Saturday, February 12, 2022

Get Over It, Ahab

 So, wanted to share a very obvious ding at Melville's MOBY DICK (1851) I noticed when (re)reading Jonathan Howard's Mythos novel JOHANNES CABAL: THE FEAR INSTITUTE (p. 207):


The captain of the Audaine, Wush Oleander . . . came with an unusual prosthetic, 

apparently an entry requirement for the job. In his case, it was a scrimshaw 

left hand, beautifully carved to show a tiny vignette of a screaming Captain

Oleander dangling by the stump of his wrist from the jaws of a great sea serpent.

[One traveller] was particularly taken with it, and plied him with questions

about the event, and whether Oleander was filled with an obsessive desire

to pursue the sea serpent to the four corners of the Dreamlands, seeking vengeance,

but Oleander just looked at him askance, and said, no, these things happened and

you just had to accept them.



--JDR

--current reading: TALKING TO DRAGONS by Patricia C. Wrede (1985)*

--up next: SIR HAROLD & THE GNOME KING (1991) by L. Sprague de Camp but not, alas, Fletcher Pratt.

--satisfaction of never having to read again: KIM (Kipling) or LITTLE BIG (Crowley).



*a signed copy!

2 comments:

opossum101 said...

why did you dislike kim?

John D. Rateliff said...

Dear Opossum

I disliked KIM because I dislike the title character himself. I think Kipling was going for a Huck Finn but that what he got was a Tom Sawyer, as Tom is portrayed towards the end of HUCKLEBERRY FINN.

There's also the issue of Kim becoming a spy on behalf of the British Empire. That's like Huck growing up to be a bounty hunter capturing runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.

Put the two together and it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. There are other, better books out there.

I do have to say the Tibetan lama is a wonderful character; wish he'd been the focus of the whole novel.

--John R