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Typee (Signet Classics) by Herman Melville
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Typee (Signet Classics) (original 1846; edition 1964)

by Herman Melville

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2,160387,312 (3.66)97
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

Typee is a fictional, but heavily autobiographical book by Herman Melville. Based on his own three weeks as a captive on Nuku Hiva, Melville's protagonist spends four months trapped on the island. Melville also fleshed out the story with details provided by contemporary explorers. The book was his most popular during his lifetime and provided significant groundwork for later tales of European and Pacific cultures meeting.

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Member:mattkaul
Title:Typee (Signet Classics)
Authors:Herman Melville
Info:Signet Classics (1964), Paperback, 10 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:Literature, Nineteenth Century

Work Information

Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville (1846)

  1. 00
    Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature by Thor Heyerdahl (Anonymous user)
    Anonymous user: Another look at the Marquesas, a century younger and entirely non-fictional, well-written by an experienced traveller. Heyerdahl begins with Melvellian enthusiasm about "going back to nature" but ends up rather more disillusioned than his famous American colleague.
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» See also 97 mentions

English (37)  Spanish (1)  All languages (38)
Showing 1-5 of 37 (next | show all)
Really very entertaining and interesting. Suffers from the same fault as Moby Dick--interrupts the narrative with interminably catalogued details. As with Moby Dick, however, there will be those for whom the constant rabbit trails of detail are half the fun. ( )
1 vote judeprufrock | Jul 4, 2023 |
i underlined so much, scrawled so many "whoa"s and "WHAT"s in the margins of this book that I wonder what mean part of me originally awarded it only three stars. probably I was cranky that I have no paper to write, no American Romanticism/post-colonial unit to teach. but who am i kidding? chapter 11 is composed entirely of descriptions of Typee clothing (as it were)! i did enjoy this novel...especially while reading sentences like these:

"I can only describe it as a hash of soaked bread and bits of tobacco, brought to a doughy consistency by the united agency of perspiration and rain."

"Had the apples of Sodom turned to ashes in my mouth, I could not have felt a more startling revulsion."

"'A baked baby, by the soul of Captain Cook!' burst forth Toby, with amazing vehemence."

"...whilst a poor European artisan...is put to his wit's end to provide for his starving offspring that food which the children of a Polynesian father, without troubling their parent, pluck from the branches of every tree round them." [I scanned this passage to figure out why I think it is so pretty, but I found no regular meter. hmph.]

"Had the belle of the season, in the pride of her beauty and power, been cut in a place of public resort by some supercilious exquisite, she could not have felt greater indignation than I did at this unexpected slight."

"I frequently passed the little temples reposing in the shadows of the taboo groves and beheld the offerings---mouldy fruits spread upon a rude altar, or hanging in half-decayed baskets around some uncouth jolly-looking image..."

"The idol was partly concealed...It was much decayed...His godship had literally attained a green old age...The nose had taken its departure, and from the general appearance of the head it might have been supposed that the wooden divinity, in despair at the neglect of its worshippers, had been trying to beat its own brains out against the surrounding trees." ( )
1 vote alison-rose | May 22, 2023 |
Herman Melville began his career as a novelist with Typee (1846), a travel adventure that was the hit that Moby Dick (1851) would not be until long after his death. Typee mixed a lot of exotic facts about Polynesian culture and geography with the bones of a captivity narrative. It gave readers chills about tattooing and cannibalism. It offered just a hint of sex with the lovely Fayaway. Melville criticized the hypocrisy of missionaries in Hawaii, hitting the same targets that Mark Twain would take on twenty years later. His contemporary critics were more concerned with his accuracy than with his skill as a storyteller. Rereading Typee for the first time in years, I was disappointed in all the missed opportunities for building characters and scenes. His first-person narrator treats island culture sympathetically, but he seems more horrified at the idea of being tattooed than being eaten. He is never as self-reflective as Ishmael. Individual islanders never quite come to life. His minder, Kory-Kory, and his lover Fayaway never get to speak on their own behalf. Melville pulls his punches in a way he does not do in Moby Dick. In Typee, he does not have the guts to put Ishmael in bed with Queequeg. 4 stars. ( )
1 vote Tom-e | Jan 16, 2023 |
the book itself is a superb production and the art just amazing. the story is not on par with Moby Dick in anyway- i reads like he scribbled it off for some cash. it does give some insight into polynesian culture and the abominable destruction wreaked upon it by europeans. the narrator isn’t likable at all and i just kept hoping they would eat him ( )
  diveteamzissou | Dec 2, 2022 |
Originally marketed as a true account, then very shortly thereafter as a novel, Typee is Melville's travelogue of 4 weeks (presented as 4 months on the tale) in the South Pacific island of Nuka Hiva (which Melville refers to as Nukaheva) in the Marquesas.

A fascinating deep dive into the islander culture, laid out in a series of essay-like chapters, arranged by topic. Thus it definitely does not read like a novel, in the way a present-day reader would think of it.

First published in 1846, Melville's writing style can come off a bit dry and long-winded, so perseverance is sometimes needed to keep going. Yet, when I finished the book, I found my mind kept wondering, "Why am I no longer in the South Pacific?"

Highly recommended to lovers of classics, history, geography, and/or the South Seas. ( )
2 vote Desiree_Reads | Aug 31, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 37 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (33 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Melville, Hermanprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Boullaire, JacquesIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bryant, JohnEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ensikat, KlausIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gibbings, RobertIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gibbings, RobertIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hayford, HarrisonAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hecht, IlseTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hodges, WilliamCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schaeffer, MeadIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Woodcock, GeorgeEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
昇, 坂下Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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To

Lemuel Shaw,

Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
This Little Work is Affectionately Inscribed by the Author
First words
Six months at sea!!
Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819, of Scottish ancestry.

Introduction by Robert Gibbings (The Folio Society, 1950).
The morning my comrade left me, as related in the narrative, he was accompanied by a large party of natives, some of them carrying fruit and hogs for the purpose of traffic, as the report had spread that boats had touched at the bay.

Sequel : containing the story of Toby.
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Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

Typee is a fictional, but heavily autobiographical book by Herman Melville. Based on his own three weeks as a captive on Nuku Hiva, Melville's protagonist spends four months trapped on the island. Melville also fleshed out the story with details provided by contemporary explorers. The book was his most popular during his lifetime and provided significant groundwork for later tales of European and Pacific cultures meeting.

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Urban Romantics

2 editions of this book were published by Urban Romantics.

Editions: 1909175730, 1909175471

 

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