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Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life: During a Four Months' Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas
Excerpt from Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life During a Four Months' Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas, With Notices of the French Occupation of Tahiti and the Provisional Cession of the Sandwich Islands to Lord Paulet, and a Sequel, the Story of Toby
The great interest with which the important events lately occurring at the Sandwich, Marquesas, and Society Islands, have been regarded in America and England, and indeed throughout the world, will, he trusts, justify a few otherwise unwarrantable digressions.
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Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The great interest with which the important events lately occurring at the Sandwich, Marquesas, and Society Islands, have been regarded in America and England, and indeed throughout the world, will, he trusts, justify a few otherwise unwarrantable digressions.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
362 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1846
About the author
Herman Melville
2,144 books4,116 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. Typee, his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with the peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw. Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family.
Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector.
From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. Typee, his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with the peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw. Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family.
Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector.
From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.
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October 21, 2018
A travelogue and idealized South Sea island adventure story inspired by that time Melville and his crewmate, Richard Tobias "Toby" Greene, jumped ship in the Marquesas and spent a month on Nuku Hiva. I can’t blame him for wanting to write about it.
It was Melville’s first book and a sensational bestseller on its release. Written before “Melville began to study the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author’s style was rough in places, but marvellously simple and direct.” as Arthur Stedman points out in his Introduction to the Edition of 1892. Stedman’s biographical and critical introduction isn’t included in the audio edition (George Guidall, Narrator), but you can find it at Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1900/...
It was Melville’s first book and a sensational bestseller on its release. Written before “Melville began to study the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author’s style was rough in places, but marvellously simple and direct.” as Arthur Stedman points out in his Introduction to the Edition of 1892. Stedman’s biographical and critical introduction isn’t included in the audio edition (George Guidall, Narrator), but you can find it at Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1900/...
April 1, 2016
“Yet, after all, insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, my not the savage be the happier man..?”
― Herman Melville, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Herman Melville's first book Typee is a blend of creative memoir, cultural commentary, and good story telling. Melville recounts and elaborates on his experiences among the Typee cannibals on the French Polynesian island of Nuku Hiva (Marquesas Islands) in 1842. Typee ended up being Meville's best-selling book during his lifetime, no doubt due to both his skill as a writer mated with his romantic story of life among Polynesian savages.
The book flows nicely and balances between the chasms of cultural superiority & nobel savage worship that can easily dominate these types of books. Reading this made me think of similar types of long-form journalism that catch fire in our day (Junger to Theroux to Conover to Vollmann). While approachable, it isn't Melville's best work, but shows early signs of motifs that would show up later in Moby-Dick, Billy Budd, etc.
___________________
― Herman Melville, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Herman Melville's first book Typee is a blend of creative memoir, cultural commentary, and good story telling. Melville recounts and elaborates on his experiences among the Typee cannibals on the French Polynesian island of Nuku Hiva (Marquesas Islands) in 1842. Typee ended up being Meville's best-selling book during his lifetime, no doubt due to both his skill as a writer mated with his romantic story of life among Polynesian savages.
The book flows nicely and balances between the chasms of cultural superiority & nobel savage worship that can easily dominate these types of books. Reading this made me think of similar types of long-form journalism that catch fire in our day (Junger to Theroux to Conover to Vollmann). While approachable, it isn't Melville's best work, but shows early signs of motifs that would show up later in Moby-Dick, Billy Budd, etc.
___________________
December 31, 2009
This is the story Herman Melville was meant to tell. I hated Billy Budd; I liked Moby Dick a lot; I loved Typee.
Not coincidentally, Melville wrote this before he had met Nathaniel Hawthorne; and everything else he ever wrote after. I think Hawthorne ruined Melville as a writer.
This book feels real. Melville writes what he knows - there's no stilted 'humorous' overwrought dialogue. There's no pedagogic symbolism. There's no melodrama. There's just the story of a guy running away from a nasty sea captain and living with Polynesian cannibals for a while. His obvious firsthand experience with natives of the Marquesas Islands makes for a good travelogue, as well as a good novel.
After finishing the book I was disappointed to read that most of it was fake. I wanted to get in there and tell Melville he never should have left - he should have gotten tattooed and married Fayaway and had a big wedding feast where they roasted and ate their Happar enemies, and he never should have left the island. Then I realized that was really a testament to Melville's ability - this time, anyway - to create something that felt real.
(aside - it should have been obvious that Melville didn't really spend 4 months there, as after 4 months his knowledge of the language would have been much better than it was.)
I should add that the librivox version has a darned good narrator. He comes across as - I don't know - one of those old-school "60 Minutes" correspondents in his play-it-straightness, but just-below-the-surface bemusement. It works perfectly.
Not coincidentally, Melville wrote this before he had met Nathaniel Hawthorne; and everything else he ever wrote after. I think Hawthorne ruined Melville as a writer.
This book feels real. Melville writes what he knows - there's no stilted 'humorous' overwrought dialogue. There's no pedagogic symbolism. There's no melodrama. There's just the story of a guy running away from a nasty sea captain and living with Polynesian cannibals for a while. His obvious firsthand experience with natives of the Marquesas Islands makes for a good travelogue, as well as a good novel.
After finishing the book I was disappointed to read that most of it was fake. I wanted to get in there and tell Melville he never should have left - he should have gotten tattooed and married Fayaway and had a big wedding feast where they roasted and ate their Happar enemies, and he never should have left the island. Then I realized that was really a testament to Melville's ability - this time, anyway - to create something that felt real.
(aside - it should have been obvious that Melville didn't really spend 4 months there, as after 4 months his knowledge of the language would have been much better than it was.)
I should add that the librivox version has a darned good narrator. He comes across as - I don't know - one of those old-school "60 Minutes" correspondents in his play-it-straightness, but just-below-the-surface bemusement. It works perfectly.
January 28, 2024
Herman Melville's early work, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life is definitely not a typical novel & it is also not merely a travel book focused on the Marquesas Islands. Rather, it is a hybrid work, resembling an embellished ethnographic study of a particular area within Polynesia, based on journal notes but augmented by the author's vibrant imagination.
Beyond that, Typee was described as a "fluid text", with a British edition early on & a Revised American Edition, both of which underwent substantial "emendations" or corrections during H.M.'s lifetime, causing it to be called "his most unstable book". While full of panoramic details of lush scenery, Melville also elucidates taboos & class structure among the Typees, a group of people seen as "Edenic", or unspoiled by civilization.
After their arrival at Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Archipelago, a place said to be inhabited by "savages" but nominally under French flag, our narrator, Tom ("Tommo") & his friend Toby decide to mutiny from their ship, the Dolly, heading inland with little in the way of food, tools or much of a survival plan. They are discovered by the resident tribe while foraging for breadfruit & instead of being feasted on by the local tribe, thought to be cannibals, are in fact feted.
Just why the locals decide to so honor the pair never really becomes clear but the heavily-tattooed tribe plays host to the mutineers, with Mahevi (the chief) even ministering to Tom's rather mysterious leg wound, a malady that persists. Tom is assigned a kind of tribal valet, Kory-Kory, someone who acts as a faithful aide & caretaker.
He quickly finds the people a point of fascination rather than fear & is additionally tended to by a beautiful, young, bare-breasted maiden with lovely skin & blue eyes named Fayaway, a setting that may have made many early readers blush & caused concern for the book's publishers in both the U.S. & the U.K. We quickly learn that the Marquesans are what we might call polyamorous.
Meanwhile, Tinor, (Kory-Kory's mother) prepares a compote of breadfruit, coconut & local ingredients to nourish Tom & Toby. After being fed & bathed, they are taken to a religious shrine, "Hoolah-Hoolah", a male-only site built on multiple terraces. Our narrator confides that the people who are acting as hosts "enjoy a perfect freedom from care & anxiety, living in an atmosphere of perpetual summer." Their stay is further enhanced by an alcoholic concoction called "Arva", partly narcotic in nature.
When Toby is permitted to go in search of medicine via a visiting ship, with the intent of curing Tom's festering leg wound,local remedies being insufficient, Tom is left alone. And when Toby fails to return, it becomes clear that Tom is a well-tended & even beloved prisoner, hardly free to leave the tribal encampment. Still, he is distracted by the life of the people who have so gracefully accepted his presence in their midst. Freedom might come at a heavy price but then why would he wish to leave paradise?
While Typee does deal with Tom's seemingly pleasant captivity & his eventual plan to escape, it is clear that Melville's intent is also to juxtapose the image of a kind of Eden that he experienced after his own mutiny with the stresses of civilization, which "does not engross all the virtues of humanity, not even her full share of them."
He does comment that "for these unsophisticated savages, the history of a day is the history of a life", suggesting perhaps that for someone accustomed to a more western, "civilized lifestyle", even paradise can grow stale in time.
There is detail about a Feast of the Calabashes, with some religious overtones & while the locals do weave skirts of "Tappa", fashioned from the bark of a Mulberry tree, they are mostly "clad in nature's costumes", with voluminous descriptions of the beauty of the people, both men & women and a suggestion that Tom (Melville) embraces them in part because they are light-skinned, as compared to those he has encountered in the Sandwich Islands, today's Hawaii. "In beauty of form, they surpassed anything I have ever seen, with not a single deformity & nearly every individual capable of being taken for a sculptor's model."
I found it pleasant to spend time among the Marquesans with Herman Melville via this hybrid tale, even though to many readers some of the prose may seem rather heavy-handed, including a rather constant drumbeat that "where civilization has been introduced among those we call "savages", she has scattered her vices & withheld her blessings."
Missionaries in particular are tarred & feathered. The format used to tell this story, the most popular of Melville's writing in the author's lifetime, is roughly akin to another very blended story, the epic Moby Dick.
Some of the language Melville employs is at times overly formal or now somewhat archaic, an example being when he refers to Tom's caretaker, Kory-Kory as his "indefatigable servitor"& inserts words like "scapegrace", an unprincipled person. However, the book was written 175 years ago & language is evolutionary. A glossary of terminology used by residents of Nuku Hiva would also have been helpful.
*In my version of the book, there is an excellent preface by John Bryant, along with explanatory commentary comparing the various editions of Typee, plus appendices covering the British capture of the Hawaiian Islands and "The Story of Toby", resolving his disappearance & eventual reemergence for the reader.
**Within my review are images of the author, Herman Melville; Nuku Hiva looking out to sea; Marquesans on Nuku Hiva in traditional attire.
Beyond that, Typee was described as a "fluid text", with a British edition early on & a Revised American Edition, both of which underwent substantial "emendations" or corrections during H.M.'s lifetime, causing it to be called "his most unstable book". While full of panoramic details of lush scenery, Melville also elucidates taboos & class structure among the Typees, a group of people seen as "Edenic", or unspoiled by civilization.
