Re: Bracey vs. Schlafly

[tednellen <tnellen@IRIS.HOST4U.NET>]

yes _Moby Dick_ is a fine novel. however, i'd say that _Huck Finn_ is the
greatest american novel of all centuries for the very reasons you pointed
out. it was written after the time frame about which it portrayed in a
time of great confusion in this country. white supremist no. all the white
folks are quite badly portrayed and it is a black man, jim, who is most
responsible for huck's raisin' and has huck break all the rules a white
boy should follow. huck is the modern american man at his finest.

Melville, is a great author, no doubt. i particularly like his _billy
budd_, too.

tednellen



 On Sat, 8 Sep 2001, George N. Schmidt wrote:

> 9/8/01
>
> Hopefully, we won't be superificial about some of these things.
>
> It's about lesson plans and what we teacher kids, and how, at which ages.
>
> I can't resist some of these literary discussion, now that school's started
> and I don't have a classroom (flashbacks every night, and dreams of being in
> a flooded basement, or escaping from a cave in the last car on a train that
> gets stuck in a tunnel...). It's what I did for more than a quarter century
> -- taught books, some big, some little, to Chicago teenagers.
>
> "Moby Dick" is the greatest 19th Century literary works celebrating
> "diversity" American style. Male supremacist, yes. White supremacist, no.
> Species diversity -- read closely before you judge the work to be
> homeosapienscentric.
>
> Melville (as opposed to many of his contemporaries) not only supported
> abolition, but also was able to portray black, red, and yellow men (no women,
> sorry) as full human characters. There are problems with the main characters
> in the book, all being fully developed as well -- including the whale. (Did
> anyone besides my students twelve years ago notice that Moby Dick was hauling
> ass after Ahab and company because Ahab's boys has slaughtered Moby's wife
> and salves during a feeding, when they were particularly vulnerable...?).
>
> Melville's masterpiece has all of those complexities and dimensions.
>
> That's why C.L.R. James, the great black writer and critic, was able to use
> Melville so well in "Mariners, Renegages and Castaways."
>
> Most people don't bother to read "Moby Dick." That makes it easier to
> simplify the work. Many who do read it don't read and think about why all
> that whale stuff is in there. Another mistake. If "Charlotte" and "Wilbur"
> can be characters in a loving little fantasy about barnyard animals, why not
> "Moby" in the novel named after him (which even has a whole chapter devoted
> to his dick, by the way)?
>
> These are also the reason why we're proud to have the author of the 20th
> Century's "Moby Dick" on the staff of Substance.
>
> John DelVecchio's novel "The 13th Valley" (which I taught for nine years
> until it was banned in Chicago for being "pornographic") is the same kind of
> deep portrayal of American men doing a bloody job using incredible skills,
> courage, and endurance. It also had the same kind of feel for the ecological
> contradictions of the work we do as a species (from the prologue on, it's
> woven through the book).
>
> All those men, black white and other. And doomed.
>
> George Schmidt
>
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Ted Nellen     8-)                               ted@tnellen.com
Cybrarian                            http://www.tnellen.com/ted/
CyberEnglish                http://www.tnellen.net/cyberenglish/
Alternative High Schools             http://www.tnellen.com/alt/

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