Customer Reviews:
Excellent interdisciplinary study.......2005-07-26
In Strickland's previous book, American Composers, he demonstrated a broad knowledge of various musics (he had written extensively, for example, on Glenn Gould and John Coltrane)in lively conversations with leading composers. His book on Minimalism is primarily first-rate cultural history, with more technical and formal analysis, curiously, in the sections of art than in the central section on music. His style is fluid and often witty, occasionally turgid only in some of the more technical passages, perhaps inevitably.
One thing missing in the book is reproductions of the art and music (there is one at the head of each section), possibly because Strickland seems to be trying to create a Minimalist work of art himself here--from the bare buff cover (in the hardback; the revised paperback edition includes the ISBN code, laudatory reviews and a synopsis on the back cover) to the naming of chapters by letters and sections by a single word ("Paint, Sound," "Space" and "End"). There is nothing minimal about the documentation, however, for the book relies on an abundance of primary sources.
The section on painting is probably the most controversial. Strickland has lengthy chapters on Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Ad Reinhardt et al. in redefining Minimalism as a movement developing WITHIN Abstract Expressionism. Many of the 60s painters normally identified as FOUNDING the movement he treats as academizing the movement. His viewpoint is equally debatable and thought-provoking, defended on empirical rather than conceptual grounds.
The section on Minimalist music is the liveliest as Strickland traces in remarkable detail its development from LaMonte Young through Terry Riley to Steve Reich to Philip Glass. His attribution of a chain of influence seems just, though the last composer has discounted it in favor of acknowledging Indian music as the central influence on his early work. Strickland discusses the influence of that music and Indonesian music, earlier classical music (from Leoninus and Bach to Debussy to Webern) and jazz (Coltrane is referred to again and again by the composers and the author).
The best sections may be the first and last, and those are the ones to read for those uninterested in studying the subject in depth. Strickland's interdisciplinary delineation of Minimalist characteristics in "A" is masterly; his discussion of the philosophical implications of the movement in "W" is thoughtful and occasionally poetic.
wonderful book on What Was.......2005-02-09
Strickland has situated Minimal Music within a vigorous and complex context here finding useful parallels with the minimalist canons and credos in the visual arts, and the bridges found there I think are many times tenuous and self-congradulatory for it is not a proven affinity, as Badiou might have found in the consistent modality within artistic movements.Within the visual arts that considers itself "minimal" began their gestures toward the search for a "purity",a "spirit" an "unadulterated" concept in the form of reducible shapes and geometries many years prior as with Barnett Newman(working simultaneously within the mileau of the maximal gestures of Jackson Pollock)and Ellsworth Kelly.So there has been a longer shall we say "gestation" period for it in the gaze,not the "ear".Although LaMonte Youngs long-sustained lines from his "Brass Octet" dates from the early Sixties, as other Fluxus expressions of the "minimal" event but that is more Dada in effect. The visual arts scene however was an early enthusiastic supporter to this repetitive music,more so than academia or the established concert venues,until it became popular.
So the "minimal" in music slowly made pathways into establishment venues,opera,and performance art,and it was well-suited with the post-modern canons of the apolitical passivity(only Fredric Rzewski bridged this gap to the political subject) and today it is commonplace,the fashionable circuits mixed with the strains of expression of the popular avant-garde, obsessed with the market and popular culture, the buzz and being loved.
Interestingly the structure of this book is divided for this emphasis into Paint, Sound, Space, and Strickland keeps this dialogue intact. So we find such geometrical creations by Donald Judd,identical size boxes descending downward along a wall,or simply cubes of varying shapes or the aluminum,plexi-glass,cubes,boxes situated as for eternity in Marfa Texas, a minimalist shrine in an old Army Base he purchased has no real equivalent in music. Likewise the powerful impersonal spirituality of the florescent lighting schemes of Dan Flavin or the shaped steel plates, and torqued ellipses of Richard Serra or floor covering, and fifty yards long wood planks and floor steel tiles of Carl Andre, not to mention the committed painters as Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, or Bridget Riley. All are here as Sol Le Witt.And again the equivalents in music areless than adequete,it isn't possible to speak of the two fields as sharing a focus.I beleive there are useful equivalents but it is on a case by case basis. I consider the first piece of musical minimalism,around Picasso's time and Stravinsky to be Erik Satie's "Vexations, a 9 Hour work of the same thorny quasi-chromatic phrase for piano solo, repeated incessantly at the same tempo or Cage's "Etudes Australes" a piece of minimalism for its static-ness,even orchestral pieces of Xenakis have a "stasis" dimension to it,that certainly has a more orthodox affinity for the term than the what became therather surface simplicity,the market concoctions of Glass,,Reich and Adams. These diverse kinds of works(that Strickland doesn't mention) are really never viewed from this perspective.
