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Title: Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Penguin Classics) by Herman Melville, John Bryant ISBN: 0-14-043488-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A cross-cultural classic from the 19th century
Comment: Herman Melville's "Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life" tells the story of a white sailor who lives for a time among the Typees, a native people of a Pacific island. According to a "Note on the Text" in the Penguin Classics edition, this book first appeared in 1846 in no less than four different editions.
"Typee" is a marvelous story of cross-cultural contact. It is also a fascinating glimpse at a pre-industrial culture; Tom (known as "Tommo" to the Typees) describes in detail the food, dress, tattooing, physiology, musical instruments, architecture, warfare, religious practices, and social customs of the Typees. The book is full of vividly portrayed characters: the gentle beauty Fayaway, the "eccentric old warrior" Marheyo, the talkative "serving-man" Kory-Kory, and more.
Melville's prose style in "Typee" is irresistible: the writing is fresh, lively, and richly descriptive. There is a satirical thrust to much of the book. And there is a lot of humor; at many points I literally laughed out loud. Such scenes as the description of a wild pig's frustrated efforts to break open a coconut really showcase Melville's comic flair.
A major theme of "Typee" is that of the "noble savage" (Melville actually uses the term). The narrator often wonders whether Typee life is in some ways better than Western life, and is quite critical of the work of Christian missionaries among Pacific Island peoples. The book is richly ironic, as Melville's narrator reflects on the problematic nature of cross-cultural observation: "I saw everything, but could comprehend nothing" (from Chapter 24).
"Typee" is more than just a colorful travelogue or a philosophical reflection; it is also a genuinely exciting and suspenseful adventure story. Melville's story of a visitor to a strange alien world curiously anticipates a major theme of 20th century science fiction; thus a novel like Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" would make a fascinating companion text. Also recommended as a companion text: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," another 19th century American classic which casts a critical light on Eurocentric Christianity.
Rating: 5
Summary: Melville's most important work?
Comment: The earlier reviewers said much of what I wanted to say, and for the most part, said it better. I'll try not to repeat them. One of the fascinating things about this book is how Melville could go back and forth from describing the Typee people as the world's happiest, living the best lives, to his own perspective that to become one of them would nevertheless be a most horrible fate. Near the end of his sojourn with them, their tatoo artist-priest becomes increasingly insistent upon tatooing the lids of Melville's eyes, but it is not the imagined physical pain of this that terrifies Melville: it is the fear that he will lose all ties to Western Civilization, which, almost in the same breath, he so effectively criticises. As an American school teacher in rural East Africa, I often noticed this love-hate relationship to our own culture among my fellow volunteers. Like Melville, we almost all "went native" and tended to see the best in the Africans' lifestyle. Like him, we constantly contrasted it with Western Civilization, and found the primitive life the clear winner. And yet, like Melville, we nearly all came home. In my case, when I did, I found that, after two years, American faces looked ugly, overstressed and mean compared to the African faces I had been looking at. Yet I stayed home, and they gradually started to look better. I was initially depressed by the filth, the environmental degradation, the aimlessness of so many lives back here in the developed world. I suspect this might have been Melville's experience too, and part of what drove him back out to sea time and again. And yet, in the end, home is home, and we all come back. You should read this book. Much of it, at least, is fast paced, exciting, educational, and profoundly thought provoking. Despite its rough edges, it may have been Melville's most imortant work. I'll let you know after I finish his sequel: Omoo.
Rating: 3
Summary: Narrative account
Comment: Typee is a narrative account of the three months that Herman Melville spent among the Typee tribe after deserting from a whaling ship. It goes into minute details about the everyday life of the Typee. At times I felt a bit glassy eyed and skimmed forward over some sections.
Melville comes across a bit dense and self centered, and obviously applied a double standard, one for whites and one for natives. After toying with the affections of a young native woman, he casually abandons her and does not seem to understand why her family would object. Perhaps he would have had a better understanding if he was abandoning the daughter of a prominant politician in New England.
He was somewhat a nosy Parker, inserting himself in situations where he was not wanted, and showing little regard for the customs of the Typee. Overall, it is an interesting account of life among the natives.
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Title: Omoo by Herman Melville ISBN: 0486408736 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 21 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: In the South Seas (Penguin Classics) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Neil Rennie ISBN: 0140434364 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Blithedale Romance by John Updike, Nathaniel Hawthorne ISBN: 0375757201 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 14 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: The Confidence Man (Literary Classics (Prometheus Books)) by Herman Melville ISBN: 157392038X Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Noa Noa : The Tahitian Journal by Paul Gauguin ISBN: 0486248593 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1985 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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