Comments | bauhiniakapok: Moby Dick and Hornblower

bauhiniakapok

Moby Dick and Hornblower

Feb 12, 2017 20:31

Lately I've been endeavoring to fill in the yawning week-long voids between chapters of bbcphile's Harboured and Encompassed http://archiveofourown.org/works/9135700?page=2&show_comments=true&view_full_work=true#comments by reading through all the Hornblower novels when I'm home, and listening to the free Librivox audiobook of Moby Dick when I'm driving or ( Read more... )

hornblower and the atropos, moby dick, slash goggles, ishmael, book, queequeg, horry is always miserable but i still lo, hornblower, maria, archie, bush

Comments 9

charliecochrane February 12 2017, 15:16:15 UTC

We get into a whole area of 'when is the slash intentional?'. Men shared beds - common practice to save money - and it meant nothing. But all that physical contact? Is Melville trying to give a hint to those who'd understand? AA Milne's Red House Mystery is full of what we'd recognise as a burgeoning romantic relationship between the two male leads. I suspect that one is unintentional.

bauhiniakapok March 14 2017, 04:59:13 UTC

After reading the below essay, I think with Melville it was intentional, but maybe unconsciously so. I think with Milne it was just clueless.

mylodon March 15 2017, 12:09:05 UTC

After reading that (thanks for the link!) I can't help but agree.

bauhiniakapok March 17 2017, 04:54:53 UTC

Yes, thanks bbcphile for the essay!

And you know I will have to go back and read Red House Mystery again. I don't remember much of it except secret passages and dredging the pond. But then that era of writing was very free with their same sex bosom friendships, which is part of what makes them such cozy reading. When is a bosom friend more than a friend? "When they start rhythmically rubbing their legs together in bed" might be a good dividing line...

Thread 7

bbcphile February 12 2017, 23:55:36 UTC

On the subject of Melville and queer themes in his writing, you might find this website by scholar Rictor Norton interesting (http://rictornorton.co.uk/melville.htm). He's also found some very passionate excerpts from Melville's letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne (http://rictornorton.co.uk/melvill2.htm), and recently, Mark Beauregard has written The Whale: A Love Story , a work of historical fiction that appears to pay careful close attention to the historical record while fleshing out the relationship between the two writers.

So, yeah, Melville scholars definitely love talking about the queer desire that runs throughout much of Melville's novels and short stories! :D

Hope you find this info fun!
(Also, thanks for the kind words about my fic! :D)

bauhiniakapok February 13 2017, 13:32:05 UTC

Yes, the essay was entertaining, and eye-opening. And here I had thought Moby Dick was just a depressing story where everyone died, including the whale! I was only giving it another chance because someone on LJ had read or listened to it and said it was more entertaining than she'd expected. I wasn't expecting a blubber-thick layer of slash. Even thicker than I realized, according to this essay. Queequeg's purple head had not, in fact, reminded me of any other kinds of purple heads. Purple heads are sort of beyond the limit of how explicit I want to go. *Feels squeamish and starts frantically repressing.*

I was taken aback by what the essay said about Billy Budd, too. Another sad story read in abridged form as a kid. I had thought it was just about an innocent destroyed by military discipline. But here the poor boy is compared to a bead of ejaculate. Ewww. Again, a little more information than I wanted ( ... )