Strickland however keeps his narrative close to this visual world.But as close as one got to vigorously conceived works when all this began in the Seventies was Philip Glass who went by way of opera and that was a good vigorous start to place the minimalist musical canons within establishment venues,with a great structural pallette in place now to test its scope and longevity/ With text, theatre, peformance art and concept all now were burdened within the minimalist context.As important as these in-roads were Glass hadn't the theoretical ambition to nurture its implications further ,so he found facile route the most exciting and lucretive form for minimalism,now with electronification and augmented decible levels,trying to find affinity with the magnetic force of the rock genre/venue to some degree. He then simply fell prey to opera's complaisant seductions relying on tried and tested forms within opera's clostered structural genres, as duets, trios,intrumental interludes as in "Aknahten", and latter works the one with the simplistic use of the text of Doris Lessing.His works then after the operatic periods simply saw greater exhibitions of minimalist homogenizations of concept,surface flashes, reduced down to its lowest accessible form,without obviously jumping into another genre,as style=lized rock.
Where is the affinity for innovation and musical experimentalism? so prevalent in Glass's early ensemble Farfisa Organ works. So minimalism in ascendancy was quickly left to the market to consume it, Hollywood,wealth and power were safe havens for its musical language.And film scores abounded as the "Exorcist" in parts. Again Strickland adheres to the visual arts in order to buffer a safe zone within it, and to see where the two meet. They never really do,for music is more a collective experience,"let's groove together" whereas minimalist visual art is never hardly that it is an intense personal experience of contemplation. For these parallels,finding painterly concepts of tone, and gradations of colour distributions are largely useful if you examine the "origins" the original repertoire of minimal music, as lesser known composers as the late Terry Jennings and Tom Johnson. But as time wore on past the Seventies and Eighties minimalism found fewer and fewer similar conceptual and expressive features with the hardcore visual arts and theoretical paradigms of reference. Musical minimalism became homogenized, where even rockers found service in its (now-obvious)percolating rhythmic pulses,as Blondie,Devo,and the Techno studio layering cadres,there is even an "elevator music" minimalist jazz.The "minimal" canon in music became simply a reproducible language crossing borders as an oil-slick approaches distant shores. Strickland here thinks these "migrations" was one of minimalism staying powers, a longevity factor which proves its profound content, when in fact it was part of its dilution and demise into greater forms of homogenizations, and now fodder for least common denominators of expression subjected to it.
La Monte Young however,is given good space here, a post-Cage artist long a recluse creator,who found pleasure in listening to telephone generators, and motors, the inherent drones embodied in what we simply refer to as a "noise" also found an affinity for Just Intonation and the music of the East(as Reich,Riley,Glass) and mounted hours/days long performance of electronic drones, with Marian Zazeela,at blasted decible levels. He however was never a market icon, (no commercial potential as Frank Zappa would say)but in fact came closest toward finding equivalents to the visual arts conceptual world as Strickland searches for here.He did this in the Nine Hour "Well-Tuned Piano".
The concept of the long durational length is something that minimal music should have found from its start, not at the end of its demise. Of course the late Morton Feldman has been a rescuing agent here with his 6 Hour "Second String Quartet", the various piano solos "For Bunita Marcus", and "Triadic Memories", and the hours log "For Philip Guston, and "For Christian Wolff", for Flute and Piano are surely masterworks within musical minimalism. Length by itself is not the component that makes minimal music find itself with its visual arts brethren, no in Feldma's latter works you have also the incessant repetition of music materials, sometimes with self-defeating breaks, as in Feldman, where predictable almost Stravinskian moments come to the surface.
