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Get your "A" in gear!

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In 1953, the brilliant but terrifying titan of cinema John Huston summons the young writer Ray Bradbury to Ireland. The apprehensive scribe's quest is to capture on paper the fiercest of all literary beasts -- Moby Dick -- in the form of a workable screenplay so the great director can begin filming.

Customer Reviews (9)

Not enough for a book
It happens that Ray Bradbury spent a few months in Ireland while he was writing the script for a Moby Dick movie and he decided to write a book about his experience in the land of St. Patrick. The problem is that nothing worth of a whole book happened there. Just an eternal rain, some anecdotes with locals and many critics to the Irish.

Not his best
Ray Bradbury was a science fiction icon, but there's a reason he didn't write "The Playboy of the Western World" or "Finnegan's Wake."The dialogue is all you get from this book.The rest of the book is a thin vehicle to get you from one conversation to the next.There are few descriptions and few insights.The dialogue itself is very humorous at parts, and in others it's obvious that this is Bradbury writing how the conversations should have gone, not how they really went.I've thoroughly enjoyed other works by Bradbury, but this wasn't one of them.

The best of both worlds, fact and fiction
Ray Bradbury wrote the screenplay for John Huston's Moby Dick.It is a hysterical account of his exploits in Ireland where he wrote the piece.It is also a work of fiction because he combined some of his previous short story writings about Ireland into the book.Bradubury masterly weaves both fact and fiction into a enjoyable tour-de-force.If you are an avid Bradbury fan, you will remember some of his earlier work and recognize the stories.If not, then I envy you because you will not be able to distinguish fact from fiction.Bradbury does both a wonderfull job of catching Irelands essence and terrible poverty of which he covers lightly.He also hints at the terrible genious of John Huston without going into the gory details.This book is a very fast read and is wonderfull.It is certainly deserving of the national book award it recieved.

Not the best Bradbury, but still worth while.
This didn't grip the same way Fahrenheit 451 or The Martian Chronicles or Something Wicked This Way Comes did. There are many entertaining and quite often fun stories and of course it is beautifully written. Bradbury is one of the best prose stylists and short story writers in American Lit, after all. It's not one of his classics but it's worth a consideration.

Great prose.
Green Shadows, White Whale is a tale about Ray Bradbury's travels in Ireland while helping John Huston write the screenplay for Moby Dick. The writing is absolutely wonderful. I have read many books in my life but Ihave rarely read one so beautifully written and well composed. There wereparagraphs and passages that I read over two and three times simply becausethey were so tasty. The story is broken up into chapters which compriselittle subplots of their own. This makes for easy reading because you canread a chapter or two at a time and still enjoy the entire book. Read thisbook. ... Read more

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Leviathanalysis
Eyal Peretz has brought us a fine book of criticism--sensitive, insightful, and broad in scope. His incorporation of literary theory, social criticism, and contemporary philosophy (Levinas and Derrida) is engaging and thought-provoking. Though the plodding style (evidently an inescapable hallmark of the branch of psychoanalytic theory known as "trauma theory") may remind some of a slow-moving whaling vessel, the thrill of the chase is undeniable. We may even feel a welcome frisson of danger as we read such quietly audacious sentences as, "Thus, we might say, more dramatically, that it is now necessary to explode the traditional conception of literature." A bold new look at an ageless classic. Recommended. ... Read more

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Drummond has adapted the text, using words f rom the original book by Melville, with lots of speech bubbl es, & tells the story in a series of detailed illustrations. The book is also a fund of information about the wild life at sea in the 18th century. ' ... Read more

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One of the great works of American literature, Moby-Dick is the epic tale of one man's fight against a force of nature. The outcast youth Ishmael, succumbing to wanderlust during a dreary New England autumn, signs up for passage aboard a whaling ship. The Pequod sails under the command of the one-legged Captain Ahab, who has set himself on a monomaniacal quest to capture the cunning white whale that robbed him of his leg: Moby-Dick. Capturing life on the sea with robust realism, Melville details the adventures of the colorful crew aboard the ship as Ahab pursues his crusade of revenge, heedless of all cost. This masterfully symbolic drama of the conflict between man and his fate has a special intensity that listeners will not soon forget. ... Read more

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Recounts the 1820 sinking of the whaleship "Essex" by an enraged sperm whale and how the crew of young men survived against impossible odds. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An Important Book
Steven B. Herrmann, PhD, MFT
Author of "Walt Whitman: Shamanism, Spiritual Democracy, and the World Soul"

