muammar al gathafi, “the green book”

Muammar Al Gathafi 
The Green Book
(revised English edition; translator unknown) 
(World Center for the Study and Research of the Green Book, 2009; originally 1975.)


There are not a great many interesting souvenirs available in Libya, which is not, perhaps, surprising. But you can buy copies of Qaddafi’s The Green Book in many places, in many different languages, for very little money (5 Libyan dinars, around $4), which is how I came to have this. This edition is a hardback published in 2009 by the imposing-sounding “World Center for the Study and Research of the Green Book”; it’s a short book, 96 pages long, and the back explains that it’s been “republished in a new translation,” but I don’t know if this means that the text has been changed since the original. I am not, of course, any sort of expert on Libya or political systems; I was in Libya largely because I wanted to see the Roman ruins on the coast. My opinion is of course that of an amateur; but Libya is an interesting country, bearing little resemblances to most American preconceptions of it, and a good part of that is due to the idiosyncrasy of Qaddafi’s ideas.

Qaddafi came to power in 1969 in an officer’s coup; a week later, he seems to have emerged as the leader, improbably, as he was only a colonel. (The idea floats around Libya that the coup, and Qaddafi’s rise, was American-sponsored.) but by 1975, Qaddafi had codified his ideas about how the state should be run in this book, which announces his “Third Universal Theory”. The first and second theories were democracy and socialism; the third builds on these to create an elaborate systems of people’s committees which report back and forth and thus govern the country. The first third of this book announces “the solution to the problem of Democracy”; the second, “the solution to the Economic problem”; the third, “the Social Basis of the third Universal Theory”. Green marginal notes (often in the form of slogans, some incomprehensible (“No representation of the people representation is a falsehood”) appear to the left of the text; some of these also appear on billboards in the country.

Qaddafi begins with a discussion of political systems; he sees flaws in democracy, as popularly practiced, and socialism. While his criticisms often make sense (representational democracy isn’t as particularly representational as you might hope), he jumps to conclusions:

Political struggle which culminates in the victory of a candidate obtaining 51 per cent of the total votes of electorate, establishes a dictatorship in the seat of power garbed in the guide of democracy. It is in fact, a dictatorship because 49 per cent of the electorate would then be governed by an instrument of government they did not vote for, and which has been imposed upon them. This is the essence of dictatorship. (pp. 7–8)

One wonders if something has been lost in translation: he doesn’t seem to be using the word “dictatorship” as it’s usually received. There’s something that’s right here, of course; he does astutely note that what works for campaigns isn’t necessarily what’s right for government. Or his thoughts on referendums:

Referendums make a mockery of democracy. The people who respond with “yes” or “no” are not actually expressing their will, but rather are constrained to respond as such because the concept of modern democracy so dictates. They are only allowed to select one of two words: either “yes” or “no”. Referendums represent the most extreme repressive dictatorships. Individuals who respond with a “no” should be able to state their reasons for this response and why they refrained from responding with a “yes”. Similarly, individuals who respond with a “yes” should be given the opportunity to justify their consent and explain why they did not choose to give “no” as an answer. Each should be able to speak out and give the reason for agreement or disagreement. (pp. 19–20)

(This is glossed as “Referendums make a mockery of democracy” and “Individuals must have the opportunity to justify opinions”.) He’s right to point out that there are problems with referendums (cf. California’s governments); however, his response is puzzling. The problem is with democracy; he solves this by redefining democracy to mean People’s Congresses and People’s Committees. Here’s how:

Firstly, the people are divided into Basic People’s Congresses. Each of these selects its own secretariat. The secretariats of all the People’s Congresses together from (sic) Congresses other than the Basic People’s Congresses. The masses of the Basic People’s Congresses will then select administrative People’s Committees to replace governmental administration. From then on, all public institutions will be run by People’s Committees which act answerable to Basic People’s Congresses whcih dictate policies and oversee their implementation. Thus, both the administration and supervision become the people’s responsibility and the outdated definition of democracy – democracy is the supervision of the government by the people – is finally done away with. It is replaced by the true definition: democracy is the supervision of the people by the people. (p. 23)

This is glossed “Committees everywhere”. A rather complicated chart attempts to explain the interrelations of the various committees and congresses but leaves me entirely confused, as does how this theory actually relates to practice, if at all. Qaddafi’s word for this is the neologism jamahiriya (جماهيرية), a derivation from the the words “republic” and “masses”; maybe in English you could call it a “repeoplic.”

The second section of the book attempts to explain economic theory. To summarize by its glosses:

  • Wage earners are a kind of slaves, even if their wages improve.
  • The ultimate solution is to abolish the wage system.
  • In need no freedom indeed.
  • Masters in their own homes.
  • Land is no one’s private property.
  • The legitimate objective of the individual’s economic activity is solely the fulfilment of their material needs.
  • A house should be serviced by its occupants.

Qaddafi’s reasonable progressive here; he explains that it’s very important that everyone should have their own home, but everyone should only have one home, because that’s where trouble starts. One should also have a vehicle. Domestic servants lead quickly to slavery. 

