Gran novela si quieres disuadir a alguien de enlistarse en la marina o en el rubro naviero. La historia es simple, joven ingenuo se enlista en un barco mercante con sus ideales en vilo para luego tener que metérselos por buena parte nada más elevan anclas. Se ve que Melville es un hombre de corazón romántico, que cree en la civilización y la cultura, en los ideales elevados y por sobre todo el hombre, porque aun cuando Redburn, el personaje principal, es testigo y victima del temperamento de sus camaradas, sus superiores o los civiles, no sucumbe a las bajas pasiones, lo que lo coloca dentro de los personajes morales que abundaban en la literatura de la época. Sin embargo, las desventuras y reflexiones morales en Redburn son menos interesante a la luz del retrato social que realiza de la pobreza que acecha tanto dentro del barco como de los puertos a los que llega.

You'll know I was once a serious student of literature when I tell you I've read both Redburn and Israel Potter. I couldn't enjoy them, of course; no one could do that; but I read them through and made fatuous notes in the margins.

How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. Today I miss Elmore Leonard far more than Melville and would rather consider Dutch's idea of a confidence man than Herman's.

Maybe I'm seeing things through rosy colored glasses... Its the first nice day of 2019 and I'm outside reading a Melville novel... but I really loved this book. My hesitation with saying I love this book is that I have to admit that I found sections of the book to be quite burdensome to read. Not so much for difficult language but because of dis-interesting material. Portions of the novel, especially in the Liverpool sections, just felt dull (to me). But to be fair, this is a Melville novel and what would a Melville novel be without a bit of encyclopedic entries and digressions.

Redburn, in more ways than one, is an interesting novel. Its a novel of firsts, Redburn's first voyage at sea and his first taste of what the 'real world' is like. Redburn, and Melville, are compelled to the sea by family misfortune and subsequently experience the hardship's of a life at sea as well and the squalor and bleakness of life in Liverpool. But it's not all doom and gloom, Redburn's predicaments incite humor. We are invited not only to mourn for a loss of innocence but to also laugh at the naivety of Redburn (and often in the same chapter). The idealism and romanticism of 'seeing the world' and being a sailor give way to reality. His fathers guide book is aged and useless in the changing layout of Liverpool, the amazing places that sailors see in their travels turn out to be confined to seedy bars and boarding houses, and the idyllic British countryside is unwelcoming and dangerous. Although a great many details are made up in this novel, I cant help but to imagine that there is a kernel of truth to it and that for the first time, we gain an insight into Melville's first experiences as a sailor.

See my review on my book blog: http://quirkyreader.livejournal.com/4...

Some beautiful writing that demonstrates the style Melville was beginning to hone. However the whiny voice that I gave Redburn throughout the book absolutely ruined a good deal of it for me.

České vydání vyšlo v rámci edice KOD, ale ani odvahu, ani dobrodružství v První plavbě nehledejte. Jde spíše o sociálně-reportážní sondu do na pohled krásného, ale v hloubce krutého světa počátku osmnáctého století pohledem mladého plavčíka na zaoceánské plavbě. Vlastně pokud byste měli tendenci to podstrčit dětem jako dobrodružnou literaturu, můžete jim způsobit pořádné trauma, protože zejména popis bídy v Liverpooolu je dost děsivý.

I loved this story and couldn't stop turning the pages. I felt like I actually got to know the main character and was alongside him on his travels.

This book is hilarious. I wish we'd been made to read this one in school, instead of that mind-numbing one about whaling.

“Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her miseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China.”

A bit more readable still than Melville's first three books, but lacking the high flights of metaphor in his later works, Redburn is an interesting American bildungsroman in the 'coming of age' genre. Melville did not rise to the level of Huckleberry Finn (or anywhere close), but the novel holds interest for Melville scholars for its narrative structure and its (likely) autobiographical elements.

As in Moby Dick, the narrator in Redburn is both a first-person teller of the tale, and an older, self-reflective version of himself (the tale being told in the past tense). This structure allowed Melville to build a gentle ironic commentary around Redburn's youth and inexperience (possibly his own), as Redburn himself hints from time to time that he recognizes his former naivete.

The story is a readable but generally average to above-average story of a young man seeing the world, and growing in mind. The problem may be that Redburn's growth is not very great, his most significant experience being a slight mystification at discovering his father's old guidebook (a stand-in for the Christian Bible), does not match up with the landmarks of the contemporary British Isles. Redburn does not even seem to question whether the problem of the guidebook's truth might be with the (man-made and therefore mutable) landmarks, rather than the book itself.

It was enjoyable but read like a less exciting Moby Dick (which makes sense).

one of the many amazing passages in redburn about learning the sailor language (check out the semicolon action!):

"It is really wonderful how many names there are in the world. There is no counting the names, that surgeons and anatomists give to the various parts of the human body; which, indeed, is something like a ship; its bones being the stiff standing-rigging, and the sinews the small running ropes, that manage all the motions.
I wonder whether mankind could not get along without all these names, which keep increasing everyday, and hour, and moment; till at last the very air will be full of them; and even in a great plain, men will be breathing each other's breath, owing to the vast multitude of words they use, that consume all the air, just as lamp-burners do gas. But people seem to have a great love for names; for to know a great many names , seems to look like knowing a good many things; though i should not be surprised, if there were a great many more names, than things in the world."