After their arrival at Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Archipelago, a place said to be inhabited by "savages" but nominally under French flag, our narrator, Tom ("Tommo") & his friend Toby decide to mutiny from their ship, the Dolly, heading inland with little in the way of food, tools or much of a survival plan. They are discovered by the resident tribe while foraging for breadfruit & instead of being feasted on by the local tribe, thought to be cannibals, are in fact feted.
Just why the locals decide to so honor the pair never really becomes clear but the heavily-tattooed tribe plays host to the mutineers, with Mahevi (the chief) even ministering to Tom's rather mysterious leg wound, a malady that persists. Tom is assigned a kind of tribal valet, Kory-Kory, someone who acts as a faithful aide & caretaker.
He quickly finds the people a point of fascination rather than fear & is additionally tended to by a beautiful, young, bare-breasted maiden with lovely skin & blue eyes named Fayaway, a setting that may have made many early readers blush & caused concern for the book's publishers in both the U.S. & the U.K. We quickly learn that the Marquesans are what we might call polyamorous.
Meanwhile, Tinor, (Kory-Kory's mother) prepares a compote of breadfruit, coconut & local ingredients to nourish Tom & Toby. After being fed & bathed, they are taken to a religious shrine, "Hoolah-Hoolah", a male-only site built on multiple terraces. Our narrator confides that the people who are acting as hosts "enjoy a perfect freedom from care & anxiety, living in an atmosphere of perpetual summer." Their stay is further enhanced by an alcoholic concoction called "Arva", partly narcotic in nature.
When Toby is permitted to go in search of medicine via a visiting ship, with the intent of curing Tom's festering leg wound,local remedies being insufficient, Tom is left alone. And when Toby fails to return, it becomes clear that Tom is a well-tended & even beloved prisoner, hardly free to leave the tribal encampment. Still, he is distracted by the life of the people who have so gracefully accepted his presence in their midst. Freedom might come at a heavy price but then why would he wish to leave paradise?
I was well-disposed to think that I was in "Happy Valley" and that there was nought but a world of care & anxiety away from this place. As I extended my wanderings in the valley, I grew more familiar with its inmates. I was fain to confess that, despite the disadvantages of his condition, the Polynesian savage, surrounded by all the luxurious provisions of nature, enjoyed an infinitely happier, though certainly a less intellectual existence, than the self-complacent European.Melville, through his narrator, questions whether the occasional consumption of human flesh, exceeds the savagery practiced until recently in England, including "beheadings for various offenses, with the head placed on a pike in public view, a body carved into 4 quarters & the bowels dragged out & thrown into a fire". The author shudders to consider what changes well-meaning missionaries will bring to the Marquesas Islands.
In a primitive state of society, the enjoyments of life, though few & simple, are spread over a great extent & are unalloyed; but Civilization, for every advantage she imparts, holds a hundred evils in reserve--jealousies, social rivalries, family dissensions & the thousand self-inflicted discomforts of refined life, which make up in units the swelling aggregate of human misery, are unknown among these unsophisticated people.
While Typee does deal with Tom's seemingly pleasant captivity & his eventual plan to escape, it is clear that Melville's intent is also to juxtapose the image of a kind of Eden that he experienced after his own mutiny with the stresses of civilization, which "does not engross all the virtues of humanity, not even her full share of them."
He does comment that "for these unsophisticated savages, the history of a day is the history of a life", suggesting perhaps that for someone accustomed to a more western, "civilized lifestyle", even paradise can grow stale in time.
There is detail about a Feast of the Calabashes, with some religious overtones & while the locals do weave skirts of "Tappa", fashioned from the bark of a Mulberry tree, they are mostly "clad in nature's costumes", with voluminous descriptions of the beauty of the people, both men & women and a suggestion that Tom (Melville) embraces them in part because they are light-skinned, as compared to those he has encountered in the Sandwich Islands, today's Hawaii. "In beauty of form, they surpassed anything I have ever seen, with not a single deformity & nearly every individual capable of being taken for a sculptor's model."
I found it pleasant to spend time among the Marquesans with Herman Melville via this hybrid tale, even though to many readers some of the prose may seem rather heavy-handed, including a rather constant drumbeat that "where civilization has been introduced among those we call "savages", she has scattered her vices & withheld her blessings."
Missionaries in particular are tarred & feathered. The format used to tell this story, the most popular of Melville's writing in the author's lifetime, is roughly akin to another very blended story, the epic Moby Dick.
Some of the language Melville employs is at times overly formal or now somewhat archaic, an example being when he refers to Tom's caretaker, Kory-Kory as his "indefatigable servitor"& inserts words like "scapegrace", an unprincipled person. However, the book was written 175 years ago & language is evolutionary. A glossary of terminology used by residents of Nuku Hiva would also have been helpful.
*In my version of the book, there is an excellent preface by John Bryant, along with explanatory commentary comparing the various editions of Typee, plus appendices covering the British capture of the Hawaiian Islands and "The Story of Toby", resolving his disappearance & eventual reemergence for the reader.
**Within my review are images of the author, Herman Melville; Nuku Hiva looking out to sea; Marquesans on Nuku Hiva in traditional attire.
January 19, 2009
Don't read this book if you want to lie around and dream of coconuts and natives and bare-breasted maidens. Unlike those after him (like London, Twain, and Stevenson), Melville plays with the instability of western illusions about foreign places and people. You'll have to read this between the lines, of course. This edition is awesome; the editor Sanborn is a bad-ass Melville scholar who wrote THE best book on cannibalism in the South Pacific (trust me, I've done my research!). The supplementary materials are SO SO helpful (there's a section on taboo, on tattooing, on cannibals, and on sex in the SP) and Sanborn introduces the book perfectly.
June 19, 2019
A terrific adventure story (based on a real-life experience) interspersed with commentary about the daily life and habits of the people of the Typee Valley in the Marquesas Islands. There are lengthy descriptions of food and cooking methods, housing, clothing, personal hygiene and grooming, rituals, sleeping habits, language, relationships. It might be considered a bit pedantic at times, but I listened in small daily doses for several weeks and found it exciting, educational, and amusing. Librivox reader Michael Sherer does a wonderful job.
October 11, 2016
Living Among Cannibals
Melville was surely able to count on abhorrence-fuelled fascination with the topic of cannibalism when he published his first work Typee in 1846, all the more so as he cleverly created the impression of its being based on the experiences he had when he lived among the natives of the South Pacific island of Nuku Hiva in 1842. This may partly be true, but there hardly remains any doubt that Melville also used his own imagination as well as other people’s travel reports when writing Typee, his use of poetic license already becoming apparent in the fact that his actual sojourn among the Polynesians lasted one month only, whereas the narrator of Typee spent four months in the valley of the cannibals.
Those who come to Typee with gory expectations of detailed descriptions of cannibalistic rites and atrocities will, however, be disappointed because Melville aptly refuses his readers a ticket into a cabinet of monstrosities and gives a rather neutral and understanding picture of the life of what he still calls the “savages” (see below, however). Admittedly it is tinged with the frame of reference of “civilization” and not free from Rousseauistic notions of “noble savages” when, for instance, life in the valley of Typee is described as virtually unimpaired by worries and hard labour, and as being characterized instead by the Typees’ ability to enjoy the simple pleasure of life due to their being blessed with a climate that provides ample food and drink without the need to fight for them. Somewhat longingly, the narrator muses in the following vein:
He also becomes philosophical in the light of the pleasures awaiting the inhabitants of this island Cockaigne:
And yet, for all the easy-going peacefulness of Typee life and its temptations, for example in the form of the perfect island beauty Fayaway, the narrator never for a moment considers burning his bridges and settling down among the Typees for good, but he always evinces a strong inclination to return to civilization, much to the dismay of his hosts. This can, of course, partly be explained with a view to his fear of their cannibalistic customs – which start looming large towards the end of the book, when he makes some gruesome discoveries –, but there is probably also the unspoken awareness that for him such a mode of life will simply not do:
Passages like the one quoted above might invite the rather hackneyed criticism of those who detect the “white male gaze” in the writings of white male novelists and pride themselves on having made a groundbreaking moral discovery, but then it should be noted that Melville was quite sympathetic with the Typee and other inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands, severely criticizing the Greek gift of European civilization spread around the globe:
Time and again, the narrator of Typee muses on the unwholesome influence of European missionaries and merchants who think that for some reason or other they have the right to impose their own way of life on the populations they “discover” and that their technological superiority makes them some higher order of human beings.
Typee is anything but a swiftly-moving narration, and instead it takes the form of a travelogue but you can already clearly see the handwriting and the inimitable style of one of the world’s most refined writers on its pages. Strangely and maybe not so strangely, among his contemporaries, Melville was renowned especially for having written Typee and lived “among the cannibals”.
Melville was surely able to count on abhorrence-fuelled fascination with the topic of cannibalism when he published his first work Typee in 1846, all the more so as he cleverly created the impression of its being based on the experiences he had when he lived among the natives of the South Pacific island of Nuku Hiva in 1842. This may partly be true, but there hardly remains any doubt that Melville also used his own imagination as well as other people’s travel reports when writing Typee, his use of poetic license already becoming apparent in the fact that his actual sojourn among the Polynesians lasted one month only, whereas the narrator of Typee spent four months in the valley of the cannibals.
Those who come to Typee with gory expectations of detailed descriptions of cannibalistic rites and atrocities will, however, be disappointed because Melville aptly refuses his readers a ticket into a cabinet of monstrosities and gives a rather neutral and understanding picture of the life of what he still calls the “savages” (see below, however). Admittedly it is tinged with the frame of reference of “civilization” and not free from Rousseauistic notions of “noble savages” when, for instance, life in the valley of Typee is described as virtually unimpaired by worries and hard labour, and as being characterized instead by the Typees’ ability to enjoy the simple pleasure of life due to their being blessed with a climate that provides ample food and drink without the need to fight for them. Somewhat longingly, the narrator muses in the following vein:
”The native strength of their constitutions is no way shown more emphatically than in the quantity of sleep they can endure. To many of them, indeed, life is little else than an often interrupted and luxurious nap.”
He also becomes philosophical in the light of the pleasures awaiting the inhabitants of this island Cockaigne:
”A gentleman of Typee can bring up a numerous family of children and give them all a highly respectable cannibal education, with infinitely less toil and anxiety than he expends in the simple process of striking a light; whilst a poor European artisan, who through the instrumentality of a lucifer performs the same operation in one second, 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 parents, pluck from the branches of every tree around them.”