The third section of the book explains his social thought; here, the book becomes itself. The family and religion are at the center of Qaddafi’s world; everyone should have both. The family is extended to the tribe, which perhaps makes sense in Libya, but which makes one a bit wary. From the tribe springs the nation (“a large extended family that has passed through the tribal stage – the tribe, then a plurality of tribes, that have branched out from one common source”). Next there’s a section on women; Qaddafi is paternalistic (“Women, like men, are human beings”) and almost buffoonish (“According to gynaecologists women, unlike men, menstruate each month”), but he comes to the conclusion that although women and men are separate they should be equal. Nurseries are tyrannical; motherhood should be respected as work. Some questionable science comes into play (“The male in the plant and animal kingdoms is born naturally strong and striving, while the female in both kingdoms is naturally born beautiful and gentle”), echoed in the Lamarckianism in the section on music and art:

If a community of people wears white on a mournful occasion and another dresses in black, then each community develops particular attitudes towards these colours: one community would like white and dislike black and the other like black and dislike white. Moreover, this attitude leaves a physical effect on the cells as well as on the genes in the body. This adaptation will be transmitted by inheritance, and the heir would come to dislike the colour disliked by his parents, as a result of inheriting their feelings. Consequently people only relate to their own arts and heritage. Due to the factor of heredity, this feeling of harmony eludes them when they come into contact with the arts of others who differ in heritage and yet speak a single common language. (pp. 88–89)

This is, of course, ridiculous; the book is finished with a section on sports and horsemanship, where Qaddafi comes out against public spectacles (unbecoming in a democracy) and for private practice. There are now, however, soccer teams in Libya, as well as increasingly visible private corporations; it’s hard to tell how seriously the Green Book is taken now. 

Qaddafi seems to have followed Duchamp’s lead in following up his Green Book with a White Book in 2002, but the White Book seems mostly inaccessible (save for a pile of Spanish translations I found in the gift shop of the Libyan airport). One can, however, read the White Book in the Green/White Book Room in the new hi-tech Museum of Libya in Tripoli; the White Book is smaller than the already small Green Book, and seems to contain Qaddafi’s proposed solution to the Israel/Palestine problem (one state, to be called “Israstine,” based on the model of Lebanon. See his op-ed from 2009 in the NYTimes.

Qaddafi’s hope with the Green Book seems to have been to export the jamahiriya elsewhere. This doesn’t seem to have gone very well; it seems possible that the reason he’s done as well as he has in Libya is that it’s a small country, population-wise: around 9 million people, the majority of them clustered around Tripoli; there’s also a huge amount of revenue from oil. How well this works in the future is a good question.

january 9–january 26

Books

Exhibits

  • Jamahiriya Museum, Tripoli, Libya
  • Leptis Magna Museum, Leptis Magna, Libya
  • Sabratha Museum, Sabratha, Libya
  • Ghadames Museum, Ghadames, Libya
  • Germa Museum, Germa, Libya
  • Museum of Libya, Tripoli, Libya
  • Haghia Sophia Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
  • Mosaic Museum, Istanbul Turkey
  • Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, Istanbul
  • “The Holy Qur’an in its 1400th Anniversary,” Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art
  • İstanbul Modern, Istanbul
  • “New Works, New Horizons,” İstanbul Modern
  • “Yao Lu’s New Landscapes,” İstanbul Modern
  • “Kutluğ Ataman: The Enemy inside Me,” İstanbul Modern

january 1–january 8

Books

Films

  • White Material, directed by Claire Denis
  • Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, dir. Danny Leiner
  • Dark Star, dir. John Carpenter
  • Raging Bull, dir. Martin Scorsese
  • Oh, Doctor!, dir. Fatty Arbuckle
  • The Bell Boy, dir. Fatty Arbuckle
  • Moonshine, dir. Fatty Arbuckle
  • Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
  • The Lost World, dir. Harry Hoyt
  • Le Mort qui tue (The Murderous Corpse), dir. Louis Feuillade
  • Fantômas contre Fantômas (Fantômas vs. Fantômas), dir. Louis Feuillade
  • Le faux magistrat (The False Magistrate), dir. Louis Feuillade

elizabeth hardwick, “new york stories”/”sleepless nights”

Elizabeth Hardwick
The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick
(New York Review Books, 2010)


Elizabeth Hardwick
Sleepless Nights
(Random House, 1979)


Two books by Elizabeth Hardwick, both rather small. New York Stories is a posthumous compilation of Hardwick’s short stories involving New York: while this appears to be the first collection of her short stories in book form, I’m not sure offhand how complete a collection of her stories this actually is. At 200 pages, it’s a thin book. Sleepless Nights is a short novel from 1979; while it’s been reprinted by New York Review Books fairly frequently, my copy is an old hardback. Part 8 of this novel, first published in the New Yorker, also appears in The New York Stories under the name “The Faithful”: there’s almost the feeling that that book needed padding, that it might not have appeared substantive enough without more pages.

New York Stories is an oddly structured book. The earliest story here is from 1948; six are from the 1950s, and then there’s a twenty-year gap before “The Faithful” appears. There are three stories from the 1980s, and the last from 1993. The first half of the book, then, might be described as New Yorker-style stories from the 1950s; the second half deals with the fractured New York of 1980. Her novels seem similarly disjunct: The Ghostly Lover appeared in 1945, The Simple Truth in 1955; both of these, which I have not read, seem to have been out of print for a while, but maybe NYRB will get around to them. There’s no great secret for the gap in her fiction: in between these two periods, of course, Hardwick was busy founding, editing, and writing for the New York Review of Books.

The stories from the 1950s are good for what they are; I should admit that the American short story from that period isn’t a form of which I’m particularly fond, perhaps a myopia. There is sociological interest: Hardwick is a good observer, and her characters are sharply drawn. Here, for example, she delineates a professor seen at a dinner party: 

Clarence, a bachelor and only thirty-eight, was nevertheless a lover of things as they once were. Everything seemed to him to have been subtly degraded, from the quality of bread to the high-school curriculum. Violent feelings of disappointment, exhausting worries about the future of culture, had a fierce dominion over Clarence’s existence. He was so fully and abjectly under the tyranny of these feelings that the feelings themselves were in his own mind mistaken for “work.” When he was angry with a colleague, defeated in a committee meeting, dismayed by the poor preparation of the students, these experiences seemed to him to be his job. They were much too devastating and severe for him to take lightly. In judging his extremity of emotion, he found it simply an example of his greater diligence and dedication, his superiority to the mechanics being turned out by the graduate schools. Clarence cared, he suffered, he worried. Nesbit’s Under-Secretary of State airs and his desire to be an important figure in the intellectual world seemed to his critic, Clarence, to be a slighting of the great career of education. (“The Classless Society,” pp. 93–94)

This story, as far as I can tell, is not a New York story at all as it takes place at the University of Chicago; although it might be argued that the characters behave much more like they would in New York than they might in Chicago. Hardwick’s interest is the intellectual set; artists and bohemians behave like artists and bohemians, people complain, inevitably, about how the Village isn’t what it used to be. My failure to engage with these stories isn’t because Hardwick’s writing is bad – it certainly isn’t, and it obviously wasn’t her job to please me at this date; rather, it’s because all of this seems so familiar. 

