- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: Modern Library; Modern Lib edition (Dec 10 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0812966171
- ISBN-13: 978-0812966176
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.3 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 331 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,310,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
“We find in [Melville’s works] revolt and acceptance, unconquerable and endless love, the passion for beauty, language of the highest order—in short, genius.” —Albert Camus
Book Description
One of Melville’s most popular novels during his lifetime—and the subject of renewed interest in recent decades—White-Jacket is both a brisk sea adventure and a powerful social critique. Based on Melville’s own experiences, it explores the fascinating and often harrowing world of a naval fighting ship, the Neversink. The ship becomes for Melville a microcosm of America itself; its hierarchy, social divisions, and cruel practices suggest larger injustices, including slavery.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic reproduces the definitive Northwestern-Newberry Edition.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic reproduces the definitive Northwestern-Newberry Edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Life Within A Total Institution,
By
This review is from: White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (Paperback)
I read this book after reading Erving Goffman's "Asylums". In that book, Goffman, a sociologist, discusses the rise of "Total Institutions", i.e. institutions that totally control the lives of those within. Melville's "White Jacket" is a book that Goffman often referred to in order to illustrate different aspects of life within the total institution.The introductory essay to this book discusses White Jacket in relationship to the growing bro-ha-ha over slavery, but I thought the book was much more interesting then that. What was most suprising to me, having never read Melville before, was how funny some of the chapters were. Episodes involving Surgeon Cuticle amputating the leg of an unwilling seaman recall the funniest moments of television shows like Monty Python or the Simpsons. Melville's accurate portrayal of life within the "T.I.", reminded me of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". There, the setting is an insane asylum, here it is a Man O' Wear, but both books deal with the tactics and strategies an individual might employ when faced with an oppressive living environment. Although I am not sure when, or if, I might try to tackle author's masterpiece 'Moby Dick', I did come away from this book with a profound respect for Melville's capabilities as a writer. I will no longer take for granted his status among the pantheon of American writers.
4.0 out of 5 stars
White-Jacket,
By A Customer
This review is from: White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (Paperback)
I feel quite strange presuming to give a numerical rating to a book by one of American literature's greatest authors. It's important for readers to realize that White-Jacket is not what would, in the modern day, be considered a novel. There is essentially no plot structure. It's a melange of events, descriptive passages and polemic, narrated by the eponymous White-Jacket, whom I suspect of being Melville himself. At times the book is entertainingly humorous - as when the narrator tries to get rid of his famous jacket. And much of the description of life aboard a man-of-war is fascinating -- the book would make a helpful companion for people reading modern novels such as O'Brian's series. (And, of course, White-Jacket probably was one of the sources used by O'Brian and other aquatic novelists.) The polemic -- Melville's rants against flogging and his pacifist pleas -- I found tiresome, as I always find polemic, regardless of its aims.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews) 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Second to one,
By M. Nesbit "One reader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (Paperback)
This book is second only to Moby-Dick in the list of Melville's greatest works. And Melville's greatest works are America's greatest works.White-Jacket has it all; humor, pathos, poetry and philosophy. This book makes me not only admire Melville the author but love Melville the man. To suggest that the book would be better off without its "sermons" against cruelty in the Man-of-War's world is to suggest that Melville should have written some other book. He didn't write that book, he wrote this one and this is the one he wanted us to read. God bless him. 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
"hull the blockheads, whether they will or no." (ch. 45),
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: White Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War: Volume Five, Scholarly Edition (Paperback)
This is the second of three books Melville published in quick succession--after Redburn in 1849, and before Moby-Dick in 1851. If you read them in that order, you can actually witness Melville's powers as an author growing. White-Jacket has passages that approach the difficulty of Moby-Dick, but it also has not a few chapters that will have you rolling on the floor with laughter. It's not the best of Melville, but it is certainly brilliant! (Smokers, and non-smokers alike, should take a look at ch.91)
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
awesome,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: White Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War: Volume Five, Scholarly Edition (Paperback)
Fascinating, entertaining account of life on a man-of-war. Hilarious in parts; always subversive. Melville's mock glorification of the U.S. Navy and its officers is brilliant.
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