Have You Seen the White Whale Wednesday

[evelyn_b]

What I've Finished Reading

"I am talking about you and me. I am saying that, right now, sitting by this lake together, we both would earn our scarlet A's. And deserve them."

"But we're both men."

Hawthorne smiled mirthlessly. "That is not lost on me."

Comments

[a_phoenixdragon]

*HUGS*

[evelyn_b]

Spare a hug for poor Herman Melville! First Hawthorne doesn't answer his letters because he's having marital relations with his wife, DESPITE talking really intensely with Melville that one time and clasping him to his bosom like NO MAN HAS EVER CLASPED ANOTHER, and now all of a sudden he's got this painfully on-the-nose internal monologue that doesn't sound like him at all and everyone is talking like the first draft of a sitcom script. It's been a confusing couple of years, poor guy. :(

[osprey_archer]

That is an epic take-down of The Whale. Too bad it wasn't any good, though! A period-appropriate take on Melville and Hawthorne's relationship could have been really interesting.

I feel like trying to pastiche Melville might have helped Beauregard out, actually. Trying to mimic the style might have forced him to at least try to fall into nineteenth-century thought patterns; at very least he would have realized that Melville and Hawthorne didn't sound at all like Melville and Hawthorne.

[evelyn_b]

I think I've written more about The Whale in the past few days than about the last ten books I really liked. Poor Melville deserved a better book and so did I, but I also enjoyed it a lot, in that Da Vinci Code way where you can't stop reading because you're constantly watching for the next infelicity

[wordsofastory]

I started out being disappointed to hear that The Whale isn't very good, but by the end of your review it sounded SO bad, so incredibly inexplicably bad, that I think I'm possibly even more intrigued by it now. Which I'm sure was not your intention! But sometimes there's something compelling about total wrecks.

[evelyn_b]

I kind of want everyone to read it so they'll understand I'm not exaggerating! It's impossible to explain just how pronounced the mismatch is. . .I kind of don't want to say too much more, because I feel bad for harping on it, it seems so earnest. It didn't work for me, but maybe there's a level it works on that I'm not seeing through the haze of my pickiness about clunky dialogue and thinly imagined historical settings.

[littlerhymes]

*disappointed 'ohhh....'* Well, thank you for reading The Whale and giving everyone the heads-up! Damn, what a waste of a great premise.

The story about the time-travelling slash fangirl would probably give me 2ndhand embarrassment but it sounds moderately more interesting than the actual novel.

[evelyn_b]

At least some of its problems could have been helped by imposing an outsider POV, instead of trying to close-third Herman Melville and making him sound like Bella Swan. The time-traveling slash fangirl might cover a multitude of sins: her awkward insistence on first names when she meets Melville and her weird confidence that everyone in the Berkshires circa 1850 shares her slash goggles (when, let's be real, most of the people in her Great American Novels RPF group don't even share her slash goggles) would be explained, if not excused.

Are there any stories about time-traveling slash fangirls? Maybe there should be.

[liadtbunny]

The excerpt where Herman shocks Lizzie with his dedication to writing reads like the start for a 70s comedy sketch about artists.

The book sounds terrible: when does the film of the book come out? I'll be sure to see it;p

[evelyn_b]

Hah, it does a bit! Especially the weirdly "snappy" 'are you joking?' 'Are you?' The whole book gives the impression of being written by someone whose main influences are audiovisual, though I'd have to think about it a lot more to work out why.

I think it would fare better as a film. The plot is very straightforward, which would suit a film, and the viewer would be spared all the descriptions of people turning around in their chairs, balling up their fists, or looking meaningfully at the sky. The cheesy dialogue wouldn't matter so much, and you could replace some of the clumsier emotion-descriptions with string music and shots of rippling lake and trees tossing as if in agony of desire, etc.. I might even go see it myself!

[liadtbunny]

No, you should make it - an illustrious career in film beckons:-D Pitt and Wilberforce approve. Don't forget to put a scene in where there's a priest who does secret gay marriages and then they have to wear their wedding rings close to their hearts.

[evelyn_b]

Of course! The great underground secret gay marriage network of 19th century New England! I'm surprised Beauregard missed it in his research. :)