When Hardwick starts writing again – both in the later stories in New York Stories and in Sleepless Nights – one almost senses that Hardwick herself might have been bored with what she was doing before, or realized that she’d run into a dead end. Sleepless Nights bears a certain stylistic similarity to Renata Adler’s Speedboat, which would have come out a few years before. In comparison to her earlier stories, Hardwick’s fiction from 1979 on seems decidedly more invigorated, with a new sensibility to the potentials of form; but it does come off as ineluctably dated, in the same way that color film can be pinpointed to the 1970s by that particular fade. Narration shifts to the first-person, of course; the protagonist of Sleepless Nights is named Elizabeth and is from Kentucky; the prose is considerably more fractured, and more explicitly literary: in a single paragraph early in the book, one finds reference to Pasternak, Leconte de Lisle, Hugo, and Ibsen. 

Modernism has been taken into account in Sleepless Nights, as it isn’t particularly in Hardwick’s stories from the 1950s. Sleepless Nights largely dispenses with plot; there’s a central consciousness, Elizabeth, but the narrative shuttles back and forth across time and space (a central focus being New York around 1973), and each of the ten sections could function individually. Secondary characters come and go, generally not making it across the section dividers; the one stable character is an M., to whom Elizabeth writes letters included in the text, but it’s unclear whether these letters have been written to be sent. The language feels more free than in Hardwick’s earlier stories: compare another passage describing a party:

This is what I heard in the evening. At the party everyone was intelligent and agreeable, but not particularly good-looking. No person of talent had brought along a new, beautiful, young girl, who being new and not knowing all the names would seem rude and superior, thus sending arrows of pain into the flesh of the older people who were known for something. Eyeglasses glimmered. Academics, like old barons of the Empire, coughed out their titles and universities and yet quickly the badges dimmed and their faces returned to the resignation brought on from too many lectures, and the docile, not-quite-interested smiles of students. (p. 48)

This is more interesting to me than the prose of the earlier stories: there’s distance implied. It’s unclear from this party whether the narrator was at the party in question or heard this description from someone else (this is left vague in the broader context that this passage occurs in); but it implies an individual consciousness having digested experience in a way that’s more subjective than the omniscient third-person in “The Classless Society”: Elizabeth the narrator is tired of this sort of party.

For me, Hardwick’s fiction remains secondary to her criticism, though I probably would pick up her two earlier novels if I came across them. With a Harper’s account, “The Death of Book Reviewing” can be read online; she’s still right, of course, about the mediocrity of the NYTimes Book Review.

noted

  • What seems to be an excerpt from Joseph McElroy’s water book at EBR. See also: a brief piece by him on Rachel Carson.
  • Stephen Schenkenberg is putting together a book of interviews with William Gass.
  • Florine Stettheimer makes an appearance in the New York Times in a list of Roberta Smith’s favorite paintings in New York.
  • An interesting post at Words & Eggs on figural cameos, which look not unlike some of Ray Johnson’s work.

my year in books, 2010

Here’s 2010; not as many as in 2009, but this was supposed to be a year of slow reading. This excludes things read for work & a couple of things that I’m in the process of writing up elsewhere. I’ve put up a directory of links to what I wrote here; I wish I hadn’t called these write-ups “reviews” in the first place, as they’re not really intended to be that, but oh well. 

my year in exhibits, 2010

See My Year in Exhibits, 2009.

