Sara Lippincott “searches for signs” of Herman Melville in the South Pacific.
On a recent South Pacific cruise aboard the Star Flyer, a sailing ship somewhat bigger than a 19th century whaler and a lot comfier, I brought along Herman Melville's Omoo. Melville had launched his writing career while racketing around the Marquesas and the Society Islands in his early 20s. In that languorous climate, he might well have gone the other way -- to seed, like the classic South Pacific remittance man -- but there was no avoiding his gift. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) and its sequel, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), made his reputation. – from “Seeking Herman Melville, at Land and Sea,” by Sara Lippincott, Los Angeles Times