Call Me Ishmael Charles Olson Books
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2015 Reprint of the 1947 edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. First published in 1947, this acknowledged classic of American literary criticism explores the influences - especially Shakespearean ones - on Melville's writing of Moby-Dick. One of the first Melvilleans to advance what has since become known as the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," Olson argues that there were two versions of Moby-Dick, and that Melville's reading King Lear for the first time in between the first and second versions of the book had a profound impact on his conception of the saga "the first book did not contain Ahab," writes Olson, and "it may not, except incidentally, have contained Moby-Dick." If literary critics and reviewers at the time responded with varying degrees of skepticism to the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," it was the experimental style and organization of the book that generated the most controversy.
Call Me Ishmael Charles Olson Books
"Call me Ishmael", of course, are the first words of THE classic American novel, "Moby-Dick". The book CALL ME ISHMAEL is regarded as a "classic of American literary criticism" (to quote the back cover); several of the previous Amazon reviews suggest it might be THE classic of American literary criticism. Sorry, I don't agree. True, it is much different than most contemporary literary criticism, in ways that are in its favor. And it has some insightful and helpful things to say about Melville and his great novel. But it also has its moments of incomprehensibility and more than its fair share of highly creative speculation (a euphemistic circumlocution, perhaps, for "looniness").Today Charles Olson is best known as a modernist poet, his most noted work being "The Maximus Poems". He became captivated with Melville and "Moby-Dick" while in college and he wrote his M.A. thesis about Melville. Through his scholarly work he gained access to a number of books from Melville's personal library, including, notably, the set of Shakespeare's plays that Melville had read and annotated shortly before writing "Moby-Dick". Those materials helped form the foundation for CALL ME ISHMAEL, which was published in 1947.
The principal contribution CALL ME ISHMAEL makes to Melville studies is its insistence upon the importance of Shakespeare, especially "King Lear", to the creation and understanding of "Moby-Dick". Olson writes that there are two "Moby-Dicks". The first was a story of a whaling voyage. It, according to Olson, "did not contain Ahab. It may not, except incidentally, have contained Moby-Dick." But after drafting it, Olson says, Melville re-read Shakespeare and then went on to completely transform his novel. (Incidentally, Nathaniel Philbrick, in his book "Why Read Moby-Dick?", goes along with the "two Moby-Dicks" construct. But he attributes the decisive intervention to Melville's meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne rather than his reading of Shakespeare. Nonetheless, Philbrick writes that "Shakespeare was a critical influence" on "Moby-Dick" . . . "but [so was] the Bible.")
In CALL ME ISHMAEL, Olson employs an unconventional structure and approach; it is as unorthodox vis-á-vis traditional literary criticism as "Moby-Dick" is vis-á-vis traditional novels. At times he writes with refreshing straightforwardness (for example: "I don't intend to dish up cold pork"). The book certainly is not stuffy or jargon-laden, like so much of today's literary criticism. But Olson often does give free play to his poetic impulses, and there are passages that are as difficult to understand as, say, most Ezra Pound cantos. The further one gets into the book, the more one is adrift at sea with few if any bearings.
Along the way, however, Olson makes some noteworthy points. One concerns Whitman and Melville, contemporaries whose landmark books were published within four years of one another. "Whitman we have called our greatest voice because he gave us hope. Melville is the truer man. He lived intensely his people's wrong, their guilt. But he remembered the first dream. ['Moby-Dick'] is more accurate than 'Leaves of Grass'. Because it is America, all of her space, the malice, the root."
Another point I like concerns Melville's discussion of fictional characters in "The Confidence Man". "There Melville makes a distinction between the making of 'odd' and the creation of 'original' characters in literature." The only 'original' characters in all of literature, per Melville, were Milton's Satan, Quixote, and Hamlet. (Surely, Ahab should be added to the group.)
I might be stretching to give CALL ME ISHMAEL four Amazon stars. I recently read and reviewed Nathaniel Philbrick's "Why Read Moby Dick?" and it too I gave four stars. But that was not a stretch, and I believe that it would be more rewarding to the general reader even though it might not have the same cachet value among the intelligentsia.
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Call Me Ishmael Charles Olson Books Reviews
Or, if you have read and re-read the current bestseller Ahab's Wife, and you are looking for another classic treatment of the Moby Dick story not featured on Oprah Winfrey's daily chat show, you might pick up Olson's famous theoretical exposition of Melville. In 1947, Charles Olson hadn't written much poetry and he was just coming off a failed political career as a minor functionary in Roosevelt's New Deal, but somehow he got his act together with CALL ME ISHMAEL. Nowadays, everyone is in on the Melville revival but in the immediate postwar years Melville had only really been in the canon for twenty years or so, so Olson was working out something new and undone in American literature. His book didn't sell particularly well, it's challenging and high-toned, but it has remained in print continuously for almost 60 years. Let's see if AHAB'S WIFE can say the same!