  • “Adolph Dietrich/Richard Phillips: Painting and Misappropriation,” Swiss Institute
  • “Adrian Piper: Past Time: Selected Works 1973–1995,” Elizabeth Dee
  • “Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention,” Jewish Museum
  • “Allen Ruppersberg,” Greene Naftali
  • “American Falls: Phil Solomon,” Corcoran Gallery
  • “An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo,” Met
  • “Ana Medieta: Documentation and Artwork, 1972–1985,” Galerie LeLong
  • “Andy Goldsworthy: New York Dirt Water Light,” Galerie Lelong
  • “Angelina Guadlini: Shadows Slipping,” Asya Geisberg Gallery
  • “Anish Kapoor: Memory,” Guggenheim
  • “Anne Truitt: Sculpture 1962–2004,” Matthew Marks Gallery
  • “Anselm Kiefer: Next Year in Jerusalem,” Gagosian
  • “Banks Violette,” Barbara Gladstone
  • “Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity,” MoMA
  • “Ben Gocker: There Is Really No Single Poem,” PPOW
  • “Beyond Color: Color in American Photography 1950–1970″, Bruce Silverstein Gallery
  • “Beyond Participation: Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida in New York ,” Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College
  • “Bill Albertini: Space Frame Redux,” Martos Gallery
  • “Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964–1977,” LACMA
  • “Bloodflames III,” Alex Zachary
  • “Body and Soul: Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture,” Moretti Fine Art
  • “Brasilia,” 1500 Gallery
  • “Brian Alfred: It’s Already the End of the World,” Haunch of Venison
  • “Brion Gysin: Dream Machine,” New Museum
  • “Bruce Nauman: Days,” MoMA
  • “Carlos Ginzburg: Fractalizations and Other Works,” Susan Berko-Conde Gallery
  • “Carsten Nicolai: Moiré,” Pace Gallery
  • “Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936,” Guggenheim
  • “Charles Burchfield: Fifty Years as a Painter,” D. C. Moore Gallery
  • “Charlotte Posenenske,” Artists Space
  • “Christian Boltanski: No Man’s Land,” Park Avenue Armory
  • “Christian Marclay: Festival,” Whitney Museum
  • “Christian Marclay: Festival,” Whitney Museum
  • “Claude Monet: Late Work,” Gagosian
  • “Claudia Wieser: Poems of the Right Angle,” The Drawing Center
  • “Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
  • “ColorForms,” Hirshhorn Museum
  • “Contemporary Art from the Collection,” MoMA
  • “Dalla tradizione gotica al primo Rinascimento,” Moretti Art Gallery
  • “David Lieske: Imperium in Imperio,” Alex Zachary
  • “David Maisel: Library of Dust,” Von Lintel Gallery”
  • “Defining Beauty: Albrecht Dürer at the Morgan,” Morgan Library
  • “Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” Morgan Library
  • “Dieter Roth, Björn Roth: Work Tables & Tischmatten,” Hauser & Wirth
  • “Do Not Abandon Me: Louise Bourgeois & Tracey Emin,” Carolina Nitsch Project Room
  • “Donald Judd and 101 Spring Street,” Nicholas Robinson Gallery
  • “Doug + Mike Starn, Big Bambú,” Met
  • “The Drawings of Bronzino,” Met
  • “Egon Schiele As Printmaker,” Gallerie St. Etienne
  • “Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers,” New York Botanical Garden
  • “Erwin Wurm: Gulp,” Lehmann Maupin
  • “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
  • “Eva Hesse,” Hauser & Wirth
  • “Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection,” LACMA
  • “Facing the Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen,” Whitney Museum
  • “Fairfield Porter,” Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
  • “Franz Erhard Walther,” Peter Freeman, Inc.
  • “Fred Otnes: A Retrospective,” Kouros Gallery
  • “Frederick Kiesler: Endless,” Jason McCoy Gallery
  • “Félix Vallotton: Paintings,” Michael Werner Gallery
  • “Gerhard Richter: Lines which do not exist,” The Drawing Center
  • “Greater New York,” PS1
  • “Greetings from Daddaland: Fluxus, Mail Art and Rubber Stamps,” Maya Stendhal
  • “Guillermo Kuitca: Paintings 2008–2010 & Le Sacre 1992,” Sperone Westwater
  • “Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield,” Whitney Museum
  • “Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change,” Corcoran Gallery
  • “Helmar Lerski: Transformations Through Light,” Ubu Gallery
  • “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century,” MoMA
  • “Henry Darger,” Andrew Edlin Gallery
  • “Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece,” Onassis Cultural Center
  • “Hungarian Modernism,” Shepherd & Derom
  • “Hélio Oiticica: Drawings 1954–58,” Galerie Lelong
  • “I will cut thrU: Pochoirs, Carvings, and Other Cuttings,” Center for Book Arts
  • “In the Tower: Mark Rothko,” National Gallery of Art
  • “Italy Observed: Views and Souvenirs, 1706–1899,” Met Museum
  • “Item,” Mitchell-Innes & Nash
  • “Jack Tworkov: True and False: Paintings 1960–1975,” Mitchell-Innes & Nash
  • “James Case-Leal: Radical Spirit,” Church of the Messiah, Greenpoint
  • “Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller,” Luhring Augustine
  • “Jill Magid: A Reasonable Man in a Box,” Whitney Museum
  • “Joan Jonas: Reading Dante III,” Yvon Lambert
  • “John Baldessari: Pure Beauty,” Met
  • “John Bock,” Anton Kern Gallery
  • “John Wesley: May I Cut In? Important Paintings from the 1970s,” Fredericks & Freiser
  • “Josef Albers/Ken Price,” Brooke Alexander Gallery
  • “Josef Albers: Formulation : Articulation, 1972,” Peter Blum Gallery
  • “Joseph Beuys: Make the Secrets Productive,” Pace Gallery
  • “Julian Montague: Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed,” Black & White Project Space
  • “Justine Kurland/Francesca Woodman,” BravinLee Programs
  • “Kandinsky,” Guggenheim
  • “Kate Gilmore: Walk the Walk,” Bryant Park
  • “Katrin Sigurðardóttir at the Met,” Met