I think minimalism ended long ago,it does however still nourishes a pleasure in pure form and space, the "miniature" work is also a form neglected here.We speak now of a "post-minimalism" largely represented by the orchestral works and operas of John Adams. It is still a language that produces a music but why search for an experience already experienced.
Book Description
The Minimalist Program for linguistic theory is Noam Chomsky's boldest and most radical version of his naturalistic approach to language. Cedric Boeckz examines its foundations, explains its underlying philosophy, exemplifies its methods, and considers the significance of its empirical results. He explores the roots and antecedents of the Program and shows how its methodologies parallel those of sciences such as physics and biology. He disentangles and clarifies current debates and issues around the nature of minimalist research in linguistics and shows how the aims and ambitions of the Minimalist Program lie at the centre of the enterprise to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and is manifested in the world's languages. Professor Boeckx writes for advanced and graduate students of linguistics and for all those, in fields such as cognitive science and evolutionary biology, who want to know more about current developments in theoretical linguistics.
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Minimalism: Origins.: An article from: Notes
Brad Short
Manufacturer: Music Library Association, Inc.
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Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
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This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on September 1, 1996. The length of the article is 587 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Minimalism: Origins.
Author: Brad Short
Publication:
Notes (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 1996
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: v53
Issue: n1
Page: p77(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
1950s vintage clothing, from formal to classic, from party clothes and sports attire to underwear and sleepwear, is shown and described. Over 450 color photographs of American clothing for the whole family, adults and children. These styles hold a strong place in the Fifties Look that became popular around the world.
Book Description
Featuring a cast of colorful characters including bandaged hospital clerks, hapless criminals, zealous sales clerks, and frustrated cavemen, the Herman comic strip has entertained readers for 30 years, and this full-color collector's edition celebrates the comic's wry, hilarious, and nonchalant humor. The hilarious treatment of popular themes such as golf, marriage, jail, and war has made this comic strip timeless.
Customer Reviews:
Great laughs - Money well Spent!.......2005-11-09
I first discovered Jim Unger's "Herman" when I was a teenager. For the next several years I bought every Herman Treasury Collection as they became available. I was amazed that any comic could be so consistently (laugh-out-loud type) funny. I'm now 41 and I just rediscovered my Herman collection during a move. The humor of Herman is definitely ageless because I still laugh every time I pick up one of the collections.
I just purchased the Herman Classics Collections vol. 1, 2 and 3 (beautiful books, great print quality) and I hope that their are more on the way. I am posting this review on all on all 3 Classic Volume mazon pages.
My recommendation to the publisher - publish a hardbound master collection at some point, something that would look nice on my bookshelves and something that I can pass along to my grandkids ("Gee, grandpa had a sense of humor!").
I am posting this review on all on all 3 "Classic Volume" Amazon pages.
Herman is good for the Spirit.......2005-08-28
I just found out there was Herman comic books. I bought both vol 1 and 2. I have enjoyed these books so much, that when I am feeling low or want to have a good laugh I read my favorites ones, which are mostly all of them. It is good for the spirit and a terrific laughing tool. Mary..San Antonio
Book Description
The first volume of Hershel Parker's definitive biography of Herman Melville--a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize--closed on a mid-November day in 1851. In the dining room of the Little Red Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, Melville had just presented an inscribed copy of his new novel, Moby-Dick, to his intimate friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the man to whom the work was dedicated. "Take it all in all," Parker concluded, "this was the happiest day of Melville's life."
Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume 2, 1851-1891 chronicles Melville's life in rich detail, from this ecstatic moment to his death, in obscurity, forty years later. Parker describes the malignity of reviewers and sheer bad luck that doomed Moby-Dick to failure (and its author to prolonged indebtedness), the savage reviews he received for his next book Pierre, and his inability to have the novel The Isle of the Cross -- now lost -- published at all. Melville turned to magazine fiction, writing the now-classic "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno," and produced a final novel, The Confidence Man, a mordant satire of American optimism. Over his last three decades, while working as a customs inspector in Manhattan, Melville painstakingly remade himself as a poet, crafting the centennial epic Clarel, in which he sorted out his complex feelings for Hawthorne, and the masterful story "Billy Budd," originally written as a prose headnote to an unfinished poem.
