title: Omoo by Herman Melville ISBN: 0486408736 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: In the South Seas (Penguin Classics) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Neil Rennie ISBN: 0140434364 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Blithedale Romance (Modern Library Classics) by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gretchen Kay Short ISBN: 0375757201 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 14 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Noa Noa : The Tahitian Journal (Fine Art Series) by Paul Gauguin ISBN: 0486248593 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 June, 1985 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: The Confidence Man (Literary Classics (Prometheus Books)) by Herman Melville ISBN: 157392038X Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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