And yet, for all the easy-going peacefulness of Typee life and its temptations, for example in the form of the perfect island beauty Fayaway, the narrator never for a moment considers burning his bridges and settling down among the Typees for good, but he always evinces a strong inclination to return to civilization, much to the dismay of his hosts. This can, of course, partly be explained with a view to his fear of their cannibalistic customs – which start looming large towards the end of the book, when he makes some gruesome discoveries –, but there is probably also the unspoken awareness that for him such a mode of life will simply not do:
” In my various wanderings through the vale, and as I became better acquainted with the character of its inhabitants, I was more and more struck with the light-hearted joyousness that everywhere prevailed. The minds of these simple savages, unoccupied by matters of graver moment, were capable of deriving the utmost delight from circumstances which would have passed unnoticed in more intelligent communities. All their enjoyment, indeed, seemed to be made up of the little trifling incidents of the passing hour; but these diminutive items swelled altogether to an amount of happiness seldom experienced by more enlightened individuals, whose pleasures are drawn from more elevated but rarer sources.
What community, for instance, of refined and intellectual mortals would derive the least satisfaction from shooting pop-guns? The mere supposition of such a thing being possible would excite their indignation, and yet the whole population of Typee did little else for ten days but occupy themselves with that childish amusement, fairly screaming, too, with the delight it afforded them.”
Passages like the one quoted above might invite the rather hackneyed criticism of those who detect the “white male gaze” in the writings of white male novelists and pride themselves on having made a groundbreaking moral discovery, but then it should be noted that Melville was quite sympathetic with the Typee and other inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands, severely criticizing the Greek gift of European civilization spread around the globe:
”How often is the term ‘savages’ incorrectly applied! None really deserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or by travellers. They have discovered heathens and barbarians whom by horrible cruelties they have exasperated into savages. It may be asserted without fear of contradictions that in all the cases of outrages committed by Polynesians, Europeans have at some time or other been the aggressors, and that the cruel and bloodthirsty disposition of some of the islanders is mainly to be ascribed to the influence of such examples.”
Time and again, the narrator of Typee muses on the unwholesome influence of European missionaries and merchants who think that for some reason or other they have the right to impose their own way of life on the populations they “discover” and that their technological superiority makes them some higher order of human beings.
Typee is anything but a swiftly-moving narration, and instead it takes the form of a travelogue but you can already clearly see the handwriting and the inimitable style of one of the world’s most refined writers on its pages. Strangely and maybe not so strangely, among his contemporaries, Melville was renowned especially for having written Typee and lived “among the cannibals”.
February 16, 2016
Revision 16/2/16: I found a subversive quote and made stylistic edits.
Typee is a fascinating and surprising account of South Sea islander life in the mid-nineteenth century.
The story starts as an adventure tale with young sailors Tommo and Toby jumping ship as the whaler Dolly replenishes her supplies in the Marquesas Islands. The runaways flee through the jungle, into the hands of the Typee, the most dreaded of the warring cannibal tribes whose enemies the Happars live in the next valley.
At this point the story changes into an account of life with the Typees. Tommo (the name given to our narrator by the Typees) observes their daily lives, with its routines and seasonal activities, culture and pastimes. When Tommo is immobilised with an infected leg, Toby departs to seek help. Tommo is well looked after by the Typees, especially his personal servant Kory-Kory, and spends four months subject to the tender mercies of the tribe. While aspects of their culture are hidden from him – their cannibalistic activities and some of their ceremonies Tommo learns much of the way they live: their food (breadfruit, cocoanuts and fish), skills and crafts.
While a work of fiction should stand on its own without reference to the circumstances of its production, it is sometimes instructive to do so. Some months into voyage on a whaler, young Herman Melville did jump ship in the Marquesas Islands and spent three weeks there. As a result we get a convincing account of a strange world. There are compelling portraits of the dignified king, Mehevi, the priest, Kory-Kory the servant, Manoo, a striking warrior who managed to acquire some English- he spent some time in Sidney (sic) - and above all a native girl Fayaway.
Although occasionally using the term ‘noble savage’, Melville takes quite a sophisticated view of the Typee culture, comparing it, often favourably, with his own civilisation. The natives are happy, never argue or remonstrate and are healthy with little noticeable disfigurement. They are unencumbered by land titles, money, industry and corruption. Yet he doesn’t paint the Typee community as idyllic: he knows he needs modern medicine for his leg, he sees the rigidity of a society where women are restricted and he abhors some Typee customs - cannibalism (especially following a skirmish with the Happars), and somewhat ironically given present day attitudes, tattooing.
Having observed the effort the natives are required to make to keep their fire alight, Melville reflects upon the differeneces between the native society and his own:
If we put ourselves back into the middle of the nineteenth century we can appreciate the value and interest of Melville’s reportage. The right word is captivating. Tommo was captivated by the society he found, the nobility of it and the kindnesses he received, but he also knew he was captive in another way. He would not be allowed to leave easily and so it turns out.
For me the most delightful part of the book was Tommos’s relationship with Fayaway, which is unexpectedly erotic, for example when sailing on a lake with Tommo, she takes off her sheet-like garment to use as a sail.
Typee is a fascinating and surprising account of South Sea islander life in the mid-nineteenth century.
The story starts as an adventure tale with young sailors Tommo and Toby jumping ship as the whaler Dolly replenishes her supplies in the Marquesas Islands. The runaways flee through the jungle, into the hands of the Typee, the most dreaded of the warring cannibal tribes whose enemies the Happars live in the next valley.
At this point the story changes into an account of life with the Typees. Tommo (the name given to our narrator by the Typees) observes their daily lives, with its routines and seasonal activities, culture and pastimes. When Tommo is immobilised with an infected leg, Toby departs to seek help. Tommo is well looked after by the Typees, especially his personal servant Kory-Kory, and spends four months subject to the tender mercies of the tribe. While aspects of their culture are hidden from him – their cannibalistic activities and some of their ceremonies Tommo learns much of the way they live: their food (breadfruit, cocoanuts and fish), skills and crafts.
While a work of fiction should stand on its own without reference to the circumstances of its production, it is sometimes instructive to do so. Some months into voyage on a whaler, young Herman Melville did jump ship in the Marquesas Islands and spent three weeks there. As a result we get a convincing account of a strange world. There are compelling portraits of the dignified king, Mehevi, the priest, Kory-Kory the servant, Manoo, a striking warrior who managed to acquire some English- he spent some time in Sidney (sic) - and above all a native girl Fayaway.
Although occasionally using the term ‘noble savage’, Melville takes quite a sophisticated view of the Typee culture, comparing it, often favourably, with his own civilisation. The natives are happy, never argue or remonstrate and are healthy with little noticeable disfigurement. They are unencumbered by land titles, money, industry and corruption. Yet he doesn’t paint the Typee community as idyllic: he knows he needs modern medicine for his leg, he sees the rigidity of a society where women are restricted and he abhors some Typee customs - cannibalism (especially following a skirmish with the Happars), and somewhat ironically given present day attitudes, tattooing.
Having observed the effort the natives are required to make to keep their fire alight, Melville reflects upon the differeneces between the native society and his own:
What a striking evidence does this operation furnish of the wide difference between the extreme of savage and civilized life. A gentleman of Typee can bring up a numerous family of children and give them all a highly respectable cannibal education, with infinitely less toil and anxiety than he expends in the simple process of striking a light; whilst a poor European artisan, who through the instrumentality of a lucifer performs the same operation in one second, 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 parents, pluck from the branches of every tree around them. (p91)
If we put ourselves back into the middle of the nineteenth century we can appreciate the value and interest of Melville’s reportage. The right word is captivating. Tommo was captivated by the society he found, the nobility of it and the kindnesses he received, but he also knew he was captive in another way. He would not be allowed to leave easily and so it turns out.
For me the most delightful part of the book was Tommos’s relationship with Fayaway, which is unexpectedly erotic, for example when sailing on a lake with Tommo, she takes off her sheet-like garment to use as a sail.
May 21, 2020
¡Allí, allí está Taipí! ¡Ah, esos sanguinarios caníbales, qué comida harían con nosotros si se nos metiera en la cabeza desembarcar! Pero dicen que no les gusta la carne de marinero: está demasiado salada. Eh, compañero, ¿qué te parecería que te echaran a tierra aquí, eh?
La primera novela que escribió Herman Melville es definitivamente autobiográfica con el simple detalle de cambiar su nombre por Tom, el del personaje principal de “Taipí”.
Melville, que siendo un joven de veintidós años, se embarcó en un barco ballenero, estuvo dando vueltas por el mundo por el lapso de tres años entre 1841 y 1844 y, como en el caso de esta novela, desertó de un barco, el Acushnet luego de un motín durante el amarre en la bahía de Nukuheva de las Islas Marquesas ubicadas en la Polinesia francesa. También es verídico que convivió con caníbales y de tal experiencia se desprende todo lo que sucede en esta novela ambientada en los Mares del Sur al igual que su siguientes novelas, Omoo y Mardi.
Indudablemente, esa paradisíaca zona ha influenciado a muchos autores. Podemos agregar a Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson y muy especialmente a Jack London con su libro de relatos “Cuentos de los Mares del Sur”.
En “Taipí” lo que abundan son las extensas descripciones del modo de vida de los indígenas y de sus costumbres, tal vez en exceso lo que hace que Melville se desentienda del argumento y de los hechos narrados y de este modo se pierde mucho el interés por lo que le suceda a Tom, para retomar recién sobre los últimos capítulos el hilo de lo que sucedió cuando su amigo Toby supuestamente huye de la aldea en la que están recluidos para no aparecer más.
En cierto modo, puedo reconocer que Melville se apoya fuertemente en la novela “Robinson Crusoe” de Daniel Defoe para narrar todo lo que le ocurre a Tom y a Toby cuando escapan del Dolly, el barco en el que habían abordado. Esto se nota puntualmente a la hora de sobrevivir los dos solos sin ningún tipo de ayuda.
En el caso de Tom, la compañía de Toby funciona a la inversa de lo que le ocurre a Crusoe con Viernes, aunque él nunca deja de estar rodeado de los caníbales que lo cuidan (y celan) durante su estadía en la cabaña.
El personaje de Toby no está inventado, sino que es una ficcionalizaci��n de un amigo real de Melville, que se llamaba Richard Tobias Greene.
La novela posee pocos personajes y está sostenida en estos dos, el joven de la tribu que cuida a Tom durante su convalecencia, llamado Kory-Kory, la bellísima ninfa Fayaway, de la que Tom está enamorado y también tiene gran importancia Mehevi, el jefe de la tribu.
El tema del canibalismo es otro de los puntos alrededor del cual gira toda la historia. Cuando Tom termina recalando en esta aldea nunca puede corroborar que los indígenas sean realmente caníbales y de este modo, mantiene el suspenso y la intriga en el lector penando por su vida y sin saber si saldrá con vida.