In brief, "Call Me Ishmael" is the most interesting piece of literary criticism I've ever read. Foreshadowing his future leanings as a poet, Olson writes "Ishmael" more like a prose poem than stodgy dissertation. Yet, however unique the form, it seems strangely predetermined. For it is only through a poetic nature that it could distill such huge, multilayered concepts into an accessible and short (119 pg.) essay. This reissue--it was first published in 1947--takes the reader through Shakespearean influence on "Moby Dick," Melville's struggle with faith, and the importance of place--to name only three examples. The future rector of the short-lived, yet highly influential, Black Mountain College in North Carolina, creates an energy out of words bested only by "The Whale" itself. As Olson stated to his colleague, Merton Sealts, Jr., who wrote the new afterword to the essay "I see that The White Death has descended upon You too." And it will upon you as well. After reading this incisive, lyrical, and engaging piece, you will want to return to "Moby Dick" before you've closed its pages.
Amazing!
This is the most wonderful and essential companion to the novel, "Moby Dick" I have ever read. It's just brilliant.
It's written in a style very much of it's time.. It was reminiscent of the Beat Generation for me. Kerouac, etc.. I didn't hate it but as a Melville enthusiast I felt very little interest as I read it.
i ordered this because i'd lost my old City Lights copy. i first read the book in a rented room at the allen hotel in san francisco. it opened my nose up to a whole series of dreams & correspondences i'd experienced during that period having to do with the pacific rim. Olson proved to me that i wasn't alone, that there existed a whole line of inquiry having to do with mythos, history & place, and that all of those tangents intersected in me. now fifty years later i'm reading it again and it's just as fresh and even more profound in its implications. this is one book that every american poet should pack along and annotate in daily.
"Call me Ishmael", of course, are the first words of THE classic American novel, "Moby-Dick". The book CALL ME ISHMAEL is regarded as a "classic of American literary criticism" (to quote the back cover); several of the previous reviews suggest it might be THE classic of American literary criticism. Sorry, I don't agree. True, it is much different than most contemporary literary criticism, in ways that are in its favor. And it has some insightful and helpful things to say about Melville and his great novel. But it also has its moments of incomprehensibility and more than its fair share of highly creative speculation (a euphemistic circumlocution, perhaps, for "looniness").
Today Charles Olson is best known as a modernist poet, his most noted work being "The Maximus Poems". He became captivated with Melville and "Moby-Dick" while in college and he wrote his M.A. thesis about Melville. Through his scholarly work he gained access to a number of books from Melville's personal library, including, notably, the set of Shakespeare's plays that Melville had read and annotated shortly before writing "Moby-Dick". Those materials helped form the foundation for CALL ME ISHMAEL, which was published in 1947.
The principal contribution CALL ME ISHMAEL makes to Melville studies is its insistence upon the importance of Shakespeare, especially "King Lear", to the creation and understanding of "Moby-Dick". Olson writes that there are two "Moby-Dicks". The first was a story of a whaling voyage. It, according to Olson, "did not contain Ahab. It may not, except incidentally, have contained Moby-Dick." But after drafting it, Olson says, Melville re-read Shakespeare and then went on to completely transform his novel. (Incidentally, Nathaniel Philbrick, in his book "Why Read Moby-Dick?", goes along with the "two Moby-Dicks" construct. But he attributes the decisive intervention to Melville's meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne rather than his reading of Shakespeare. Nonetheless, Philbrick writes that "Shakespeare was a critical influence" on "Moby-Dick" . . . "but [so was] the Bible.")
In CALL ME ISHMAEL, Olson employs an unconventional structure and approach; it is as unorthodox vis-á-vis traditional literary criticism as "Moby-Dick" is vis-á-vis traditional novels. At times he writes with refreshing straightforwardness (for example "I don't intend to dish up cold pork"). The book certainly is not stuffy or jargon-laden, like so much of today's literary criticism. But Olson often does give free play to his poetic impulses, and there are passages that are as difficult to understand as, say, most Ezra Pound cantos. The further one gets into the book, the more one is adrift at sea with few if any bearings.
Along the way, however, Olson makes some noteworthy points. One concerns Whitman and Melville, contemporaries whose landmark books were published within four years of one another. "Whitman we have called our greatest voice because he gave us hope. Melville is the truer man. He lived intensely his people's wrong, their guilt. But he remembered the first dream. ['Moby-Dick'] is more accurate than 'Leaves of Grass'. Because it is America, all of her space, the malice, the root."
Another point I like concerns Melville's discussion of fictional characters in "The Confidence Man". "There Melville makes a distinction between the making of 'odd' and the creation of 'original' characters in literature." The only 'original' characters in all of literature, per Melville, were Milton's Satan, Quixote, and Hamlet. (Surely, Ahab should be added to the group.)
I might be stretching to give CALL ME ISHMAEL four stars. I recently read and reviewed Nathaniel Philbrick's "Why Read Moby Dick?" and it too I gave four stars. But that was not a stretch, and I believe that it would be more rewarding to the general reader even though it might not have the same cachet value among the intelligentsia.
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