It is not down on any map; true places never are.
~ Herman Melville
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
~ Herman Melville
It is hard to be finite on an infinite subject, & all subjects are infinite.
~ Herman Melville
Melville has the great quality of opening endless lines of thought in his writing while containing them completely. What a great trick! It proves that he's a poet. Alice Notley does the same thing.
It is hard to be finite on an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
~ Herman Melville
And what else do you want or need to know about Melville? One great thing about him is that Moby-Dick is kind of like the I Ching or the Bible—you can open it anywhere & find a great line, one that speaks to what you need right that minute. How does he do that? And why is his prose so much more poetic than his poetry?