La tribu de los taipí viven separados por un monte de otra, más violenta y verdaderamente caníbal, los happar, con los que están continuamente en guerra, por lo que se sucederán hechos sangrientos que alimentarán la trama de la novela hasta el final.
Herman Melville, al igual que Fiódor Dostoievski tuvo un muy buen debut literario y comenzó a ser reconocido en el ambiente a partir de este y los siguientes dos libros que publicó y con el correr del tiempo se transformó en uno de los iniciadores de la literatura norteamericana junto con Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman y Henry Longfellow entre otros, y aún hoy seguimos leyendo sus apasionantes cuentos y novelas.
La primera novela que escribió Herman Melville es definitivamente autobiográfica con el simple detalle de cambiar su nombre por Tom, el del personaje principal de “Taipí”.
Melville, que siendo un joven de veintidós años, se embarcó en un barco ballenero, estuvo dando vueltas por el mundo por el lapso de tres años entre 1841 y 1844 y, como en el caso de esta novela, desertó de un barco, el Acushnet luego de un motín durante el amarre en la bahía de Nukuheva de las Islas Marquesas ubicadas en la Polinesia francesa. También es verídico que convivió con caníbales y de tal experiencia se desprende todo lo que sucede en esta novela ambientada en los Mares del Sur al igual que su siguientes novelas, Omoo y Mardi.
Indudablemente, esa paradisíaca zona ha influenciado a muchos autores. Podemos agregar a Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson y muy especialmente a Jack London con su libro de relatos “Cuentos de los Mares del Sur”.
En “Taipí” lo que abundan son las extensas descripciones del modo de vida de los indígenas y de sus costumbres, tal vez en exceso lo que hace que Melville se desentienda del argumento y de los hechos narrados y de este modo se pierde mucho el interés por lo que le suceda a Tom, para retomar recién sobre los últimos capítulos el hilo de lo que sucedió cuando su amigo Toby supuestamente huye de la aldea en la que están recluidos para no aparecer más.
En cierto modo, puedo reconocer que Melville se apoya fuertemente en la novela “Robinson Crusoe” de Daniel Defoe para narrar todo lo que le ocurre a Tom y a Toby cuando escapan del Dolly, el barco en el que habían abordado. Esto se nota puntualmente a la hora de sobrevivir los dos solos sin ningún tipo de ayuda.
En el caso de Tom, la compañía de Toby funciona a la inversa de lo que le ocurre a Crusoe con Viernes, aunque él nunca deja de estar rodeado de los caníbales que lo cuidan (y celan) durante su estadía en la cabaña.
El personaje de Toby no está inventado, sino que es una ficcionalizaci��n de un amigo real de Melville, que se llamaba Richard Tobias Greene.
La novela posee pocos personajes y está sostenida en estos dos, el joven de la tribu que cuida a Tom durante su convalecencia, llamado Kory-Kory, la bellísima ninfa Fayaway, de la que Tom está enamorado y también tiene gran importancia Mehevi, el jefe de la tribu.
El tema del canibalismo es otro de los puntos alrededor del cual gira toda la historia. Cuando Tom termina recalando en esta aldea nunca puede corroborar que los indígenas sean realmente caníbales y de este modo, mantiene el suspenso y la intriga en el lector penando por su vida y sin saber si saldrá con vida.
La tribu de los taipí viven separados por un monte de otra, más violenta y verdaderamente caníbal, los happar, con los que están continuamente en guerra, por lo que se sucederán hechos sangrientos que alimentarán la trama de la novela hasta el final.
Herman Melville, al igual que Fiódor Dostoievski tuvo un muy buen debut literario y comenzó a ser reconocido en el ambiente a partir de este y los siguientes dos libros que publicó y con el correr del tiempo se transformó en uno de los iniciadores de la literatura norteamericana junto con Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman y Henry Longfellow entre otros, y aún hoy seguimos leyendo sus apasionantes cuentos y novelas.
Read
February 16, 2021While ostensibly a memoir, Typee reads like a 19th Century boys' adventure story – and a damn good one! Here our dashing hero is held captive on the ISLE OF DANGER!! only to be confronted by CANNIBAL WARRIORS!! many of whom are NOBLE SAVAGES!! while the chicks have SEXY COCONUT TITS!! before he makes his DARING ESCAPE!! You get the idea.
But Melville was a cut above, and his observations of Polynesian life were remarkably acute. He seemed to have real empathy with the people he lived among, and he rightly cursed the coming of the white man's religion and empire, and feared the diseases and pests that “civilization” was already bringing. I can even forgive him a certain measure of his extreme horniness for island girls, given that this attitude would have been considered pretty damn progressive for the time.
But Melville was a cut above, and his observations of Polynesian life were remarkably acute. He seemed to have real empathy with the people he lived among, and he rightly cursed the coming of the white man's religion and empire, and feared the diseases and pests that “civilization” was already bringing. I can even forgive him a certain measure of his extreme horniness for island girls, given that this attitude would have been considered pretty damn progressive for the time.
August 5, 2016
As a young sailor, Herman Melville abandoned his ship in the Marquesas and lived for awhile among natives who had a reputation for being fierce warriors and cannibals. This book, Melville's first, is a fictionalized retelling of that experience. It was an instant success and gained it author much fame and a little fortune. At the time it was considered quite sensational, but many twitter-brained 21st century readers seem to find it slow. Ah, well.
The most interesting part of the book is the narrator's (and, we can only assume, the author's) attitude towards the natives. On the one hand he looks down upon their "savagery" but he also makes mention of the numerous ways in which they are superior to so-called "civilized" peoples. Most telling, I think, is how he opposes the European intervention in the lives of all pacific islanders. He writes that the religious and political influence of Europe over the Pacific natives has only brought disaster to the islanders. To write such things in the 1840's must certainly be remarkable, and I wonder if this is why Melville chose to write his memoir as a novel - that he might put words into the mouth of a narrator that might be too unpopular to say himself.
The writing is great. There are already hints of the humor and deep insight that would be developed to greater effect later. Yet, even as Melville developed into a better writer this first book would always be the most popular of his during his lifetime. People like the sensational stuff, and what is more sensational than cannibalism? He could never quite repeat the success of his first book and when he wrote Moby Dick it was so unpopular with the reading public that his career as a writer was effectively finished. Ah, well.
The most interesting part of the book is the narrator's (and, we can only assume, the author's) attitude towards the natives. On the one hand he looks down upon their "savagery" but he also makes mention of the numerous ways in which they are superior to so-called "civilized" peoples. Most telling, I think, is how he opposes the European intervention in the lives of all pacific islanders. He writes that the religious and political influence of Europe over the Pacific natives has only brought disaster to the islanders. To write such things in the 1840's must certainly be remarkable, and I wonder if this is why Melville chose to write his memoir as a novel - that he might put words into the mouth of a narrator that might be too unpopular to say himself.
The writing is great. There are already hints of the humor and deep insight that would be developed to greater effect later. Yet, even as Melville developed into a better writer this first book would always be the most popular of his during his lifetime. People like the sensational stuff, and what is more sensational than cannibalism? He could never quite repeat the success of his first book and when he wrote Moby Dick it was so unpopular with the reading public that his career as a writer was effectively finished. Ah, well.
March 27, 2024
Typee
By Herman Melville (1846-1891)
We are in 1842, in Polynesia, on the island of Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas.
Melville recounts his adventures as a runaway from the whaler “Dolly”. He had been serving as a sailor for six months and could no longer bear the ill-treatment on board. On the day of their land leave, he, Tom together with his friend Toby, climbed the hills at the centre of the island. They had hoped to find plenty of fruit but found none. Progress was steep and barred by vegetation. Exhausted and Tom wounded they suffered. Hesitating they had to decide which of the valleys they would have to descend. One would be to the friendly Hapaas, the other to the Typee, the cannibals. Unknowingly they choose the wrong one. On the way down they had to follow steep waterfalls, arriving exhausted there was no way back. Luckily for them, they were received with good grace and hospitality. They got food and a place to sleep in the house of the chief. All seemed well except that they were not allowed to move to the beach from where they were hoping to find an escape route when they were ready to leave. Only Toby was allowed to go to try and find medical help for Tom. He goes but does not come back. Tom feared the worst, after, one day he discovered accidentally three shrink heads hidden in bags inside the chief's home. During this time Tom fell in love with a beautiful native girl, Fayaway. One day a group of warriors exchanged hostilities with the neighboring tribe. In the end, they brought back three slain enemies from their expedition. Tom is secretly watching a cannibal feast over these victims and feares being the next one in line. What seems like a last-minute miracle, and with the help of his adoptive family he gets word from the beach. A rowboat from a new whaler has come to make an offer for his release. Half running and half being retained he succeeds in boarding the boat, killing one of his fierce followers and getting off, leaving Fayaway crying on the beach.
In an afterword, Melville recounts his re-meeting with Toby a year after this adventure. Toby had been hired by another ship and did not have the credibility and means to send help to Tom.
By Herman Melville (1846-1891)
We are in 1842, in Polynesia, on the island of Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas.
Melville recounts his adventures as a runaway from the whaler “Dolly”. He had been serving as a sailor for six months and could no longer bear the ill-treatment on board. On the day of their land leave, he, Tom together with his friend Toby, climbed the hills at the centre of the island. They had hoped to find plenty of fruit but found none. Progress was steep and barred by vegetation. Exhausted and Tom wounded they suffered. Hesitating they had to decide which of the valleys they would have to descend. One would be to the friendly Hapaas, the other to the Typee, the cannibals. Unknowingly they choose the wrong one. On the way down they had to follow steep waterfalls, arriving exhausted there was no way back. Luckily for them, they were received with good grace and hospitality. They got food and a place to sleep in the house of the chief. All seemed well except that they were not allowed to move to the beach from where they were hoping to find an escape route when they were ready to leave. Only Toby was allowed to go to try and find medical help for Tom. He goes but does not come back. Tom feared the worst, after, one day he discovered accidentally three shrink heads hidden in bags inside the chief's home. During this time Tom fell in love with a beautiful native girl, Fayaway. One day a group of warriors exchanged hostilities with the neighboring tribe. In the end, they brought back three slain enemies from their expedition. Tom is secretly watching a cannibal feast over these victims and feares being the next one in line. What seems like a last-minute miracle, and with the help of his adoptive family he gets word from the beach. A rowboat from a new whaler has come to make an offer for his release. Half running and half being retained he succeeds in boarding the boat, killing one of his fierce followers and getting off, leaving Fayaway crying on the beach.
In an afterword, Melville recounts his re-meeting with Toby a year after this adventure. Toby had been hired by another ship and did not have the credibility and means to send help to Tom.
