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Monday, 11 July 2016

Sofa Spotlight - Omoo, Herman Melville



What I didn't realise about Omoo is that it is actually the sequal to another book called Typee. Thankfully it didn't matter that I hadn't read Typee but on reflection if Typee is anything like Omoo I'm not sure I could cope reading both back to back. 

Nothing much happens in Omoo. It begins by picking up the narrator from an island where he has been held by prisoner by the inhabitants. To secure his rescue he agrees to work on a whaling ship, which isn't very successful and he soon ends up with the rest of the ship's crew on an island in the South Seas. Which is where he stays for the rest of the book. 

Although I think that this book is a bit wet it does sort of grow on you. Well some of the characters do anyway. But not enough to make me desperate to read it again or to pick up Typee.

I had thought that maybe after Moby Dick this would combine Melville's style with more concentration on storytelling and less on information giving. Which it sort of does. I just think that there really isn't much story to it. 

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