This was the much-awaited reading of Moby Dick. The book is large, and the enchantment it holds for readers is deep. It takes time to traverse the voyage of Ishamel, which is as much mental as physical, through the 135 chapters; even a cheat sheet to reduce the words to half by judicious skipping did not enable everyone to finish the novel.
Zakia reads about Stubb killing a whale as Soma & KumKum listen
Indira managed to persuade the British TV actor, Madhav Sharma, who was visiting for a family occasion, to come and read for us from Chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck; in a fiery conversation Ahab overmasters his crew and swears them to the maniacal objective of killing the White Whale.
Amita, Thomo, Indira, and Madhav Sharma at the reading
Indira reading about the pacific whale nursery of thousands of congregating mother whales
The next novel will be chosen by Soma and Zakia and they will notify the others at the next reading on Aug 13, 2010.
Madhav Sharma, British TV actor, reads Chapter 36 of Moby Dick where Ahab beguiles the crew of The Pequod to pursue his personal vengeance on the White Whale
Forthcoming sessions are as follows:
Aug 13, 2010 Poetry
Sept 24,2010 John Irving, The World According to Garp
Here is a link to the full account and record of the session on July 9, 2010.
Madhav Sharma seated - KumKum, Thommo, Indira, Bobby, Amita, Zakia, Soma
Indira's photograph entitles her to
ReplyDeletebe Ms.Kerala !
And hearing Madhav read was an absolute treat - better than the
absolut vodka !!
This is Aug 2019, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Herman Melville. The NYTimes did not even note the publication of Melville’s signal work of fiction, ‘Moby-Dick,’ when it was published in 1851. But on his 200th birth anniversary the NYTimes recounted the history of the writer’s appearance in the paper:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/books/herman-melville-moby-dick.html
The first review of ‘Moby-Dick’ appeared only in 1924 in the NYTimes.