September 21, 2013
It ain't no Moby Dick but it does feature cannibalism and polyandry, two of the greatest things ever conceived of by mankind.
Melville's first novel is his barely fictionalized account of his escape from a shitty employer on a whaling ship and how he ended up living amongst the Typee in the Marquesas Islands around the time the French took control. Like Dick, Typee has a lot of sections of fact which round out the narrative part of the story and which feed off of the narrator's desires and fears. These segues are, respectively, a) free-love fuckin' and b) eating human flesh. The first is acceptable and discussed in the greater context of what Melville sees as the nobility of these people. Much of the novel is given over to the excoriation of European missionary practices and the Anglo-Gallic poisoning of the native cultures of these people. What could be interpreted as their indolence and frank, open sexual mores (he watches the chief in a threeway) he instead interprets as an idyllic, carefree, simplistic life. Like Thoreau with orgies, maybe. The rest of the novel is given over to the second theme: these people are freakin' cannibals who are gonna eat me. Indeed, the narrator is consumed with trying to understand why else, if not for food, the locals insist on keeping him in their village. He discusses their bizarre rituals and habits, their wars with the next valley over, and, finally, finds out that, yes, they do eat other goddamn people.
Typee lacks the narrative drive of Dick, but, like that other great 19th century chronicler of human ills, Dickens, Melville is such an outstanding prose-maker that you tend to overlook the flaws.
Melville's first novel is his barely fictionalized account of his escape from a shitty employer on a whaling ship and how he ended up living amongst the Typee in the Marquesas Islands around the time the French took control. Like Dick, Typee has a lot of sections of fact which round out the narrative part of the story and which feed off of the narrator's desires and fears. These segues are, respectively, a) free-love fuckin' and b) eating human flesh. The first is acceptable and discussed in the greater context of what Melville sees as the nobility of these people. Much of the novel is given over to the excoriation of European missionary practices and the Anglo-Gallic poisoning of the native cultures of these people. What could be interpreted as their indolence and frank, open sexual mores (he watches the chief in a threeway) he instead interprets as an idyllic, carefree, simplistic life. Like Thoreau with orgies, maybe. The rest of the novel is given over to the second theme: these people are freakin' cannibals who are gonna eat me. Indeed, the narrator is consumed with trying to understand why else, if not for food, the locals insist on keeping him in their village. He discusses their bizarre rituals and habits, their wars with the next valley over, and, finally, finds out that, yes, they do eat other goddamn people.
Typee lacks the narrative drive of Dick, but, like that other great 19th century chronicler of human ills, Dickens, Melville is such an outstanding prose-maker that you tend to overlook the flaws.
February 18, 2014
أستهل مراجعتي باعتراف مضحك ... لقد قررت يوما ما ألا أقرأ رواية موبي ديك أبدا أبدا بسبب عقدة نفسية تكونت لدي من حلقة كارتون
Tom & Jerry
تدعى
Dicky Moe
وهذا هو الرابط للحلقة http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=flVePKLvke0
-_-
وعلمت من خلال كتاب ثلاثة قرون من الأدب أن هيرمان ملفيل هو كاتبها ولحسن الحظ أن النص الذي جاء في الكتاب المذكور كان قصة بارتلبي نساخ العقود أو بارتلبي النساخ بترجمة ممتازة وعلمت من خلال الكتاب أيضا عن هذه الرواية - محل المراجعة - التي هي عبارة عن أحداث حقيقية كان المؤلف هو البطل فيها
للمؤلف طريقة في جعل القارئ يحبس أنفاسه في انتظار لحظة التنوير وتأخيرها قدر المستطاع ... وقد انتهت بارتلبي ناسخ العقود بمفاجأة تلخصت في عدم جود أي نوع من التنوير بشأن بارتلبي، وجاءت لحظة التنوير هنا بشكل يدفع للتساؤل مع التسليم لوجهة نظر المؤلف صاحب التجربة المرتعب !
الرواية غريبة حقا ومثيرة وقد استحقت شهرتها التي اكتسبتها من كونها أحداثا حقيقية عن قبيلة ومغامرة غير اعتياديتين
February 24, 2022
An opportunity to live amongst a native tribe as an honored guest (albeit also a captive) doing nothing but sleeping, eating, documenting and cavorting with the ladies is sadly a thing lost long ago when civilization spread and devoured all adventure. At least we have this book that isn't really a plot driven adventure but a travel journal. Hawthorne takes in and describes with all his sense of life around him and eloquently puts it all down to paper for future sad laptop jockeys with a book fetish like myself to enjoy.
I would have stayed on the island, cannibalism or no.
I would have stayed on the island, cannibalism or no.
August 15, 2016
I liked this book. I didn't love it, I just kind of liked it. Not to say that it is not a good book because it is, it's just that I only kind of liked it. I mean, Mr. Herman's a great writer and all, and so this book has great writing in it, but it's just that maybe there just wasn't enough of a story in it to make it a book that I would love, however great the writing. Great writing is no doubt great, but a novel's a novel and not just great writing. A great novel, a novel that I would love, is a story that is a story made out of great writing that I will love and continue to love. I never want to eat people.
September 2, 2020
ספר מעניין ״טייפי״, במיוחד כשמדובר בספר ביכורים של סופר נחשב כמלוויל. סיפור המסגרת מפורט בתקציר אז לא אלאה אתכם בכך שנית.
החלק הראשון בסיפור מתאר את מסע הייסורים של מלוויל הצעיר ששימש כמלח באונייה ״דולי״, מסע שנמשך כחצי שנה עד שהאוניה עגנה לחופי האי נוקיהיבה. מלוויל וחברו טובי ניצלו הזדמנות וברחו לעומק האי מתוך כוונה להגיע לעמק שבט האפאר ולשהות עמם עד שהאוניה תפליג בהיעדרם. מלוויל מתאר את מסעם הרגלי ורצוף המכשולים ואת תקוות השניים שלא להגיע בטעות לשטח אנשי שבט הטייפי, הידועים כקניבלים אכזריים.
בסופו של דבר השניים מגיעים לחרדתם דווקא לשטח הטייפי אבל מתקבלים להפתעתם בזרועות פתוחות. זמן קצר לאחר הגיעם, טובי יוצא לאי הסמוך על מנת להביא למלוויל תרופה לרגלו הפצועה אולם לחרדתו של מלוויל לא חזר ורק עם סיום הסיפור נודעו לו קורותיו של טובי והסיבות שמנעו ממנו לחזור ולעזור לחברו.
מלוויל מקדיש חלק ניכר מהספר לתיאור אורחות ושגרת חייהם של אנשי ונשות השבט ועל הדרך עורך השוואות בין העולם ה״תרבותי״ הנוצרי לבין מי שמכונים ״הפראים הקניבלים״ כאשר הוא מביע ביקורת נוקבת על הארצות הקולוניאליסטיות ומזכיר כמה מפעולותיהן הברבריות מול הפראים התמימים במטרה לאלפם ולהמיר את דתם לנצרות ומעמת את הסיפורים המפחידים אודו�� הפראים מול המציאות שחווה בפועל. בשלב זה הסיפור כבר הופך למעין דו״ח אנתרופולוגי שאני מניח שעניין יותר את הקוראים כאשר הספר פורסם מאשר את הקורא של המאה העשרים ואחת. מלוויל, שהוחזק למעשה כבן ערובה בידי הטייפי, למרות שהורעפו עליו אהבה ותשומת לב מרובה, לא הצליח להבין מדוע הם מתעקשים להחזיק בו, כמו דברים נוספים שמניעיהם של הפראים לא היו ברורים לו שנבעו מקשיי שפה והבדלים תרבותיים. החלק האחרון בסיפור מוקדש לסיפור בריחתו של מלוויל וכאמור למפגש עם חברו טובי ולסיפורו.
בסה״כ הספר מומלץ, אם כי מצריך סבלנות בחלק האנתרופולוגי.
החלק הראשון בסיפור מתאר את מסע הייסורים של מלוויל הצעיר ששימש כמלח באונייה ״דולי״, מסע שנמשך כחצי שנה עד שהאוניה עגנה לחופי האי נוקיהיבה. מלוויל וחברו טובי ניצלו הזדמנות וברחו לעומק האי מתוך כוונה להגיע לעמק שבט האפאר ולשהות עמם עד שהאוניה תפליג בהיעדרם. מלוויל מתאר את מסעם הרגלי ורצוף המכשולים ואת תקוות השניים שלא להגיע בטעות לשטח אנשי שבט הטייפי, הידועים כקניבלים אכזריים.
בסופו של דבר השניים מגיעים לחרדתם דווקא לשטח הטייפי אבל מתקבלים להפתעתם בזרועות פתוחות. זמן קצר לאחר הגיעם, טובי יוצא לאי הסמוך על מנת להביא למלוויל תרופה לרגלו הפצועה אולם לחרדתו של מלוויל לא חזר ורק עם סיום הסיפור נודעו לו קורותיו של טובי והסיבות שמנעו ממנו לחזור ולעזור לחברו.
מלוויל מקדיש חלק ניכר מהספר לתיאור אורחות ושגרת חייהם של אנשי ונשות השבט ועל הדרך עורך השוואות בין העולם ה״תרבותי״ הנוצרי לבין מי שמכונים ״הפראים הקניבלים״ כאשר הוא מביע ביקורת נוקבת על הארצות הקולוניאליסטיות ומזכיר כמה מפעולותיהן הברבריות מול הפראים התמימים במטרה לאלפם ולהמיר את דתם לנצרות ומעמת את הסיפורים המפחידים אודו�� הפראים מול המציאות שחווה בפועל. בשלב זה הסיפור כבר הופך למעין דו״ח אנתרופולוגי שאני מניח שעניין יותר את הקוראים כאשר הספר פורסם מאשר את הקורא של המאה העשרים ואחת. מלוויל, שהוחזק למעשה כבן ערובה בידי הטייפי, למרות שהורעפו עליו אהבה ותשומת לב מרובה, לא הצליח להבין מדוע הם מתעקשים להחזיק בו, כמו דברים נוספים שמניעיהם של הפראים לא היו ברורים לו שנבעו מקשיי שפה והבדלים תרבותיים. החלק האחרון בסיפור מוקדש לסיפור בריחתו של מלוויל וכאמור למפגש עם חברו טובי ולסיפורו.
בסה״כ הספר מומלץ, אם כי מצריך סבלנות בחלק האנתרופולוגי.
