dirty Books

Wintereis   Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:10 pm GMT
Despite the fact that his writing is required reading in many an American high school, the bard was no stranger to bawdy language and descriptions. And it doesn't take long to come up with a list of books now considered "high literature"--from Henry Miller to D.H. Lawrence--that are dirty. But I'm wondering if any of you have any favorite passages from classic novels, stories, etc. not commonly thought of as sexual that definitely have an erotic element to them.

As an example, here is a passage from Melville's "Moby-Dick"



"As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, - literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger: while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulence, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, - Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness."
bullshit   Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:27 pm GMT
That's not sexual. It's describing whaling processes.


Is this sexual:

"I'm sitting on a chair right now and drinking something delicious."


According to a literary critic this means "I'm getting drilled up the ass and sucking someone's dick at the same time".


Guess what, you're wrong. It means I'm sitting on a chair and drinking coffee. Take that fuckers!
Wintereis   Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:26 pm GMT
People who don't get metaphor, even thinly veiled metaphor!

I suppose you think that the "cassock" in the chapter that follows this is a cotton robe too.
Guest 2 Wintereis   Tue Dec 01, 2009 11:15 pm GMT
Sperm whale "sperm" isn't sperm, Wintereis. It's wax.

Even if it was sperm, it wouldn't be a big deal.

If you're hoping to read Melville, you need to get beyond this kindergarten stuff.
Wintereis   Tue Dec 01, 2009 11:51 pm GMT
Thanks for that bit of misinformation. Actually, spermiceti is an oil not a wax. As Melville states in an earlier chapter, the fluid attained its name when Europeans mistook the fluid for seminal fluid. The name stuck and was transferred to the sperm whale.

I have read a great deal of Melville's work, all of his novels and short stories as well as numerous biographies and several of his letters. I have presented studies on the eroticism in Melville's work at research conferences, and I would venture to say I know far more about his work and life then you ever will.

Your reading of the passage as simply a description of the work on a whale ship is counterintuitive. It is obvious by his use of language that the narrator is describing a very intimate, sensual, and transcendental experience (i.e. orgasmic). If this type of description was isolated in his work or if it were even isolated within the novel itself, I would never had considered it erotic. This, however, is not the case.

Hawthorne, a good friend of Melville's, describes Melville's experience on ship and in Tahiti and the Marquesas as having opened Melville's mind to expressions of sexuality.
antibullshit   Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:22 am GMT
<<and I would venture to say I know far more about his work and life then you ever will. >>

Uh huh, and I would venture to say you've spent your whole life in heated discussions over whether this or that tree is a phallic symbol, whether Alice in wonderland was really a prostitute, whether Harry Potter is a symbol of the irreconcilable schism between transcendental sexual identity and the Platonic theory of blah blah blah...


<<research conferences>><<studies>>

Lol.
Laura Braun   Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:32 am GMT
Dont' read those books. The Holy Bible is better.
antibullshit   Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:50 am GMT
<<research conferences>><<studies>>


Let's call it how it is:
research conference = meeting of the book club
studies = fanfiction
Arnold   Wed Dec 02, 2009 1:45 am GMT
Fuck you, asshole.
Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 3:25 pm GMT
Laura Braun, do you think there is nothing dirty or erotic in the Bible? I beg to differ. As an example, here is a selection from "The Song of Songs" (a.k.a. "The Song of Solomon").

"Until the day break and the shadows flee away, be thou like a roe or a young hart, upon the mountains of Bether. My beloved spoke and said to me: Rise my love, my fair one and come away.Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear and the pomegrantes bud forth: there I will give you my love. And our bed is green. How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine!"
Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 4:57 pm GMT
<<Uh huh, and I would venture to say you've spent your whole life in heated discussions over whether this or that tree is a phallic symbol, whether Alice in wonderland was really a prostitute, whether Harry Potter is a symbol of the irreconcilable schism between transcendental sexual identity and the Platonic theory of blah blah blah... >>

Not discussions, debate. The difference is that debate requires evidence and logic, the ability to backup ones argument without resorting to personal attacks against your opposition.