  • “Koo Jeong-a: Koo Jeong A ~ Z,” Yvon Lambert
  • “Le Tableau: Curated by Joe Fyfe,” Cheim & Read
  • “Lee Bontecou: All Freedom in Every Sense,” MoMA
  • “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway,” Park Avenue Armory
  • “Liao Yibai: Real Fake,” Mike Weiss Gallery
  • “Lucio Fontana: Paintings 1956–1968,” Marianne Boesky
  • “Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance,” Met Museum
  • “Marcel Broodthaers: Major Works,” Michael Werner
  • “Marguerite Duras by Hélène Bamberger,” Cultural Services of the French Embassy
  • “Marina Abramović: Personal Archaeology,” Sean Kelly Gallery
  • “Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present,” MoMA
  • “Markus Schinwald,” Yvon Lambert
  • “Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery,” Frick
  • “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917,” MoMA
  • Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts
  • “Memories of the Future,” Sean Kelly Gallery
  • “Metamorphosis Victorianus: Modern Collage, Victorian Engravings & Nostalgia,” Ubu Gallery
  • “Mind and Matter: Alternative Abstractions, 1940s to Now,” MoMA
  • “Minima Moralia,” Marvelli Gallery
  • “Miró: The Dutch Interiors,” Met Museum
  • “The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy,” Metropolitan Museum
  • “Mr. Fluxus,” Maya Stendhal Gallery
  • “Nicholas Knight/Kat Tomka,” Hewitt Gallery, Marymount College
  • Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York
  • “Nina Yuen: White Blindness,” Lombard-Freid Projects
  • “Off the Wall: Part 1—Thirty Performative Actions,” Whitney Museum
  • “Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico,” LACMA
  • “The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today,” MoMA
  • “Otto Piene: Light Ballet and Fire Paintings, 1957–1967,” Sperone Westwater
  • “Pablo Picasso: Celebrating the Muse: Women in Picasso’s Prints from 1905–1968,” Marlborough Gallery
  • “Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey,” Morgan Library
  • “Paul Strand in Mexico,” Aperture Gallery
  • “Paul Thek: Cityscapes and Other Ideas / Peter Hujar: Thek’s Studio 1967,” Alexander & Bonin
  • “Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective,” Whitney Museum
  • “Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Met Museum
  • “Picasso: Themes and Variations,” MoMA
  • “Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography,” MoMA
  • “Pipilotti Rist: Heroes of Birth,” Luhring Augustine
  • “Poems & Pictures: A Renaissance in the Art of the Book (1946–1981),” Center for Book Arts
  • “Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960–1970,” David Zwirner
  • “Provocateurs of Japanese Photography,” Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts
  • “R. Crumb: The Book of Genesis Illustrated,” David Zwirner
  • “Ragnar Kjartansson,” Luhring Augustine
  • “Reflection,” Peter Blum Soho
  • “Ressurectine,” Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
  • “Richard Diebenkorn in Context: 1949–1952,” Leslie Feely Fine Art
  • “Richard Diebenkorn: Paintings and Drawings 1949–1955,” Greenberg Van Doren
  • “Richard Hamilton: Selected Prints from the Collection, 1970–2005,” Met Museum
  • “Richard Tuttle: “Village V”, 2004,” Sperone Westwater
  • “Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other,” New Museum
  • “Robert Beck and Donald Moffett: Range,” Marianne Boesky
  • “Robert Morris: Untitled (Scatter Piece) 1968–69,” Leo Castelli
  • “Robert Rauschenberg,” Gagosian
  • “The Roman Mosaic from Lod, Israel,” Met Museum
  • “Roman Opalka: Passages,” Yvon Lambert
  • “Rome After Raphael,” Morgan Library
  • “Roy Lichtenstein: Mostly Men,” Leo Castelli
  • “Roy Lichtenstein: Reflected,” Mitchell-Innes & Nash
  • “Roy Lichtenstein: Still Lives,” Gagosian
  • “Sandow Birk: American Qur’an,” PPOW
  • “Sara Vanderbeek: To Think of Time,” Whitney Museum
  • “Seeing Intimacy: Richard Tuttle on Paper,” Craig F. Starr Gallery
  • “Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism,” Jewish Museum
  • “Side by Side: Oberlin’s Masterworks at the Met,” Metropolitan Museum
  • “Sol LeWitt: The Complex Form,” Dorfman Projects
  • “The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya,” Frick
  • “Star Black: The Collaged Accordian,” Center for Book Arts
  • “Stefan Brüggemann: Headlines & Last Line in the Movies,” Yvon Lambert
  • “Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space,” The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles
  • “Tadanori Yokoo: The Aesthetics of End: Early Silkscreens from 1965–1971,” Friedman Benda
  • “Tanguy/Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction,” L & M Arts
  • “The Artist’s Museum,” The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles
  • “Tino Sehgal,” Guggenheim
  • “To John J. O’Connor from Nam June Paik,” Curatorial Research Lab at Winkleman Gallery
  • “Toledo/Borges: Fantastic Zoology,” Instituto Cervantes
  • “Tracing Proust,” Krannert Art Museum, Urbana, Illinois
  • “Unconscious Unbound: Surrealism in America,” Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
  • “Ursula von Rydingsvard: Errātus,” Galerie Lelong
  • “Vija Celmins: New Paintings, Objects, and Prints,” McKey Gallery
  • “The Visible Vagina,” Francis M. Naumann Fine Art
  • “We Between the Lines,” Morgan Lehman Gallery
  • “Whitney Biennial 2010,” Whitney Museum
  • “William Blake’s World: ‘A New Heaven Is Begun’,” Morgan Library
  • “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy,” Morgan Library
  • “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Power,” Hirshhorn Museum
  • “Zilvinas Kempinas: Ballroom,” Yvon Lambert

