Typee
At one time the most popular of Melville's works, Typee was known as a travelogue that idealized and romanticized a mysterious South Sea island for readers in the ruthless, industrial, "civilized" world of the nineteenth century. But Melville's story of Tommo, the Yankee sailor who enters the flawed Pacific paradise of Nuku Hiva, is also a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's own Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. This edition of Typee, which reproduces the definitive text and the complete, never-before-published manuscript reading text, includes invaluable explanatory commentary by John Bryant.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
7mentions
6people
2009–2023years
29% recommend57% neutral14% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A few books I read this year (or perhaps late last year), and wholeheartedly recommend:
- Typee: A peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville
- Fatu-Hiva, Back to Nature by Thor Heyerdahl
- The lost world: being an account of the recent amazing adventures of Professor E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Professor Summerlee and Mr Ed. Malone of the 'Daily Gazette'
- Is Melville's Typee or Omoo on the list? I've just finished reading both and they are so fun.
- I am guessing that Melville's most selling book in his own lifetime was 'Typee'.
- Melville was already an established author after Typee and Omoo - Moby Dick was sort of like a Sgt Pepper situation. People expected a sea story and they got something quite a bit different. Or imagine if Tom Clancy wrote ten Jack Ryan books and then Gravity's Rainbow or something.
Sadly many authors don't get the recognition they deserve for generations afterwards... but the important thing is they didn't let that possibility dissuade them from writing!
- Back in the 19th century, Herman Melville documented an apparently stable society in Typee. It was however, not without violence -- some of it so appalling to most readers that the novel barely hints at it.
- Read it several years ago -- it's my favorite book. The way the story progresses from the initial setup is masterful. I'm honestly still shocked that Nostromo isn't the first book that people associate with Conrad, given that it's so much more beautiful and thematically-dense than Heart of Darkness or The Secret Agent. It's like if everyone thought Typee was Melville's best work.
