by Richard Subber | Mar 29, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading, Language, Poetry
Moby-Dick and stuff….
I know whale tales aren’t for everyone.
If you’re still with me, you might be interested to know that Herman Melville’s iconic whale story was published 174 years ago (titled: “The Whale”) in London, and then, a month later, in New York.
The original American title is Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Melville actually went to sea as a crewman on a whaling vessel, and based his novel in part on a real sperm whale named Mocha Dick, known to South Pacific sailors in the 1840s.
Early in his career Melville was briefly acclaimed for some of his South Pacific stories, such as Typee, but he was obscure during the last 30 years of his life. He earned only $1,200 or so from the sale of about 3,200 copies of Moby-Dick, which was out of print when he died in 1891.
A first American edition of the book can easily be secured if you have about $80,000 (free shipping!) to spend.
Melville wrote in a variety of genres—again, not for all tastes. I’m a big fan of Moby-Dick, and I’m also an advocate for Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. Nothing of the South Pacific here. The circumstances of this desiccated short story are curious, even eccentric, incredulous. The withered and aloof Bartleby is presented, examined and disdained, until his very dispirited isolation makes him the object of the narrator’s genuine but increasingly troubled caretaking.
Don’t overlook Billy Budd, Sailor. It’s a searing morality play.
You may be surprised to know that Melville also wrote poetry. One critic has somewhat ponderously suggested that Moby-Dick is filled with Melville’s incipient poetry. I certainly believe that a story can contain a poem, but I don’t see anything like that in Moby-Dick.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Mar 4, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Language
humanity surging…
Book review:
Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
Simon & Brown, 1919, 2012
208 pages
The reader of Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is tempted to think of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology (1915), but the reader should resist the temptation.
There is very little of society in Spoon River, and so much of society in each of Anderson’s short stories. The humanity surges in these stories, and they touch so many memories of being with other people and making life happen.
At the end of each story—“Nobody knows,” “The untold lie,” and the list goes on—the reader wonders:
is there more?
is there more to know?
is there more truth?
It’s easy to put this book down, and it’s easier to pick it up again.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Proud Tower
…a lot more than a history book…
by Barbara Tuchman
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Mar 1, 2025 | Books, Language, My poetry, Poetry
The Book of Days
The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.
There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”
It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.
a tasting
…the second look is the keeper.
The clouds are shifting shapes,
moving quickly
across the new morning sky,
the smudge and fold of flannel,
becoming flan,
nudging the smear
of cream sauce,
filling the sky
with hasty pudding
and the like,
making a menu
that lasts mere moments…
January 4, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: To Serve Them All My Days
by R. F. Delderfield
A beloved teacher,
you know this story…
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jan 14, 2025 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
the horses lost their jobs
It was red
What’s left are the last thin hunks
of that heroic red machine,
planted in the front field,
not going anywhere,
still pointed to its last destination.
This is a marvel of machine,
a completely rusted spectacle of progress,
form invites quick memories
of function…
It doesn’t tempt the kids,
there are no pedals to push,
the big seat is too high
and it’s too rough for bouncing,
and it’s too far from the thick rusty wheel
with no horn,
the big rugged tractor tires
turned one last time
when the moon and the stars
and the sun were younger.
Once it was a noisy monster,
the farmer called the thing “Bab,”
it scared the horses who lost their jobs,
it scattered the goats and the hens,
the pigs went rooting
on the other side of the barn.
Old farmers remember their first ride
on their magic new machines
that chugged everywhere, pulled anything,
each tractor needed its own tool box,
half metal stuff, half mystery stuff,
and the farmers knew
how to keep them going,
and they knew the secret kick
that finished many repair jobs.
This rig’s driver never used
a couple of the rods
and a few of the knobby connectors,
and he never wondered
why he didn’t know
what they were for.
The spectral farmer in baggy overalls
who starts to fill the tank each night
always struggles with the cap,
and always decides to wait…
October 27, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Dec 17, 2024 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
Let’s read a book…
Entreaties
O, come, lovely child,
tell me your words, what you see,
what you hear, and feel.
O, stay, rampant child,
be still, give me your sweet smile.
I give mine to you.
July 3, 2013
What wouldn’t you give for a few more minutes
of marvelous exploration with that magnificent child?
Can you imagine that you would ever say “No” when she says “Read it again!”?
When she decides to tell you again about the spider that she saw yesterday,
do you think for even a moment that it will be boring?
Published in Creative Inspirations, May/Jun 2018 issue
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
A poem about the right thing
…and the lesser incarnation…
“Vanity”
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Dec 10, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Language, Reflections
give “…Pointed Firs” a try
Book review:
Sarah Orne Jewett: Novels and Stories
by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)
New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1994
937 pages
Never heard of Sarah Orne Jewett? Give her prose a try.
Jewett’s characters are persuasively human—they are credible if not always completely likable. Her prose offers recurring truths about the human condition. It’s easy to feel good about her storytelling.
This Novels and Stories collection of course includes “The Country of the Pointed Firs,” Jewett’s first-rate short novel. You’ll also find “Deephaven,” the Dunnet Landing stories, and others.
“…Pointed Firs” is an 1896 novel that describes some of the people and places of coastal Maine, and tells their stories with comfortable familiarity, reflective insight, and respectful love.
Can an old fisherman’s consuming memories of his departed wife bring tears to your eyes?
Read the story and find out.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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