my year in film, 2010

Things I watched in 2010; see also 2009.

  • The Pajama Game, dir. George Abbott & Stanley Donen
  • La captive, dir. Chantal Akerman
  • Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven), dir. Fatih Akin
  • Kiss Me Deadly, dir. Robert Aldrich
  • Laberinto de pasiones, dir. Pedro Almodóvar
  • Matador, dir. Pedro Almodóvar
  • Tacones Lejanos, dir. Pedro Almodóvar
  • Salomé, dir. Pedro Almodóvar
  • Entre tinieblas (Dark Habits), dir. Pedro Almodóvar
  • Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón, dir. Pedro Almodóvar
  • If . . . ., dir. Lindsay Anderson
  • Out West, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • The Cook, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • His Wedding Night, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • The Butcher Boy, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • The Rough House, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle & Buster Keaton
  • Good Night Nurse, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • Backstage, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • Coney Island, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • Fatty’s Magic Pants, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • Mabel, Fatty and the Law, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle
  • Suspiria, dir. Dario Argento
  • Youth in Revolt, dir. Miguel Arteta
  • Shampoo, dir. Hal Ashby
  • Carlos, dir. Olivier Assayas
  • Panique au village (A Town Called Panic), dir. Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar
  • WarGames, dir. John Badham
  • The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, dir. John Badham
  • Cremaster 1, dir. Matthew Barney
  • Cremaster 2, dir. Matthew Barney
  • Cremaster 3, dir. Matthew Barney
  • Kicking and Screaming, dir. Noah Baumbach
  • The Thief of Bagdad, dir. Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell & Tim Whelan
  • American Splendor, dir. Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
  • The Saphead, dir. Herbert Blaché & Winchell Smith
  • Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard), dir. Catherine Breillat
  • L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot, dir. Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea
  • Killer of Sheep, dir. Charles Burnett
  • Several Friends, dir. Charles Burnett
  • The Horse, dir. Charles Burnett
  • When It Rains, dir. Charles Burnett
  • Aliens, dir. James Cameron
  • Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, dir. Damien Chazelle
  • The Flame of New Orleans, dir. René Clair
  • Burn after Reading, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
  • True Grit, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
  • A Serious Man, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
  • King Kong, dir. Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack
  • The American, dir. Anton Corbijn
  • Ne change rien dir. Pedro Costa
  • eXistenZ, dir. David Cronenberg
  • A History of Violence, dir. David Cronenberg
  • Female, dir. Michael Curtiz
  • The September Issue, dir. R. J. Cutler
  • The Hours, dir. Stephen Daldry
  • L’enfant, dir. Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
  • Rififi, dir. Jules Dassin
  • Cronos, dir. Guillermo del Toro
  • On the Town, dir. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
  • Anémic Cinéma, dir. Marcel Duchamp
  • Symphonie diagonale, dir. Viking Eggeling
  • Le nain, dir. Louis Feuillade
  • La nativité, dir. Louis Feuillade
  • Fantômas – à l’ombre de la guillotine (Fantômas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine), dir. Louis Feuillade
  • Juve contre Fantômas (Juve against Fantômas), dir. Louis Feuillade
  • Alien 3, dir. David Fincher
  • Nothing Ventured, dir. Harun Farocki
  • Serious Games, dir. Harun Farocki
  • Welt am Draft (World on a Wire), dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  • A Single Man, dir. Tom Ford
  • Time Bandits, dir. Terry Gilliam
  • Alphaville, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • JLG/JLG – autoportrait de décembre, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • The Old Place, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Sympathy for the Devil, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself), dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Tout va bien, dir. Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Letter to Jane, dir. Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Poto and Cabengo, dir. Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Io sonno l’amore (I Am Love), dir. Luca Guadagnino
  • Drei Wege zum See (Three Paths to the Lake), dir. Michael Haneke
  • The Designated Mourner, dir. David Hare
  • Simple Men, dir. Hal Hartley
  • The Unbelievable Truth, dir. Hal Hartley
  • Amateur, dir. Hal Hartley
  • Trust, dir. Hal Hartley
  • Ball of Fire, dir. Howard Hawks
  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, dir. Howard Hawks
  • Cockfighter, dir. Monte Hellman
  • Grizzly Man, dir. Werner Herzog
  • Guernica, dir. Robert Hessens & Alain Resnais
  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, dir. John Huston
  • In the Loop, dir. Armando Iannucci
  • Alien Resurrection, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
  • Moon, dir. Duncan Jones
  • Over the Edge, dir. Jonathan Kaplan
  • Invasion of the Body Snatchers, dir. Philip Kaufman
  • Max-Out, dir. Robert Kaylor
  • Derby, dir. Robert Kaylor
  • Go West, dir. Buster Keaton
  • Battling Butler, dir. Buster Keaton
  • Sherlock, Jr., dir. Buster Keaton
  • The Paleface, dir. Buster Keaton
  • Our Hospitality, dir. Buster Keaton & John G. Blystone
  • One Week, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Balloonatic, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Boat, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Scarecrow, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Haunted House, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Frozen North, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Playhouse, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Love Nest, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • Neighbors, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • Cops, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • Convict 13, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • Daydreams, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • Hard Luck, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • My Wife’s Relations, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The High Sign, dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
  • The Navigator, dir. Buster Keaton & Donald Crisp
  • The Goat, dir. Buster Keaton & Malcolm St. Clair
  • The Blacksmith, dir. Buster Keaton & Malcolm St. Clair
  • Dekalog (The Decalogue), dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
  • Big Top Pee-Wee, dir. Randal Kleiser
  • Планета бурь (Planet of Storms), dir. Pavel Klushantsev
  • Im Staub der Sterne (In the Dust of the Stars), dir. Gottfried Kolditz
  • North Dallas Forty, dir. Ted Kotcheff
  • The Human Voice, dir. Ted Kotcheff
  • The Devil’s Cleavage, dir. George Kuchar
  • 蜘蛛巣城 (Throne of Blood), dir. Akira Kurosawa
  • My Man Godfrey, dir. Gregory La Cava
  • The Kentucky Fried Movie, dir. John Landis
  • Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon) , dir. Fritz Lang
  • Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler), dir. Fritz Lang
  • Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse), dir. Fritz Lang
  • Shoah, dir. Claude Lanzmann
  • Brief Encounter, dir. David Lean
  • Ballet mécanique, dir. Fernand Léger