June 2, 2014
Moby Dick is my favorite book of all time, and it's not even close. I figured if Typee was half as good, I'd have another book to love. It isn't half as good. It contains a lot of the dryness and descriptions of Moby Dick with none of the passion and deeper meaning. My rating is probably too low for what it is, which is a semi-autobiographical journey log, but for what I wanted, it did not deliver. Many of the chapters, Melville just breaks down the culture of the Typee people, and while I assume this was very fascinating to a less informed 19th century culture, to me, having technology and documentaries in my backpocket, it really doesn't reveal too much. It's still wonderfully written and great with descriptions, but there are lots of other books out there that deliver that, plus a good story, themes, characters, and whatever else. I don't see many people being recommended this book.
September 18, 2012
There is little evidence while reading Typee that its author would in only five years produce a major work of world literature such as Moby-Dick. There is the common fact that both of them are seagoing narratives that present much factual information delivered primarily to assure the reader of their authenticity as well as the proof that their author really does know something of the subject matter of which he is writing. Beyond that, however, they bear completely different intentions.
Accepted largely as a factual account, Typee does, in fact, rely heavily on fictional invention woven quite skillfully into an account that stems from Melville’s own experience among the Typee, a race of cannibals he encounters after deserting a whaling ship ruled by a tyrannical captain ported at the Marquesan island of Nukuheva in the South Pacific. Among other inventions, Melville expanded the three weeks he spent with the tribe into four months, although the perspective and attitudes of the narrator are most certainly shared with Melville.
And so this is really a novel/travelogue hybrid, or novel masquerading as a travelogue. It can be seen as an example of a particular type of story that has appeared in many guises in the more than 150 years since its original publication—the adventure of a Western white man who, through an extraordinary chain of events, becomes the captive of an alien and/or exotic race of people with strange and unique customs. Other examples range from numerous fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Dances With Wolves and Planet of the Apes.
Due to an infection in his leg, Melville (or Tommo, as he is called in the book) is kept by the Typees while his fellow escapee Toby is allowed to leave to seek medical help. Melville maintains a thread of tension throughout much of the remainder of the narrative. Tommo had learned to fear and dread this horrible tribe of cannibals but, surprisingly, they are very kind and solicitous of him. He wonders if they are merely being kind to lull him into a sense of complacency before they convert him into a special feast. They are benevolent captors that grant him extreme liberty within the parameters of his captivity, including the waiver of one of their taboos in tolerating his activities with the beautiful maiden Fayaway. Young women are not allowed in boats but upon Tommo’s insistence they allow her to join him in short rides. The paradisiacal aspects of this serene, largely quiet and slow-paced life become nightmarish whenever he contemplates the very real possibility that he may never be able to leave this idyllic culture and will live and die their captive. Although he acknowledges many virtues of their culture and comes to admire and respect many of them, he resists succumbing to their customs completely. One can certainly feel his horror as he evades a tattoo artist insistent upon marking up his face and his dread that the king may order that he become ‘one of them.’
Other reviewers have criticized Melville’s excessive descriptive passages. Yes, he goes on ad infinitum and tells me more than I would probably care to know about how to make tappas or how wonderful the taste of bread-fruit is but that is a characteristic not only of the true life adventures that were popular when Melville started publishing but of nineteenth century fiction in general, virtually all of which was produced before the emergence of the new narrative medium of film. It is also a practice that evolved with Melville into the extensive passages on whaling in Moby-Dick.
I am not sure I would have sought out this book if I did not know that this author would soon evolve into one of the great American novelists. However, I do have that knowledge and I know that this young writer already possesses a great narrative skill and a mastery of language, both of which will flourish even more fully in the next few years. This book is especially impressive coming from a young man who has not yet emerged from his twenties. Taken as an apprentice book from the author of Moby-Dick it is a noble accomplishment. Taken as a novel fairly successfully passed off as a true-life adventure I can admire its skill and artistry. It made such a large impression upon its contemporary audience that for many years afterward Herman Melville was referred to as ‘the man who lived among cannibals.’
Accepted largely as a factual account, Typee does, in fact, rely heavily on fictional invention woven quite skillfully into an account that stems from Melville’s own experience among the Typee, a race of cannibals he encounters after deserting a whaling ship ruled by a tyrannical captain ported at the Marquesan island of Nukuheva in the South Pacific. Among other inventions, Melville expanded the three weeks he spent with the tribe into four months, although the perspective and attitudes of the narrator are most certainly shared with Melville.
And so this is really a novel/travelogue hybrid, or novel masquerading as a travelogue. It can be seen as an example of a particular type of story that has appeared in many guises in the more than 150 years since its original publication—the adventure of a Western white man who, through an extraordinary chain of events, becomes the captive of an alien and/or exotic race of people with strange and unique customs. Other examples range from numerous fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Dances With Wolves and Planet of the Apes.
Due to an infection in his leg, Melville (or Tommo, as he is called in the book) is kept by the Typees while his fellow escapee Toby is allowed to leave to seek medical help. Melville maintains a thread of tension throughout much of the remainder of the narrative. Tommo had learned to fear and dread this horrible tribe of cannibals but, surprisingly, they are very kind and solicitous of him. He wonders if they are merely being kind to lull him into a sense of complacency before they convert him into a special feast. They are benevolent captors that grant him extreme liberty within the parameters of his captivity, including the waiver of one of their taboos in tolerating his activities with the beautiful maiden Fayaway. Young women are not allowed in boats but upon Tommo’s insistence they allow her to join him in short rides. The paradisiacal aspects of this serene, largely quiet and slow-paced life become nightmarish whenever he contemplates the very real possibility that he may never be able to leave this idyllic culture and will live and die their captive. Although he acknowledges many virtues of their culture and comes to admire and respect many of them, he resists succumbing to their customs completely. One can certainly feel his horror as he evades a tattoo artist insistent upon marking up his face and his dread that the king may order that he become ‘one of them.’
Other reviewers have criticized Melville’s excessive descriptive passages. Yes, he goes on ad infinitum and tells me more than I would probably care to know about how to make tappas or how wonderful the taste of bread-fruit is but that is a characteristic not only of the true life adventures that were popular when Melville started publishing but of nineteenth century fiction in general, virtually all of which was produced before the emergence of the new narrative medium of film. It is also a practice that evolved with Melville into the extensive passages on whaling in Moby-Dick.
I am not sure I would have sought out this book if I did not know that this author would soon evolve into one of the great American novelists. However, I do have that knowledge and I know that this young writer already possesses a great narrative skill and a mastery of language, both of which will flourish even more fully in the next few years. This book is especially impressive coming from a young man who has not yet emerged from his twenties. Taken as an apprentice book from the author of Moby-Dick it is a noble accomplishment. Taken as a novel fairly successfully passed off as a true-life adventure I can admire its skill and artistry. It made such a large impression upon its contemporary audience that for many years afterward Herman Melville was referred to as ‘the man who lived among cannibals.’
January 25, 2022
As far as a first novel is concerned, this is riveting stuff, and I can see this being the big hit that it was when it was first published. It reads like the dense journal of a seasoned adventurer, and Melville demonstrates a talent for painting a vivid picture. In particular, I enjoyed his musings on the Noble Savage perspective, as I felt he really meant what he said and was trying to give a fair assessment.
That being said, he will occasionally derail the story to describe, in great detail, various cultural aspects and considerations of the natives. It's interesting, to be sure, but it completely destroys any sense of narrative pacing.
Overall an engaging, if somewhat slow, adventure story that feels more or less as realistic as it is purported to be.
That being said, he will occasionally derail the story to describe, in great detail, various cultural aspects and considerations of the natives. It's interesting, to be sure, but it completely destroys any sense of narrative pacing.
Overall an engaging, if somewhat slow, adventure story that feels more or less as realistic as it is purported to be.
December 4, 2017
Cannibal Tours, the prequel
Two young American sailors jump ship in the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, to escape the harsh regime of a tyrannical whaling captain. They head for the hills, planning to hole up there till their ship departs. But, there's nothing to eat up there and they have not had the foresight to take any food with them. They must venture into the Polynesian `backlands' and throw themselves on the mercy of the locals. They know that there are two valleys, one inhabited by the peaceful, friendly Happars (Hapa'a ?) and the other by the fierce Typees, a group of notorious cannibals. After considerable hardship and feats of physical endurance they descend from the steep, volcanic ridges into a valley. But which one is it ? Uh-oh, you guessed it, it's the one where the Typees live. But lo and behold, the Typees turn out to be a most friendly, hospitable group providing food, shelter, clothing, and sex, not to mention a lazy lotus-eater's existence. Melville (for he did live with such a group in 1842) acknowledges that the Marquesans were far from savages, that their violent reputation probably stemmed from the treatment they'd received on the few occasions that Westerners contacted them. He criticizes the baneful influences of so-called "civilization" on Pacific islanders in general and is especially disparaging towards missionaries.
TYPEE is a novel, not a straightforward account of Melville's own stay. Tom, the protagonist, comes to realize that though the treatment he receives is benign, he is a prisoner. His friend disappears, but Tom, with a leg swollen by disease, cannot escape so easily. Having cannibalism always in his mind, Tom worries that he is being 'fattened up' for some horrible end. While Melville gives details of Pacific island life---daily routine, how to make tapa, breadfruit and its uses, houses, some details of war, funerals, and even cannibalism---his (Melville's) inability to speak much of the local Polynesian dialect hinders him from much understanding. Hence, his take on social class, on religion and ritual is from a totally uninformed point of view. Though he repeatedly claims that the people did almost no work, that is highly unlikely, even if their life must have been easier than the life of average people in the USA or England at the time. Readers of the 1840s, unlike those of today with access to television, the Internet, numerous films, and a myriad books, must have thrilled to read details of such a remote place and different culture, presented in such romantic, adventurous form. Despite the 19th century literary style, which might put off casual readers, TYPEE still holds your attention. Will Tom escape ? How ? If you are looking for a theological/philosophical treatise, forget it. This was a best seller in its day and made Melville's reputation. As for the Marquesans, well, there were perhaps 100,000 people there when Western ships first arrived. By 1900, only two thousand were left. Today there are still less than ten thousand; disease, violence, and alcohol did their dirty work. Melville wasn't just whistling Dixie. I enjoyed this book as much, if not more, than when I read it first at the age of twelve many moons ago.
Two young American sailors jump ship in the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, to escape the harsh regime of a tyrannical whaling captain. They head for the hills, planning to hole up there till their ship departs. But, there's nothing to eat up there and they have not had the foresight to take any food with them. They must venture into the Polynesian `backlands' and throw themselves on the mercy of the locals. They know that there are two valleys, one inhabited by the peaceful, friendly Happars (Hapa'a ?) and the other by the fierce Typees, a group of notorious cannibals. After considerable hardship and feats of physical endurance they descend from the steep, volcanic ridges into a valley. But which one is it ? Uh-oh, you guessed it, it's the one where the Typees live. But lo and behold, the Typees turn out to be a most friendly, hospitable group providing food, shelter, clothing, and sex, not to mention a lazy lotus-eater's existence. Melville (for he did live with such a group in 1842) acknowledges that the Marquesans were far from savages, that their violent reputation probably stemmed from the treatment they'd received on the few occasions that Westerners contacted them. He criticizes the baneful influences of so-called "civilization" on Pacific islanders in general and is especially disparaging towards missionaries.
