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Omoo: A Narrative of Adventure in the South Seas

Herman Melville

1,073 ratings
Omoo: A Narrative of Adventure in the South Seas | Herman Melville

Omoo: A Narrative of Adventure in the South Seas

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Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is Herman Melville's sequel to Typee, and, as such, was also autobiographical. After leaving Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel which makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and the majority of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti. The book follows the actions of the narrator as he explores Tahiti and remarks on their customs and way of life.
are covered with dense groves; and the ungathered nuts which have fallen year after year, lie upon the ground in incredible quantities. Two or three men, provided with the necessary apparatus for trying out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two, obtain enough to load one of the large sea-canoes.

Cocoa-nut oil is now manufactured in different parts of the South Seas, and forms no small part of the traffic carried on with trading vessels. A considerable quantity is annually exported from the Society Islands to Sydney. It is used in lamps and for machinery, being much cheaper than the sperm, and, for both purposes, better than the right-whale oil. They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or eight feet long; and these form part of the circulating medium of Tahiti.

To return to the ship. The wind dying away, evening came on before we drew near the island. But we had it in view during the whole afternoon.

It was small and round, presenting one enamelled level, free from trees, and did not seem four feet above the water. Beyond it was another and larger island, about which a tropical sunset was throwing its glories; flushing all that part of the heavens, and making it flame like a vast dyed oriel illuminated.

The Trades scarce filled our swooning sails; the air was languid with the aroma of a thousand strange, flowering shrubs. Upon inhaling it, one of the sick, who had recently shown symptoms of scurvy, cried out in pain, and was carried below. This is no unusual effect in such instances.

On we glided, within less than a cable's length of the shore which was margined with foam that sparkled all round. Within, nestled the still, blue lagoon. No living thing was seen, and, for aught we knew, we might have been the first mortals who had ever beheld the spot. The thought was quickening to the fancy; nor could I help dreaming of the endless grottoes and galleries, far below t

W.D. 04/07/2023
2.5* For Melville completeists only.

Utterly lacking in the cohesiveness of his debut, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life.

Here, rather, the reader is sustained only by the writer's still-nascent voice, which if anything seems to gone a bit retrograde in its development after that first novel. The cade
Christian 01/09/2022
Poorly paced, inconsistently interesting, and a bit unfocused. If Typee was a peep into the lives of Polynesian natives, Omoo is more a day in the life of Western folk in Pacific surrounds. The narrative meanders from one hapless attempt at finding vocation to another, seldom finding much of a struc
Harvard 04/16/2015
I think the best thing about this book is that Melville unintentionally captures the scope of French colonisation in Tahiti at the time of writing. The inferences you can make about Tahitian society at the time are a lot more interesting than the actual plotline, which is slow paced and relaxing but
Brian Bess 10/29/2012
As Melville stated himself, Omoo is only a sequel to Typee in that it follows the events that occur to the narrator after his experience with the Typee people from his first book. Only referred to once by his nickname Typee, the otherwise unnamed narrator agrees to temporary employment on the whalin

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