  • Dude, Where’s My Car?, dir. Danny Leiner
  • The Man Who Laughs, dir. Paul Leni
  • The Cat and the Canary, dir. Paul Leni
  • Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks), dir. Paul Leni
  • Rebus Film Nr. 1, dir. Paul Leni
  • Three on a Match, dir. Mervyn LeRoy
  • Tron, dir. Steven Lisberger
  • Paris Is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston
  • Trouble in Paradise, dir. Ernst Lubitsch
  • Design for Living, dir. Ernst Lubitsch
  • My Winnipeg, dir. Guy Maddin
  • Night Mayor, dir. Guy Maddin
  • Der schweigende Stern (The Silent Star), dir. Karl Maetzig
  • Sweet Movie, dir. Dušan Makavejev
  • All About Eve, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  • Man on Wire, dir. James Marsh
  • Le mystère Koumiko, dir. Chris Marker
  • 2084, dir. Chris Marker
  • Le Train en marche, dir. Chris Marker
  • Junkopia, dir. Chris Marker, Frank Simeone & John Chapman
  • La niña santa (The Holy Girl), dir. Lucrecia Martel
  • I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street), dir. Mario Monicelli
  • Il giorno della prima di Close Up, dir. Nanni Moretti
  • Белое солнце пустыни (White Sun of the Desert), dir. Vladimir Motyl
  • Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, dir. Robert Mugge
  • Splice, dir. Vincenzo Natali
  • Fatty Joins the Force, dir. George Nichols
  • Nico Icon, dir. Susanne Ofteringer
  • Miss Mend, dir. Fedor Ozep & Boris Barnet
  • Le Vampire, dir. Jean Painlevé
  • All the President’s Men, dir. Alan J. Pakula
  • Dont Look Back, dir. D. A. Pennebaker
  • Depeche Mode 101, dir. D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus & David Dawkins
  • The Lead Shoes, dir. Sidney Peterson
  • The Tenant, dir. Roman Polanski
  • The Great Train Robbery, dir. Edwin S. Porter
  • Thomas Bernhard. Drei Tage (Thomas Bernhard – Three Days), dir. Ferry Radax
  • La retour à la raison, dir. Man Ray
  • Bigger Than Life, dir. Nicholas Ray
  • The Jerk, dir. Carl Reiner
  • Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), dir. Lotte Reiniger
  • Steamboat Bill, Jr., dir. Charles Reisner & Buster Keaton
  • Stripes, dir. Ivan Reitman
  • Rhythmus 21, dir. Hans Richter
  • Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast), dir. Hans Richter
  • Traficante de sueños (Sleep Dealer), dir. Alex Rivera
  • L’ère industrielle: Métamorphoses du paysage, dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Entretien sur Pascal, dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Le genou de Claire (Claire’s Knee), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • L’amour l’après-midi (Love in the Afternoon), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Véronique et son cancre, dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Pauline à la plage, dir. Éric Rohmer
  • La carrière de Suzanne (Suzanne’s Career), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Nadja à Paris (Nadja in Paris), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night at Maud’s), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Une étudiante d’aujourd’hui (A Modern Coed), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • La collectionneuse, dir. Éric Rohmer
  • La boulangère de Monceau (The Bakery Girl of Monceau), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Présentation ou Charlotte et son steak (Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Le rayon vert (Summer), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Conte d’hiver (A Winter’s Tale), dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Louis Lumière, dir. Éric Rohmer
  • Viaggio in Italia, dir. Roberto Rossellini
  • Laviamoci il Cervello (RoGoPaG), dir. Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Passolini & Ugo Gregoretti
  • Mistérios de Lisboa (Mysteries of Lisbon), dir. Raúl Ruiz
  • Colloque de chiens, dir. Raúl Ruiz
  • Flirting with Disaster, dir. David O. Russell
  • The Fighter, dir. David O. Russell
  • Wind in Our Hair/Con viento en el pelo, dir. Lynne Sacks
  • The Last Happy Day, dir. Lynne Sacks
  • The Task of the Translator, dir. Lynne Sacks
  • Planet of the Apes, dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
  • Ins blaue hinein (Into the Blue), dir. Eugen Schüfftan
  • Alien, dir. Ridley Scott
  • The Cameraman, dir. Edward Sedgwick
  • Free and Easy, dir. Edward Sedgwick
  • Speak Easily, dir. Edward Sedgwick
  • Spite Marriage, dir. Edward Sedgwick & Buster Keaton
  • Tierische Liebe (Animal Love), dir. Ulrich Seidl
  • Mabel’s Dramatic Career, dir. Mack Sennett
  • La cambrure, dir. Edwige Shaki
  • Bathing Beauty, dir. George Sidney
  • DDR/DDR, dir. Amie Siegel
  • Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht (Looking for His Murderer) dir. Robert Siodmak
  • He Who Gets Slapped, dir. Victor Sjöström
  • Bubble, dir. Steven Soderbergh
  • The Decline of Western Civilization, dir. Penelope Spheeris
  • The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years, dir. Penelope Spheeris
  • The Last Days of Disco, dir. Whit Stillman
  • Barcelona, dir. Whit Stillman
  • Metropolitan, dir. Whit Stillman
  • Hail the Conquering Hero, dir. Preston Sturges
  • Disco Dancer, dir. Babbar Subhash
  • The Polymath: The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, dir. Fred Barney Taylor
  • Jackass 3D, dir. Jeff Tremaine
  • The Thin Man, dir. W. M. Van Dyke
  • The Young Victoria, dir. Jean-Marc Vallée
  • After the Thin Man, dir. W. S. Van Dyke
  • L’opéra-mouffe, dir. Agnès Varda
  • Réponse de femmes, dir. Agnès Varda
  • Plaisir d’amour en Iran, dir. Agnès Varda
  • Starship Troopers, dir. Paul Verhoeven
  • Человек с киноаппаратом (Man with a Movie Camera), dir. Dziga Vertov
  • À propos de Nice, dir. Jean Vigo
  • Zéro de conduite, dir. Jean Vigo
  • Taris, roi de l’eau, dir. Jean Vigo
  • Underworld, dir. Joseph von Sternberg
  • Shanghai Express, dir. Joseph von Sternberg
  • The Scarlet Empress, dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • The Docks of New York, dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • Blonde Venus, dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • The Last Command, dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • The Devil Is a Woman, dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • Morocco, dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • Greed, dir. Erich von Stroheim
  • The Thief of Bagdad, dir. Raoul Walsh
  • Cecil B. Demented, dir. John Waters
  • Punishment Park, dir. Peter Watkins
  • สุดเสน่หา (Blissfully Yours), dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
  • แสงศตวรรษ (Syndromes and a Century), dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
  • สัตว์ประหลาด (Tropical Malady), dir. Apichatpong Weerashethakul
  • Phantoms of Nabua, dir. Apichatpong Weerashethakul
  • A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, dir. Apichatpong Weerashethakul
  • ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), dir. Apichatpong Weerashethakul
  • Macbeth, dir. Orson Welles
  • The Hearts of Age, dir. Orson Welles & William Vance
  • Bis ans Ende der Welt (Until the End of the World) (long version), dir. Wim Wenders
  • Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac), dir. Robert Wiene
  • The Lost Weekend, dir. Billy Wilder
  • Ace in the Hole, dir. Billy Wilder
  • The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, dir. Billy Wilder
  • Forbidden Planet, dir. Fred McLeod Wilcox
  • Titicut Follies, dir. Frederick Wiseman
  • High School, dir. Frederick Wiseman
  • Primate, dir. Frederick Wiseman
  • Boxing Gym, dir. Frederick Wiseman
  • Possession, dir. Andrzej Żuławski
  • Na srebrnym globie (On the Silver Globe), dir. Andrzej Żuławski