Through prodigious archival research into hundreds of family letters and diary entries, newly discovered newspaper articles, and marginalia from books that Melville owned, Parker vividly recreates the last four decades of Melville's life, episode after episode unknown to previous biographers. The concluding volume of Herman Melville: A Biography confirms Hershel Parker's position as the world's leading Melville scholar, demonstrating his unrivaled biographical, literary, and historical imagination and providing a rich new portrait of a great--and profoundly American -- artist.
From reviews of the first volume:
"Unquestionably the most searching biography ever written on Herman Melville." -- Philip Weiss, New York Times Magazine
"A magnificent achievement... Hershel Parker's magnum opus is a magisterial work of retrieval and unflagging scholarship." -- Harold Beaver, Times Literary Supplement
"An awesome achievement, indispensable for all serious Melvillians, with the vividness of a great Victorian novel and the precision of the finest historical scholarship." -- Robert Faggen, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
Stoic endurance and masterful control.......2002-09-20
Hershel Parker has given Melville scholars and enthusiasts a valuable gift -- a scholarly examination of a life embedded in a rich context of significant relationships. Parker's presentation of evidence is all we can hope for -- a carefully balanced narrative based on primary sources where the reader benefits from a scholar's lifetime of careful research and thoughtful consideration. Drawing from an astounding wealth of primary sources, Parker walks us through Melville's life with a chronological continuity that scarcely misses a month of activity in a forty year period, articulating in rich detail Melville's interactions with people, places, and publications.
Through a careful accounting of time and travels, many puzzles are brought into clearer light. Volume Two begins with the puzzle of The Whale's reception -- Melville may never have learned of the broad praise for The Whale in England, despite the disconcerting omission of the book's final chapter by the publisher. Next, the puzzle of Pierre's career as a Young Author -- prompted by Evert Duykinck's evident betrayal as much as a devaluation of his earning potential by the Harpers, Melville interpolated a satirical diabtribe into the innovative psychological romance, Pierre. We discover lost works -- Melville developed at least three major works that were never published: Isle of the Cross (rejected), the Tortoise Hunters (incomplete or discarded), and a volume of poems in 1860 (rejected). We find what happened between his last magazine publication and the start of the Civil War: we are given a clear picture of Melville's three winters on the lecture circuit, during which he began a dedicated effort to convert from prose to poetry. Finally, we discover Melville the poet -- while holding down a low-paid job to support his family, Melville stoically endures a long period of discouraging personal setbacks during which he improves his mastery of metrical form through dedicated study and artful discernment. His creative mind is constantly at work, although his energies are strained by competing demands on his attention. With Clarel, Melville demonstrates a masterful control of theme, form, and allusion, and with John Marr and Timoleon, we meet a poet who innovated constantly, re-working and improving his stylistic experiments over many years.
Melville's mid-life challenges are of the sort that most humans face, complicated by an uncertain career, the death of two sons, and an awkward estrangement from his wife (temporary) and daughters (permanent?). He outlives most of his close relatives and friends, people he loved and who loved him, and on whom he relied for decades. Melville's natural tendency toward a self-contained privacy leads him toward a stoical reclusiveness, although he remains actively engaged with the world throughout his restless wanderings, both physical and philosophical. The biography concludes on an upward note; late in life, Melville learns by degrees of a dedicated following in England, while some of his best work is still in manuscript form, waiting to be printed some thirty years after his death.
The great pleasure of reading Parker is the way he interpolates explanations as an aid to the reader's assessment, scrupulously avoiding any forced conclusions based on ambiguous evidence. With Parker, the author is in control of the presentation, but we are allowed to apply our own critical thought toward the evidence. No conclusions are forced on us, and we encounter few intrusions by the biographer. To my mind, this is an ideal biography.
