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Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life Kindle Edition
After six months of relentless battering by the turbulent South Pacific, the whaling ship known as the Dolly is beginning to resemble a swollen and cracking prison. For Tommo, it’s been six months of little to eat but stale biscuits, six months of steady abuse and derision from his shipmates, six months with nothing to distract him from the daily drudgery of life aboard the boat. All that time and not even a hint of land—it’s enough to drive anyone mad. Thousands of miles from home, the Dolly finally chances upon a remote island, and Tommo and fellow sailor Toby resolve to strike out on their own. Intrigue and excitement ensue when they discover their new haven to be inhabited by a tribe of cannibals!
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About the author
The writing career of Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) peaked early, with his early novels, such as Typee becoming best sellers. By the mid-1850s his poularity declined sharply, and by the time he died he had been largely forgotten. Yet in time his novel Moby Dick came to be regarded as one of the finest works of American, and indeed world, literature, as was Billy Budd, which was not published until long after his death, in 1924.
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For a first novel, written when Melville was only 27 years old, the narrative power is quite impressive, as for example in his description of the escape from the ship over the mountains to the Valley of the Typee. In the early chapters, themes of peace, beauty, and sensuality are combined with Melville's righteous indignation at the activities of Western military and religious intruders to create the illusion of an earthly paradise. Gradually dread, loneliness, horror, and fear of annihilation come to the fore, as "Tommo", the protagonist, becomes convinced that he is being kept for eventual eating at a ritual cannibal feast. He is finally rescued almost by chance, and because of conflict among the Typees.
I read the Oxford World's Classics paperback edition, which has an introduction by Ruth Blair, an Australian professor of English. It was very helpful with Melville's historical and literary sources and the geographical and cultural context. The chapter on "Typee" in "Studies in Classic American Literature" by D.H. Lawrence adds a further depth of understanding. Newton Arvin's biography of Melville helps to place "Typee" in the development of Melville as a writer.
Highly recommended in its own right as a superb example of 19th century American romanticism, with hints of the impending metaphysical explosion of "Moby Dick".
The introduction by the noted Melville expert was terrible and pretentious. Skip that and just read the story with out his psycho-bable.
There are typos on every other page, throughout the entire book, which in many cases makes the text incomprehensible. In the appendix, the text examples don't show up - only black boxes appear instead of the text examples. And in the footnotes, the page numbers listed for the footnotes don't match the page numbers used by Kindle, so the footnotes are useless. It really looks like Penguin just scanned the old paper copy & didn't proofread the output at all before publishing it as a Kindle edition.
I was so exasperated by this ebook that I had to order the paperback version from Amazon in order to read Typee.
If anybody from Amazon or Penguin is reading this review, the Kindle edition needs to be reviewed for quality issues.
Expect to see the typical Melvillian depiction of Christianity as oppressive, the culture of the innocent natives praised, all wrapped in the most creative/inventive/genius of language that Melville so strongly commands. My onyl critique is that the middle section of the book is quite slow, and his repeated explanations of the goings on in the natives lives becomes rather cumbersome to read. The volatile and exciting ending is fantastic!
Top reviews from other countries
en anglais faite sur un traducteur automatique de mauvaise qualité . Faut-il rappeler que Melville écrivait en anglais ?
Je demande le remboursement de ce produit.