Recent Reading, Part Three: Herman Melville's Typee

Herman Melville's first book, Typee, is a story about adventure on the Polynesian islands. It's only about 250 pages. Read it if you liked Moby Dick. If you haven't read Moby Dick this book could serve as a good introduction to Melville's style. Depending on your vocabulary you may want to have a dictionary handy. Melville writes flamboyantly. To me, it's fun to read.

After the adventure of reaching the natives ends, the book is mainly about the lifestyle of the Polynesian cannibals. Here's a quote describing one aspect:

"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 forclosures 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.

In this secluded abode of happiness there were no cross old women, no cruel step-dames, no withered spinsters, no love-sick maidens, no sour old bachelors, no inattentive husbands, no melancholy young men, no blubbering youngsters, and no squalling brats. All was mirth, fun, and high good humor. Blue devils, hypochondria, and doleful dumps, went and hid themselves among the nooks and crannies of the rocks"

Ah, to be a "savage"