Lets review what has happened. You have maintained that the text is not erotic but is a description of work on a whale ship. Well, it is about work on a whale ship. That is absolutely correct. Yet, one cannot simply stop there. Though the text may be written on a flat surface, the meaning is far from having a single dimension. It is not simply informative.

You attempted to back up your information with fact, stating that the sperm is a wax. Well, that is incorrect. Sperm, in the most obvious of meaning here, is an oil. Yet, Melville himself draws attention to the fact that sperm has a dual meaning in a previous chapter of the book.

Due to the tone and language--the narrator's demonstration of intimacy with his comrades, the sensuality which provides visual, olfactory, and textural descriptions in a very voluptuous language--there is obviously an erotic element to the extract. This provides an additional dimension underlying the surface meaning.

Furthermore, the eroticism arrives at a point of catharsis in which the narrator transcends his individual subjectivity to feel a spiritual universality: "Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness." This is often known as rapture or ecstasy. Traditionally, this type of experience is depicted as orgasmic. As an example, here is Bernini's sculpture "The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa" : http://eternallycool.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/baroque-st-teresa.jpg

This transcendence, which you deride me for, is not at all an alien understanding to Melville. You must realize that Melville is writing at a time just coming out of the American Transcendentalist movement. Furthermore, Melville is a writer of Romanticism. The German Romantic philosophers, such as Hegel (who Melville admired and met), believed in this universality, the experience of which they called "sublimity". This adds a third, metaphysical dimension to the text. Now, Melville establishes the metaphysical aspect of "Moby-Dick" in the first chapter of the novel, actually using the word metaphysics, and it is continued throughout.

In addition to citing these elements, I provided biographical information about the author, backed up by Hawthorne's own perception of Melville. Melville's experience on a whaler and among the natives of the Marquesas and Tahiti provided for his liberal understanding of sexuality. This is aptly demonstrated in his first novel, "Typee".

At this junction, out of desperation, you gave up the argument entirely and resorted to personal attacks against me which inevitable says more about you and your character than it does mine. Now, unless you have any real insights that you can backup with fact, I would suggest you cede the argument and save what face you may. But, guessing by your previous actions and your unwillingness to even stand behind one domain name, I would guess you would rather hurl accusations at me than except that you have lost.








Furthermore,
Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:13 pm GMT
Furthermore, you should try and open your mind a little. Perhaps you should spend some time in the Marquesas.
Laura Braun   Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:41 pm GMT
Next time let someone be inspired by something else, not my name OK (I didn't use Laura Braun up above).
So what I wish to say <<<Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.>>>. That's what is written. And Song of songs is my favorite book. It's about LOVE.
Rene   Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:39 pm GMT
Take it from someone whose lowest grade ever in literature was 97.6%, it is easy to bullshit your way through. Why? Because language and literature are subjective. Our only way to see it and understand it is through our own eyes. There is no right or wrong. This is why I see debate over it as pointless.

A hundred people could take away a hundred different emotions from this excerpt of Meliville's. Wintereis sees it as an erotic piece of sexual awakening. Guest sees it as processing the oil of a sperm whale. To debate those ideas is pointless, as unless we can reincarnate Melville himself and ask what was meant in these paragraphs we have no right or wrong answer.

So, please, let it go. Read it how you choose and understand that other people see things differently than you do. That does not make them morons; that makes them human, just like you.
Guest (the real deal)   Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:24 pm GMT
>>>Melville is a writer of Romanticism. <<<

Please note that those were completely different times. What we may perceive as erotic today, used to be simply an idealistic, enthusiastic, romantic (obviously, lol), fully exaggerated expression of romantic ideals and perhaps pure joie de vivre.
That's how I see it, anyway, LOL! I do agree with Rene, subjective it is. And it tells about the reader, not about the text, LOL!