I just received Michael Chabon's new book in the mail five minutes ago. I thought the epigraph was interesting:
The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up to the very spring-head of it, so much the more am I impressed with its great honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity.
-- Herman Melville, on the writing of fan fiction
3 comments:
MobyDick is fanfic?! Um . . . no.
There were many facets of nineteenth century culture that would appall the average reader, provided that reader could somehow magically transport him or herself back to Boston. There were ordinary living conditions that would have caused the hardiest amongst us to faint. Few writers have the imagination and intelligence to write convincingly of the past. I doubt that one who has won a Pulitzer for what, comics?, would be one of those writers.
There is no teleology in our evolution from an ancestor we shared with chimpanzees. And though we no doubt would like to believe that we have traveled far from that shared ancestor, our DNA tells a different story. For most, we would like to believe it is our culture that constitutes the bulk of the difference in our DNA.
Obviously, as this pretentious book or presumptuous gag reminds us (granted I have not read the book), for far too many the distinction is negligible.
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