TYPEE is a novel, not a straightforward account of Melville's own stay. Tom, the protagonist, comes to realize that though the treatment he receives is benign, he is a prisoner. His friend disappears, but Tom, with a leg swollen by disease, cannot escape so easily. Having cannibalism always in his mind, Tom worries that he is being 'fattened up' for some horrible end. While Melville gives details of Pacific island life---daily routine, how to make tapa, breadfruit and its uses, houses, some details of war, funerals, and even cannibalism---his (Melville's) inability to speak much of the local Polynesian dialect hinders him from much understanding. Hence, his take on social class, on religion and ritual is from a totally uninformed point of view. Though he repeatedly claims that the people did almost no work, that is highly unlikely, even if their life must have been easier than the life of average people in the USA or England at the time. Readers of the 1840s, unlike those of today with access to television, the Internet, numerous films, and a myriad books, must have thrilled to read details of such a remote place and different culture, presented in such romantic, adventurous form. Despite the 19th century literary style, which might put off casual readers, TYPEE still holds your attention. Will Tom escape ? How ? If you are looking for a theological/philosophical treatise, forget it. This was a best seller in its day and made Melville's reputation. As for the Marquesans, well, there were perhaps 100,000 people there when Western ships first arrived. By 1900, only two thousand were left. Today there are still less than ten thousand; disease, violence, and alcohol did their dirty work. Melville wasn't just whistling Dixie. I enjoyed this book as much, if not more, than when I read it first at the age of twelve many moons ago.
December 16, 2012
Melville's first book is a curious, unsatisfying, unlikely affair, which does show off Melville’s incipient facility with language and jokes and also his ability to build and maintain narrative tension; but the writing is irritatingly verbose and the whole book could be cut by a third without losing anything. Beyond that, this supposedly true narrative has been contradicted with facts that scholars have presented in the time since the book came out (facts that weren’t available to the readers in Melville’s time), and Melville’s conception of the Marquesas and their inhabitants is patently ridiculous, an Eden occupied by Rousseau’s noble savages. The episode at the end of the book, in which Melville escapes from the island, insults both the Marquesans and the reader. Melville’s portrait of himself is sly self-flattery masquerading as befuddlement, a Charlie Chaplin among the cannibals (who, contrary to Melville's claims, weren't actually cannibals in the first place).
Frankly, in this book Melville seems like the kind of liar you’d like to punch at a party: hiding a deep insecurity by blustering and puffing himself up by telling tall tales. His philosophical broadsides against missionaries are sort of interesting, especially since they go starkly against the prevailing attitude of his times, but his own stance toward the islanders is condescending at best, and his “philosophies” are internally inconsistent. Melville's observations of native life veer from the utterly baffled to the amazingly insightful, depending on whichever is most convenient for his story at the time, and his "insights" are either stolen or dubious.
Melville directly ripped off many of his descriptions of the island from the narrative of Reverend Charles Stewart, of the USS Vincennes, which visited the Marquesas in 1829 (Melville’s cousin, Midshipman Thomas Melville, was aboard that ship at the time), and he also appropriated material from the German naturalist and explorer Von Langsdorff and a Frenchman named Cabri, who had gone native on the Marquesas and lived there for nine years before returning to Paris in the company of Melville's uncle. Suffice it to say that Melville’s pattern of appropriating source material directly into his work was already apparent in his first book. This method of composition doesn’t really work in Typee and is done artlessly and shamelessly, but the book was a bestseller and made a name for the author, tempting him to further buffoonery with his next book, Omoo.
Frankly, in this book Melville seems like the kind of liar you’d like to punch at a party: hiding a deep insecurity by blustering and puffing himself up by telling tall tales. His philosophical broadsides against missionaries are sort of interesting, especially since they go starkly against the prevailing attitude of his times, but his own stance toward the islanders is condescending at best, and his “philosophies” are internally inconsistent. Melville's observations of native life veer from the utterly baffled to the amazingly insightful, depending on whichever is most convenient for his story at the time, and his "insights" are either stolen or dubious.
Melville directly ripped off many of his descriptions of the island from the narrative of Reverend Charles Stewart, of the USS Vincennes, which visited the Marquesas in 1829 (Melville’s cousin, Midshipman Thomas Melville, was aboard that ship at the time), and he also appropriated material from the German naturalist and explorer Von Langsdorff and a Frenchman named Cabri, who had gone native on the Marquesas and lived there for nine years before returning to Paris in the company of Melville's uncle. Suffice it to say that Melville’s pattern of appropriating source material directly into his work was already apparent in his first book. This method of composition doesn’t really work in Typee and is done artlessly and shamelessly, but the book was a bestseller and made a name for the author, tempting him to further buffoonery with his next book, Omoo.
February 2, 2024
Typee is Melville’s earliest work and is a curious mixture of anthropology, biography, travel and castaway literature. The protagonist, Tommo, jumps ship in the Marquesas Islands and before long finds himself in the land of the Typees. This provides Melville with the opportunity to record the community and customs of pre-colonial Marquesan Islander society, which he witnessed first-hand during the 1840’s. While in some ways utopian, in other ways Typee society was not and warfare between other groups and cannibalism was a regular feature. Typee also gives Melville a platform to criticise western society and the importation of western values into an already contented and successful culture. Perhaps Melville was rather unusual and before his time in this regard. Tommo eventually escapes his golden handcuffs amongst the Typees and returns to European society.
March 27, 2018
A metà tra diario, reportage di viaggio e saggio antropologico, Taipi racconta dei mesi che Melville ha passato sulle isole Marchesi tra gli indigeni della tribù che dà titolo al libro dopo avere disertato dalla baleniera su cui era imbarcato.
Ha una penna estremamente felice, la lettura è scorrevole e davvero interessante. Decisamente dalla parte dei "selvaggi" contro i colonizzatori europei, forse dà un quadro un poco idealizzato della popolazione locale di cui parlava la lingua solo in modo molto scolastico.
E' comunque un libro che consiglio, ma solo se vi interessano gli aspetti antropologici di una popolazione indigena, altrimenti rischia di essere una lettura faticosa.
Ha una penna estremamente felice, la lettura è scorrevole e davvero interessante. Decisamente dalla parte dei "selvaggi" contro i colonizzatori europei, forse dà un quadro un poco idealizzato della popolazione locale di cui parlava la lingua solo in modo molto scolastico.
E' comunque un libro che consiglio, ma solo se vi interessano gli aspetti antropologici di una popolazione indigena, altrimenti rischia di essere una lettura faticosa.
June 9, 2023
An adventure story set in a doubtful Eden that allows for nuance in criticizing western modernity.
October 22, 2012
If hoping for swash and rollick - look elsewhere. Vitriol for missionaries and the Hawaiian Islands? Aplenty. Coming from the Jack London/Joseph Conrad/R.L.Stevenson fan club this seemed lacklustre - and what's with this partly-true, partly made-up business?? If he was marooned on a cannibal island, why not just tell that as it happened? Not exciting enough, fine, but make the *fiction* story exciting then, for Pete's sake!! (I've always avoided "Moby Dick", and feel quite justified after this.) Funny bit was Tommo being chased around by natives wanting to tattoo stripes across his face ( everything they did was awesome and superior in every way to every other society - except for this, according to Tommo). Could not understand why Tommo would want to abandon ship on a notorious cannibal island in the first place. Book did not hold together for me.
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August 6, 2009
Two weeks on this book! Aye, reader, as I breathe, two weeks with no other manuscript in sight; chasing after its ending under the hefty pressure of its lines, and thrown on the swells of the author’s long-winded thoughts—the pages within, the chapters all around, and not one other thing!
Of course, it wasn’t all that bad; but my botched attempt at mimicking the Melvillian voice is an adverse effect that lingers after reading his first novel, Typee. And, what a first novel it is. After having spent approximately two years on the high seas, Herman Melville returned home to live with his mother and siblings and at twenty-five completed the documentation of his quintessential adventure.
“From my twenty-fifth year,” Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1851, “I date my life.” (Historical Note, Leon Howard)
From the beginning of its publication, Typee suffered the abuse of what I call the critics’ reality check. In fact, the question of the book’s honesty is akin to today’s questioning of reality-television albeit the book is a hundred times more literate and important. At the time of its release, readers were searching for true stories and not entertaining fiction, and Typee did not escape the skeptic’s questioning. Throughout the more than a century of its existence, the manuscript has again and again been accepted and rejected as honest. The belief in its genuineness therefore is much like the ocean, for it ebbs and flows.
My thoughts?
I couldn’t care less; however, if I had to jump on one side of the fence I would argue that it is, for the most part, genuine. I am inclined to believe that no non-fiction is truly free from embellishment and falsehoods just as no fiction can escape an author’s underlying truths and experiences. In a moment of Zen, it is all one and the same.
What I found most intriguing about Typee was neither the adventure nor the characters. Instead, the immediate conflict of the narrator was what hooked me. Melville, also known as Tommo, is an indecisive little bugger. The first sentence expresses his strong discontent with having been on the seas for six months:
“Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific—the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else!”
The sense of urgency to set foot ashore is strong, and therein is the hook. Melville presents a clear goal: GET OFF THE SHIP! I enjoy such clarity, and after several chapters filled with descriptions of the sea, other islands, the ship, the ship’s crew, “savages,” and even some politicking, Melville recruits a comrade (Toby) and they escape to the island of Nukuheva (actually spelled, Nuku Hiva). However, instantly upon their landing an amount of regret seems to be cast upon the travelers and this is where the monster of indecision creeps in.
Often times, the novel and narrator’s conflict between abandoning ship and going ashore reminded me of certain positions I find myself in from time to time. It’s like deciding to do a ten mile hike when, five miles in, one starts questioning continuing the trip; though it matters not whether one turns around because the distance back to the start is the same as the distance to the end, it feels as if the option is still there. The predicament is reminiscent of The Clash’s song, “Should I stay or Should I go?”
In no time the travelers are confronted with destitution as they head for a valley in the distance. They face the harsh reality of tropical weather and nature, starvation, sleep-deprivation, injury, and, oh yeah, the threat of running into members of the cannibal Typee tribe. It is the traveler’s one hope that they come across the reportedly non-cannibalistic Happar tribe first, so with such a hope the question is always being asked: Typee or Happar? When, after days of desperate excursions through the tropical forest, they reach their destination and come across two young natives.
“Typee or Happar?” they ask the natives.