Tedious Beyond Belief.......2002-08-30
Little is known about the last forty reclusive years of Melville's life, and Parker adds virtually nothing of significance to alleviate that dearth of knowledge or insight. If you are fascinated by reams of inconsequential family correspondence, you will enjoy this book. If you are interested in Herman Melville, don't waste your time on this boring tome.
a baby whale trying to get out of this behemoth.......2002-07-16
Inside Hershel Parker's 900-page second volume of his life of Herman Melville is a 300-page biography trying to get out. The story Parker tells of the second half of Melville's career--from the failure of Moby Dick in 1851 through the forty years Melville slowly disappeared from the American consciousnes--is a fascinating, corrective tale of the blindness of American critics and readers alike. (At the end of his life, in 1891, his rebirth was just beginning, in England, but in the U.S. he was considered a failure--when he was considered at all. He would not be rediscovered here until the 1920s.) But in Parker's biography, that fascinating story is lost among the doings of the dozens of relatives who made up Melville's family, and whose manuscripts--letters, diaries, notes--Parker uses exhaustively. We learn more finally about 19th century extended family life than we do about the man at the center of this one. Melville's story is a sad one, but Parker could have told it in a third of this length.
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Moby Dick (Volume 2)
Herman Melville
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audiobooks
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Moby Dick (Volume 1)
ASIN: 0786119349 |
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- "One Eye On The Future"
- Beginning Melville - a charming start to a literary career.
- Omoo does wander
- Melville's second novel...
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Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (Writings of Herman Melville, Volume 2)
Herman Melville
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
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Similar Items:
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Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Penguin Classics)
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In the South Seas (Penguin Classics)
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Mardi and a Voyage Thither: Volume Three, Scholarly Edition (Melville)
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Redburn: His First Voyage, Being the Sailor-Boy, Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, In the Merchant Service (Penguin English Library)
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South Sea Tales (Oxford World's Classics)
ASIN: 0810101629 |
Book Description
A failed mutiny lands the narrator in a Tahitian jail where he and his companion are treated with curiosity and kindness. After their eventual release, the two embark on a series of adventures as they work at odd jobs, view traditional rites and customs on the island, and contrive an audience with the Tahitian queen.
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It was the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made good our escape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail aback about a league from the land, and was the only object that broke the broad expanse of the ocean.
Customer Reviews:
"One Eye On The Future".......2006-08-06
Melvilles, "Omoo" is not as well constructed a novel as "Typee" and lacks a central, compelling theme which is apparent early on in the reading. To say the novel is "loosely written" and quite "vague" in it's mission as a literary composition would be an accurate appraisal. For at it's heart, there is no relevent point or agenda therein. The main character in the book is used by Melville to describe many types of life at the time, sea life aboard ship, island life by the native people, customs of the natives that have been usurped with the advent of the missionaries, tropical weather patterns, foliage and plant life on the islands, the general disposition and fortitude along with the generosity of the island residents all combine for Melville to intertwine and collate a collection of vignettes and antecdotal narrative that although less than pristine as a "well-crafted" work is nonetheless a very entertaining read, especially owing to the fact of how long it has been since it was written. Melville tells a story that is fascinatingly astounding to me by virtue of the fact of how freshly written his material is to read. To me, he seems to have been an author with "one-eye" constantly focused and trained towards a far off future time.
Beginning Melville - a charming start to a literary career........2005-06-09
The word that keeps coming to mind as I think about this book is "charming". Melville was in a good mood when he wrote "Omoo", no doubt enjoyed looking back on a very pleasurable period of his still-young life. While it is true that "Omoo" wasn't nearly as successful as "Typee" had been, it is still an impressive work for a young man in his mid-twenties.
I enjoyed his portraits of the people he meets, and especially of his doctor friend, "Long Ghost". His descriptions of Polynesian life and the historical context are quite interesting. And it's funny: Melville had very good sense of humor, displays it throughout "Omoo".
While the book is mainly a picaresque story of adventure, recounting the details of daily life in an exotic setting, and is a much happier book than "Typee", there are a few scenes that preview Melville's later narrative power. Here is the "Julia" in a tropical Pacific gale:
"Under such a press of canvas, and with the heavy sea running, the barque, diving her bows under, now and then shipped green glassy waves, which, breaking over the head-rails, fairly deluged that part of the the ship, and washed clear aft."