december 22–december 31

Books

Films

  • True Grit, directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
  • Anémic Cinéma, dir. Marcel Duchamp
  • Ballet mécanique, dir. Fernand Léger
  • Symphonie diagonale, dir. Viking Eggeling
  • Le Vampire, dir. Jean Painlevé
  • The Hearts of Age, dir. Orson Welles & William Vance
  • Rhythmus 21, dir. Hans Richter
  • Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast), dir. Hans Richter
  • La retour à la raison, dir. Man Ray
  • The Designated Mourner, dir. David Hare
  • eXistenZ, dir. David Cronenberg

herman melville, “moby-dick”

Herman Melville
Moby-Dick
(Penguin Classics, 1987; originally 1851)


It’s been a long time since I sat down and read Moby-Dick: I vaguely recall doing that sometime after arriving in New York, and certainly I’ve picked through the book for important passages. But it’s been too long; with the end of the year coming on, it seemed a good time to go back too see what’s changed there. This Penguin Classic seems to be the version on the shelf at home; in college I had a cheap Signet that we probably got rid of when K. & I combined our books. The inside front cover bears a dedication “to ‘Poop Deck’ Bowen / a mighty sailing man / from / Corona Dan / your matey / Merry Christmas / 1987”: those two don’t seem to have written anything else in the book, though one always wonders how many copies of Moby-Dick have been read at all. The introduction and notes of this edition, done by Harold Beaver in 1972, are extensive but a bit too jocular & Joycean (back cover copy of this book compares Melville to Nabokov, ), yet seem to neglect whatever it is that I really want to find out. Obviously, it’s my own fault for not having a Northwestern-Newberry edition, which came out a year or so after this book, and which Penguin seems to have picked up for later editions of this book; this edition clocks in at just over a thousand pages, a good chunk of it notes and explanatory material, and one feels a little bad for poor forgotten Harold Beaver.

This book can be counted on for the kick of strangeness, which comes quickly: this threat buried in “Extracts” among the other quotes about whales from literary history still has a kick:

“If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will send you to hell.” 
Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by his brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the whale-ship Globe narrative.)

There’s something to still being able to be surprised by a book. It’s still there, even in the second paragraph of the first chapter, a description of Manhattan “belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs – commerce surrounds it with her surf”. The preoccupation with economics comes back on a personal level: the narrator explains that he goes to sea as a sailor rather than as a passenger because of the difference between paying and being paid:

And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, – what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! (“Loomings,” p. 97)

The notes to this edition don’t point out that the “two orchard thieves” are Adam and Eve, which is vexing. But this is a strange idea, of course: to link the fall in the Garden with the necessity of capitalism. Melville does this later, in “The Paradise of Bachelors” and “Bartleby,” I think – but it’s strange to see the morality of capitalism turning up so quickly in the book; it’s something that recurs, of course. 

The way this book is structured is also strange: the first 25 chapters are the narrative of Ishmael, who is soon joined by Queequeg in what almost seems a buddy comedy (or, by the notes of this edition, a gay romance) where they learn the limits of tolerance. Then they board the ship, and Queequeg takes his ranks among the mates and harpooners; Ishmael seems to disappear entirely, dropped by the narrative voice as a useful device. Perhaps the changeover happens in Chapter XXIII, “The Lee Shore,” in which the character of Bulkington, previously set up to be important in the narrative, is disposed of; Ishmael also seems to disappear here. The next chapter sets out with the words “As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling”; but this “I” doesn’t really seem to be Ishmael any more; it seems to be the author, who can pull up references from other books – as the narrator does in chapter XXIV – rather than the entirely undistinguished-seeming Ishmael, unlikely to provide such exegeses. But the split is never made clear: Melville seems uninterested in such niceties. Certainly by the last paragraph in the same chapter (source of the title of the C. L. R. James book) it is not Ishmael speaking: 

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman’s arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God! (p. 212)

Soon after this, the narrator will be reporting conversations between other people that Ishmael can’t possibly have heard; while occasionally the narrator makes reference to being a sailor on the ship, it’s hard to say anything substantive about what Ishmael does on the Pequod aside from his link with Queequeg. Ishmael is an unlikely character, seemingly too well read: it’s hard to imagine why someone who was ostensibly once a common sailor would be as well-versed in Paracelsus and Thomas Browne as the narrator is. Melville, of course, fits this description; but Ishmael as authorial surrogate is even more confusing, as Melville seems to be going out of the way to efface himself from his narrative. 

I’ve spent more time with Pierre and “Bartleby,” the works Melville wrote after Moby-Dick since my last reading of this book; what strikes me about Moby-Dick is how comparatively baroque the language is. It’s almost frightening, looking back, to realize how quickly these three works were composed; but with Moby-Dick, Melville seems to be enthusiastically throwing everything at the book, following every digression and having fun doing it, something that he doesn’t do as much in the following works. The germs of both Pierre and “Bartleby” might be found here; the aforementioned self-effacement leads to “Bartleby”; Ahab’s ambition foretells Pierre’s self-destruction. Clare Spark has argued that Melville intended Ahab to be seen as a hero rather than the anti-hero we usually see him as: read with this in mind, it’s hard to tell who, if anyone, the reader is meant to identify with among the characters if not Ahab.