Typee
by Herman Melville · first published 1840
33% recommend50% neutral17% critical
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 tex
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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…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2023 and recommend for 2024” ↗Is Melville's Typee or Omoo on the list? I've just finished reading both and they are so fun.
on “Ask HN: what books do you recommend from Google's public domain books?” ↗…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.
on “Jane Austen shaped a vision of personal flourishing that still feels modern” ↗Ha! I'm the only one apparently reading Melville! I'm reading Omoo, his second book. I finished Typee last week and Omoo is the semi-sequel.
on “What are you reading?” ↗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.
on “Cultural Context of “Death to America” Chants” ↗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…
on “The Great Gatsby: Misunderstood Novel” ↗I am guessing that Melville's most selling book in his own lifetime was 'Typee'.
on “Poe’s best-selling book during his lifetime was a guide to seashells” ↗