And here is a glimpse of the brooding quality of his later work:
"But my meditations were soon interrupted by a gray, spectral shadow cast over the heaving billows. It was the dawn, soon followed by the first rays of the morning. They flashed into view at one end of the arched night, like - to compare great things with small - the gleamings of Guy Fawkes's lantern in the vaults of the Parliament House. Before long, what seemed a live ember rested for a moment on the rim of the ocean, and at last the blood-red sun stood full and round in the level East, and the long sea-day began."
But these are very isolated examples. By and large, "Omoo" is a great contrast with Melville's other books. It is a light, easy, and amusing read. Highly recommended for Melville fans.
Helpful critical works on Melville:
Newton Arvin - "Herman Melville"
D.H. Lawrence -"Studies in Classic American Literature".
F.O. Matthiessen - "American Renaissance"
Note: This particular edition is from the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville's works, and is an MLA Approved Text. As such, it is authoritative, but it lacks an explanatory introduction, which may be a slight drawback.
Omoo does wander.......2001-03-21
This book can be read on its own even though it is the sequel to TYPEE. There are 82 short chapters that cover life on a whaler and various experiences on the island of Tahiti as well as surrounding islands. We get a feel for life on a whaler and for life on the islands and how foreigners, especially missionaries, influenced the natives for the worse.
Omoo means a rover or one who wanders from island to island. Thus the title fits the feel of the narrative, but also points out a shortcoming as the book roves too much. We are taken from situation to situation a bit too abruptly. There are many characters and events that are introduced, but usually only on a superficial level. I would have liked more in-depth analysis from Melville as many of the characters were just that--characters. Also there are many, for me, unknown nautical terms used that made the reading hard work.
However, enough of the stories give you the sense of being "omoo", especially in a time vastly different from our own, that I recommend the book, even with the many sections that make you plod.
Melville's second novel..........2000-07-18
is an excellent travel memoir (partially fictionalized) in the same vein as Typee.
Typee struck me most by its pictorial quality and sumptuous imagery. In Omoo, however, Melville shores up his powers of characterization, creating a fine supporting cast of individuals.
If you are only familiar with Melville's later work, you will be surprised by the wry sense of humor Melville flashes throughout. Detailed descriptions of practical jokes, drunken brawls, and cultural faux-pas will make you smile, and sometimes laugh out loud. Certain passages are actually a riot!
Also, in this novel (as compared to Typee), Melville's intrusions into the narrative are less glaring than they are in the previous novel. Yes, some of the diversions take the steam out of the narrative, as in Typee, but these diversions oftentimes give necessary exposition to illuminate characters' motivations.
The beginning of the novel effectively captures the claustrophobic atmosphere aboard a whaling ship, and the crew are indeed a motley lot.
Though you do not have to read Typee before you read Omoo (although the first page of Omoo is, literally, a continuation of the last page of Typee), I recommend you read both in conjunction. Be prepared to absorb a beautifully rendered atmosphere, describing the life of two roving beachcombers in the South Pacific in the early 19th century.
Customer Reviews:
Entertaining but overpriced........2004-08-24
This book is all about silly little quotes on shoes with only a few lines on each page. You can finish the whole book in less than 15 minutes. It's not worth the price.
for the shoe lovers in your life.......2004-02-19
BOOTISM is a silly glossy little something, with quotes, exercises & interviews in eye-catching 4-color graphics. It is a perfect fit to bring chuckles. A good gift for those who dream about shoes while managing to control their addiction ... maybe.
Simple & delightful.
A MUST HAVE FOR THE SHOE LOVER.......2004-02-19
What a fun book! I read it cover to cover and smiled the entire time.
It's a whole new movement...........2004-01-25
What a fun little book! My husband gave it to me for Christmas (he actually put the book in a Jimmy Choo shoe box). I've been showing it to all my friends. Fun, fun. Cool, cool.
SHOE LOVER.......2003-12-04
THIS BOOK WAS A REAL LIGHT READ, FUN FOR ANYONE WHO LOVES SHOES.
GREAT FOR COFFEE TABLE OR READING ROOM.
NICE STOCKING STUFFER.
GOOD READING TO YOU ALL.
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