And, as universal luck would so have it, the young natives are Typee. It is with such news that a plan to escape the island to the comforts of the high seas begins to surface. It is with this cognitive dissonance that Melville is not telling so much a story about adventure as much as he is expressing his discontent and need for escape.
However, this is not a synopsis of the book. I will put future readers to task to figure out how it all unfolds.
As a final note, upon reading reviews and information about Typee I came across discussions of race and Melville’s use of the word “savage.” Some argue that Melville falls victim to the stereotype of the “Noble Savage” that runs rampant throughout many manuscripts of the time, but I’m inclined to disagree. Granted, I think the word was used haphazardly but I most certainly do not believe it was used as a form of degradation. If anything, Melville dispenses his thoughts of savagery equally among the natives of Nukuheva and the alleged civilized societies.
Personally, I think the passage below defends my thoughts:
“But it will be urged that these shocking unprincipled wretches are cannibals. Very true; and a rather bad trait in their character it must be allowed. But they are such only when they seek to gratify the passion of revenge upon their enemies; and I ask whether the mere eating of human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only a few years since was practiced in enlightened England: A convicted traitor, perhaps a man found guilty of honesty, patriotism, and suchlike heinous crimes, had his head lopped off with a huge axe, his bowels dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body, carved into four quarters, was with his head exposed upon pikes, and permitted to rot and fest among the public haunts of men!
The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of death dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth.”
If Melville should be accused of anything it should be misanthropy, not racism.
Of course, it wasn’t all that bad; but my botched attempt at mimicking the Melvillian voice is an adverse effect that lingers after reading his first novel, Typee. And, what a first novel it is. After having spent approximately two years on the high seas, Herman Melville returned home to live with his mother and siblings and at twenty-five completed the documentation of his quintessential adventure.
“From my twenty-fifth year,” Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1851, “I date my life.” (Historical Note, Leon Howard)
From the beginning of its publication, Typee suffered the abuse of what I call the critics’ reality check. In fact, the question of the book’s honesty is akin to today’s questioning of reality-television albeit the book is a hundred times more literate and important. At the time of its release, readers were searching for true stories and not entertaining fiction, and Typee did not escape the skeptic’s questioning. Throughout the more than a century of its existence, the manuscript has again and again been accepted and rejected as honest. The belief in its genuineness therefore is much like the ocean, for it ebbs and flows.
My thoughts?
I couldn’t care less; however, if I had to jump on one side of the fence I would argue that it is, for the most part, genuine. I am inclined to believe that no non-fiction is truly free from embellishment and falsehoods just as no fiction can escape an author’s underlying truths and experiences. In a moment of Zen, it is all one and the same.
What I found most intriguing about Typee was neither the adventure nor the characters. Instead, the immediate conflict of the narrator was what hooked me. Melville, also known as Tommo, is an indecisive little bugger. The first sentence expresses his strong discontent with having been on the seas for six months:
“Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific—the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else!”
The sense of urgency to set foot ashore is strong, and therein is the hook. Melville presents a clear goal: GET OFF THE SHIP! I enjoy such clarity, and after several chapters filled with descriptions of the sea, other islands, the ship, the ship’s crew, “savages,” and even some politicking, Melville recruits a comrade (Toby) and they escape to the island of Nukuheva (actually spelled, Nuku Hiva). However, instantly upon their landing an amount of regret seems to be cast upon the travelers and this is where the monster of indecision creeps in.
Often times, the novel and narrator’s conflict between abandoning ship and going ashore reminded me of certain positions I find myself in from time to time. It’s like deciding to do a ten mile hike when, five miles in, one starts questioning continuing the trip; though it matters not whether one turns around because the distance back to the start is the same as the distance to the end, it feels as if the option is still there. The predicament is reminiscent of The Clash’s song, “Should I stay or Should I go?”
In no time the travelers are confronted with destitution as they head for a valley in the distance. They face the harsh reality of tropical weather and nature, starvation, sleep-deprivation, injury, and, oh yeah, the threat of running into members of the cannibal Typee tribe. It is the traveler’s one hope that they come across the reportedly non-cannibalistic Happar tribe first, so with such a hope the question is always being asked: Typee or Happar? When, after days of desperate excursions through the tropical forest, they reach their destination and come across two young natives.
“Typee or Happar?” they ask the natives.
And, as universal luck would so have it, the young natives are Typee. It is with such news that a plan to escape the island to the comforts of the high seas begins to surface. It is with this cognitive dissonance that Melville is not telling so much a story about adventure as much as he is expressing his discontent and need for escape.
However, this is not a synopsis of the book. I will put future readers to task to figure out how it all unfolds.
As a final note, upon reading reviews and information about Typee I came across discussions of race and Melville’s use of the word “savage.” Some argue that Melville falls victim to the stereotype of the “Noble Savage” that runs rampant throughout many manuscripts of the time, but I’m inclined to disagree. Granted, I think the word was used haphazardly but I most certainly do not believe it was used as a form of degradation. If anything, Melville dispenses his thoughts of savagery equally among the natives of Nukuheva and the alleged civilized societies.
Personally, I think the passage below defends my thoughts:
“But it will be urged that these shocking unprincipled wretches are cannibals. Very true; and a rather bad trait in their character it must be allowed. But they are such only when they seek to gratify the passion of revenge upon their enemies; and I ask whether the mere eating of human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only a few years since was practiced in enlightened England: A convicted traitor, perhaps a man found guilty of honesty, patriotism, and suchlike heinous crimes, had his head lopped off with a huge axe, his bowels dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body, carved into four quarters, was with his head exposed upon pikes, and permitted to rot and fest among the public haunts of men!
The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of death dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth.”
If Melville should be accused of anything it should be misanthropy, not racism.
January 6, 2020
Melville's enjoyable first book is an encyclopedic hybrid of sorts that's part adventure novel (quasi-autobiographical) and part digression-heavy travelogue. The adventure part, a story of a man trying to escape from cannibals, is gripping and kept me turning the pages, but the real meat of the book is the digressive travel writing. Detailed descriptions of the island, its landscape, its animals, its people and their practices is what really shines.
Nuggets like that abound! The Typee, however, are not portrayed as noble savages. They're never too far away from war with their neighboring tribes, their treatment of women leaves much to be desired, our narrator is their prisoner, and, let's not forget, they eat the occasional human. But just because Melville avoids painting them as saints doesn't mean that he holds back his hostile feelings toward colonialism. It's quite clear where he stands and he's not afraid to let it show. At one point, after literally tallying up the sins of both sides, he goes so far as to suggest that perhaps the world would be better off if the so-called “savages” sent missionaries to enlighten the supposedly “civilized” world. Maybe it's not too late? Anything is worth a try at this point!
“There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity. There were no foreclosures of mortgages, no protested notes, no bills payable, no debts of honor in Typee; no unreasonable tailors and shoemakers, perversely bent on being paid; no duns of any description; no assault and battery attorneys, to foment discord, backing their clients up to a quarrel, and then knocking their heads together; no poor relations, everlastingly occupying the spare bed-chamber, and diminishing the elbow room at the family table; no destitute widows with their children starving on the cold charities of the world; no beggars; no debtors' prisons; no proud and hard-hearted nabobs in Typee; or to sum up all in one word—no Money! That “root of all evil” was not to be found in the valley.”
Nuggets like that abound! The Typee, however, are not portrayed as noble savages. They're never too far away from war with their neighboring tribes, their treatment of women leaves much to be desired, our narrator is their prisoner, and, let's not forget, they eat the occasional human. But just because Melville avoids painting them as saints doesn't mean that he holds back his hostile feelings toward colonialism. It's quite clear where he stands and he's not afraid to let it show. At one point, after literally tallying up the sins of both sides, he goes so far as to suggest that perhaps the world would be better off if the so-called “savages” sent missionaries to enlighten the supposedly “civilized” world. Maybe it's not too late? Anything is worth a try at this point!
November 7, 2008
I went into this not really knowing much about Melville (other than having read Moby Dick a few years ago) and really enjoyed it. Melville obviously spent quite a bit of time on the ocean and with the Typee's and his descriptions of them are fascinating. My favorite parts though were his descriptions of simple things where he plays with language - you can really tell he just loves words, for example this passage describing the flies he encountered:
"He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and go to roost there, if you do not disturb him, or force his way through your hair, or along the cavity of the nostril, till you almost fancy he is resolved to explore the very brain itself. On one occasion I was so inconsiderate as to yawn while a number of them were hovering around me. I never repeated the act. Some half-dozen darted into the open apartment, and began walking about its ceiling; the sensation was dreadful. I involuntarily closed my mouth, and the poor creatures, being enveloped in inner darkness, must in their consternation have stumbled over my palate, and been precipitated into the gulf beneath. At any rate, though I afterwards charitably held my mouth open for at least five minutes, with a view of affording egress to the stragglers, of them ever availed themselves of the opportunity."
You can't beat that. There's a great, free, professional audio recording of Typee on Librivox, which is where I got it.
"He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and go to roost there, if you do not disturb him, or force his way through your hair, or along the cavity of the nostril, till you almost fancy he is resolved to explore the very brain itself. On one occasion I was so inconsiderate as to yawn while a number of them were hovering around me. I never repeated the act. Some half-dozen darted into the open apartment, and began walking about its ceiling; the sensation was dreadful. I involuntarily closed my mouth, and the poor creatures, being enveloped in inner darkness, must in their consternation have stumbled over my palate, and been precipitated into the gulf beneath. At any rate, though I afterwards charitably held my mouth open for at least five minutes, with a view of affording egress to the stragglers, of them ever availed themselves of the opportunity."
You can't beat that. There's a great, free, professional audio recording of Typee on Librivox, which is where I got it.
December 22, 2016
I've now read three full Melville novels, and each one read as if written by completely different authors. Moby Dick was my first foray into Melville; it was ponderous, deep, slow moving, but amazing. My second attempt was The Confidence Man, which read like the unfortunate love child of Pilgrims Progress and Waiting For Godot, possessing all of their irregularities without exhibiting any of their virtues. (I still am of the opinion that he wrote that book as a defiant middle finger to a public that failed to appreciate his genius.) And now, finally, I've arrived at Typee, Melville's first novel, which turns out to be a highly accessible adventure yarn. Who says an author must have a consistent voice or style?
I easily could have given this book four stars had it been shorter by about a third. Much of it was compelling reading, but the middle section diverged into far too much detail for a novel of this type, which slowed the story without adding value. But where it was good, it was very good, and it is well worth your attention.
I easily could have given this book four stars had it been shorter by about a third. Much of it was compelling reading, but the middle section diverged into far too much detail for a novel of this type, which slowed the story without adding value. But where it was good, it was very good, and it is well worth your attention.
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