Anyone who is interested in a Jungian literary approach to an analysis of Herman Melville's masterpiece must not overlook Edward F. Edinger's masterful study "Melville's Moby Dick: An American Nekyia."While Edinger has been criticized by literary critics for missing Melville's humor and irony as part of his narrative strategy, he gets at an in-depth psychological understanding of the novel that is enlightening.As a psychological critic Edinger uncovers meanings that are remarkably illuminating, both in terms of the archetypal meaning he assigns to certain characters in the novel, but also to their relevance regarding to Melville's personal psychology.For instance, in his analysis of the figure of Captain Ahab as a study in the psychology of resentment and revenge, and the therapeutic value Melville derrived from expressing his anger and hate mythopoetically through the mouthpiece of Ahab Edinger does not leave a stone unturned.As a classically trained Jungian Edinger is one of the greatest teachers in the field of analytical psychology.He makes his intentions clear from the start.In commenting on Melville's opening passage of the book, "Call me Ishmael," Edinger says that he is going to approach the novel "as though it were a dream which needs interpretation and elaboration of its images for their meaning to emerge fully" (9).Edinger's depth-psychological approach leads him to unveil a different kind of wisdom, a different kind of knowledge than what might be expected from a literary critic.Particularly insightful, I think, are his comments about Ishmael's "alienated state": "The word of the Lord," he says, "is an inner imperative, a call from the Self to fulfill one's vocation"(43).Edinger provides a psychological commentary on the inner conflict that connects Ishmael as a "dream figure" to Melville's progressive vocation to poetry.In my mind, it points to the most important theme of the novel itself: the theme of psychic transformation through a prolonged and extended process of active imagination, effected through his poetic art.This was the first attempt at a full-length interpretation by a Jungian and like so many of Edinger's books, his analysis is brilliant.This is a great resource for any avid reader of Melville.My only criticism is that he missed the meaning of the Ishmael-Queequeg marriage symbolism, yet, given that the book was published in 1995, this oversight is completely understandable.Today the cultural importance of this symbol seems more obvious.A wonderful book.

Illuminates both Jung and Melville
Edinger says upfront that his goal is to illuminate both Moby Dick and Jungian theory, in effect using them to throw light on each other. The fit between Melville's characters and Jungian character types and archetypes is clear and clean, never forced. Generous quotes from the novel illustrate Edinger's points.

Edinger references page numbers from the Penquin Classics edition of Moby Dick. Having that version in hand makes it very easy to flip to the source material and test your agreement with his interpretations.

stunningly insightful
MOBY DICK has long needed a depth-psych interpretation that could do it full justice, and Edinger provides it. As with most of his other books, I wish this one had been longer, so much compact wisdom does it contain. Look out for his image of Leviathan as collective "stuff" needing cooking in the fires of consciousness--awesome.

At the same time, as you read be aware that as a symbol, Moby Dick cannot be pinned down to anything in particular, even the Self, which is Edinger's interpretation. The white whale works on many different levels.One of them might be this:the whale as a symbol of the natural world attacked and dismembered by Ahab, that seaborne paradigm of the modern captain of industry.

Great American analyst meets great American novelist
Dr. Edward Edinger--who only recently departed this earthly existence--was one of the most prominent and gifted Jungian analysts in America. In this brilliant little jewel of a book, he analyzes Herman Melville and the collective American psyche. Melville's own personal "nekyia" or night sea journey into the underworld or unconscious during midlife is divined and revealed to us by Edinger in a most readable and fascinating fashion. Much more than a rollicking sea-faring adventure yarn, Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick, is a psychological treasure trove. Captain Ahab, notes Edinger, "is a study in the psychology of resentment. . . . His image serves as a mirror, showing the true nature of our own resentments.Everyone has this problem, his inner Ahab. . . ." Ahab's immoderate rage reflects the existential anger in each of us, the dangers of being possessed by bitterness, and the rage lying just below the shining surface of Ame! rican culture, in the dark oceanic depths--a violent rage which recently has been raising its ugly head with mounting ferocity. Melville's immortal denizen of the deep embodies the devils and demons--the daimonic-- with which we each must grapple, and Edinger's elucidation of the material (personal and archetypal) Melville constructively confronted and creatively came to terms with through his writing is encouraging, inspirational and completely masterful. ... Read more