1/ Woman in the Dunes (1964) by Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan
2/ Ran (1985) by Akira Kurosawa, Japan
3/ Ringu (1998) by Hideo Nakata, Japan
4/ Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003) by Kim Ki-duk, South Korea
5/ Mother (2009) by Bong Joon-ho, South Korea
6/ Raise the Red Lanterns (1991) by Zhang Yimou, China
7/ To Live (1994) by Zhang Yimou, China
8/ Happy Together (1997) by Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong
9/ Chungking Express (1994) by Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong
10/ 2046 (2004) by Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong
Amidst all these chapters on whales and whaling in 'Moby Dick,' suppose running into a chapter titled, "My Ten Favourite East Asian Prints" (as i imagine there were no films back then) ... what would you make of it? Would you let it slide as a printing mistake? ... But suppose you found it in all other editions too, what then? Would you now perhaps look at it as a joke on the author’s part? … Depends on whose list you would call it, anyway, the author’s or Ishmael's … Now suppose one of the prints mentioned in the list was Hokusai's 'The Great Wave' (even better, some whale related print) … what about it now? Would you call the whole thing more ‘plausible’ now, less of an aberration? … And while you are at it also imagine ‘intelligent’ people saying countless ‘intelligent’ things about it! What a hoot! ;)
ReplyDeletep.s. Sorry. Took me several attempts to get it right. However, it’s interesting to see how our ideas of what we mean by the novel, or the author, are affected by something like this…
Hahaha.
DeleteI don't think I'd be surprised, actually. Isn't the book already weird? Ishmael already writes 2 chapters about pictures of whales.
...but why should it be "weird"? Isn't that the point? ... What he does then challenges our conventional ideas about what a book of this type ought to be...
DeleteI like Yojimbo.
Hahaha, yeah.
DeleteI haven't seen Yojimbo. Will, though.