Wisdom and Woe

In 1794, with U.S. ships no longer under the protection of the British government and in response to attacks by Barbary pirates, the United States Congress passed a major piece of legislation, establishing a permanent standing Navy along with a commission for six frigates.

Many of the guidelines for the fledgling U.S. Navy were not formalized until years later, and in its earliest days, sailors were responsible for providing their own uniforms. This circumstance provides the central conceit of White-Jacket (1850), Melville's fictionalized account of his first-hand experience as an ordinary naval seaman aboard the U.S. frigate United States (designated the Neversink in the novel).

The narrator, joining the ship and anticipating the need to endure the storms around Cape Horn, fashions a coat for himself from the spare materials at hand. But the result--the titular white jacket--proves to be more of a curse than a blessing. His comic ordeal is arguably the funniest among all of Melville's long works.

Around mid-point, however, the novel shifts focus to the tyrannical abuses of officers' powers, with graphic descriptions of the horrors of corporal punishment and the appalling conditions to which seamen were subjected. The escalating conflict again takes its cue from the Navy's nominal dress code: specifically, its regulations concerning facial hair, culminating in what the narrator dubs "the rebellion of the beards."

White-Jacket is both critically acclaimed and historically significant. During a Congressional debate on the military's use of flogging, the original publisher (Harper & Bros.) provided members of Congress with copies of the work, helping to win political support for abolition of the practice. Moreover, "by making life aboard a man-of-war stand for life in the world at large, and by turning flogging into a symbol of man's inhumanity to man, [Melville] contributed to the escalating debate about slavery."

Note: This meetup will be recorded for private use.

Schedule:

• Week 1: Chapters 1-24
• Week 2: Chapters 25-47
• Week 3: Chapters 48-71
• Week 4: Chapters 72- The End

White Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War:

In 1794, with U.S. ships no longer under the protection of the British government and in response to attacks by Barbary pirates, the United States Congress passed a major piece of legislation, establishing a permanent standing Navy along with a commission for six frigates.

Many of the guidelines for the fledgling U.S. Navy were not formalized until years later, and in its earliest days, sailors were responsible for providing their own uniforms. This circumstance provides the central conceit of White-Jacket (1850), Melville's fictionalized account of his first-hand experience as an ordinary naval seaman aboard the U.S. frigate United States (designated the Neversink in the novel).

The narrator, joining the ship and anticipating the need to endure the storms around Cape Horn, fashions a coat for himself from the spare materials at hand. But the result--the titular white jacket--proves to be more of a curse than a blessing. His comic ordeal is arguably the funniest among all of Melville's long works.

Around mid-point, however, the novel shifts focus to the tyrannical abuses of officers' powers, with graphic descriptions of the horrors of corporal punishment and the appalling conditions to which seamen were subjected. The escalating conflict again takes its cue from the Navy's nominal dress code: specifically, its regulations concerning facial hair, culminating in what the narrator dubs "the rebellion of the beards."

White-Jacket is both critically acclaimed and historically significant. During a Congressional debate on the military's use of flogging, the original publisher (Harper & Bros.) provided members of Congress with copies of the work, helping to win political support for abolition of the practice. Moreover, "by making life aboard a man-of-war stand for life in the world at large, and by turning flogging into a symbol of man's inhumanity to man, [Melville] contributed to the escalating debate about slavery."

Note: This meetup will be recorded for private use.

Schedule:

• Week 1: Chapters 1-24
• Week 2: Chapters 25-47
• Week 3: Chapters 48-71
• Week 4: Chapters 72- The End

White Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War:

The Woman in White (1859) is a classic mystery novel that has been adapted into several films, TV shows, and musicals. TIME Magazine listed it among "The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time"; Robert McCrum of The Observer ranked it #23 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time"; and it was listed at #77 on the "The Big Read," BBC's survey of the U.K.'s best-loved novels.

The book tells the story of Walter Hartright, a young art teacher who encounters a mysterious woman dressed in white on a moonlit road. He soon becomes entangled in a web of secrets, lies, and romance involving two sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe, and the sinister Sir Percival Glyde.

The author, Wilkie Collins, was a law student whose novels drew extensively on his legal training. Just as testimony "is told in Court by more than one witness," so The Woman in White is conveyed through multiple perspectives--weaving ingenious narrative technique with intricate plot construction, masked identities, psychological drama, and supernatural intrigue.

The novel's inciting incident is said to have been inspired by a real-life meeting between Collins and "a woman dressed in flowing white robes escaping from a villa... where she had been kept prisoner under mesmeric influence." The ghostly apparition haunts the characters and reader alike, like an ambiguous God or Devil (ala the spectral face that haunts Pierre, or the whiteness of Moby-Dick).

The Woman in White was a pioneer of the "sensation novel": a genre characterized by shocking subject matter--adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction, murder, etc.--particularly as a scandalization of the upper classes. It emerged as a progenitor and subversion of "silver fork" novels, challenging stereotypes of gender, class, and identity as they had come to be defined through 19th century trends in physiognomy and demography.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (2/2): "The Story Begun by Walter Hartright" & "The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore"
• Week 2 (2/9): "The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe" (in First & Second Epochs)
• Week 3 (2/23): "The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq." to "The Story Concluded by Walter Hartright"

The Woman in White: ~500pp

The Woman in White (1859) is a classic mystery novel that has been adapted into several films, TV shows, and musicals. TIME Magazine listed it among "The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time"; Robert McCrum of The Observer ranked it #23 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time"; and it was listed at #77 on the "The Big Read," BBC's survey of the U.K.'s best-loved novels.

The book tells the story of Walter Hartright, a young art teacher who encounters a mysterious woman dressed in white on a moonlit road. He soon becomes entangled in a web of secrets, lies, and romance involving two sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe, and the sinister Sir Percival Glyde.

The author, Wilkie Collins, was a law student whose novels drew extensively on his legal training. Just as testimony "is told in Court by more than one witness," so The Woman in White is conveyed through multiple perspectives--weaving ingenious narrative technique with intricate plot construction, masked identities, psychological drama, and supernatural intrigue.

The novel's inciting incident is said to have been inspired by a real-life meeting between Collins and "a woman dressed in flowing white robes escaping from a villa... where she had been kept prisoner under mesmeric influence." The ghostly apparition haunts the characters and reader alike, like an ambiguous God or Devil (ala the spectral face that haunts Pierre, or the whiteness of Moby-Dick).

The Woman in White was a pioneer of the "sensation novel": a genre characterized by shocking subject matter--adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction, murder, etc.--particularly as a scandalization of the upper classes. It emerged as a progenitor and subversion of "silver fork" novels, challenging stereotypes of gender, class, and identity as they had come to be defined through 19th century trends in physiognomy and demography.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (2/2): "The Story Begun by Walter Hartright" & "The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore"
• Week 2 (2/9): "The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe" (in First & Second Epochs)
• Week 3 (2/23): "The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq." to "The Story Concluded by Walter Hartright"

The Woman in White: ~500pp