{"product_id":"lucchesi-and-the-whale-paperback","title":"Lucchesi and the Whale - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eFrank Lentricchia\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLucchesi and The Whale\u003c\/i\u003e is an unusual work of fiction by noted author and critic Frank Lentricchia. Its central character, Thomas Lucchesi Jr., is a college professor in the American heartland whose obsessions and compulsions include traveling to visit friends in their last moments of life--because grief alone inspires him to write--and searching for secret meaning in Herman Melville's \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick. \u003c\/i\u003eHimself a writer of \"stories full of violence in a poetic style,\" Lucchesi tells his students that he teaches \"only because [his] fiction is commercially untouchable\" and to \"never forget that.\" Austerely isolated, anxiety-ridden, and relentlessly self-involved, Lucchesi nonetheless cannot completely squelch his eagerness for love.\u003cbr\u003eHaving become \"a mad Ahab of reading,\" who is driven to dissect the \"artificial body of Melville's behemothian book\" to grasp its truth, Lucchesi allows his thoughts to wander and loop from theory to dream to reality to questionable memory. But his black humor-tinged musings are often as profoundly moving as they are intellectual, such as the section in which he ponders the life and philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein in relation to the significance of a name--and then attempts to share these thoughts with a sexy, middle-aged flight attendant--or another in which he describes a chance meeting with a similarly-named mafia don.\u003cbr\u003eDespite apparent spiritual emptiness, Lucchesi in the end does find \"a secret meaning\" to \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick. \u003c\/i\u003eAnd Lentricchia's creations--both \u003ci\u003eLucchesi and The Whale \u003c\/i\u003eand its main character--reveal this meaning through a series of ingeniously self-reflective metaphors, in much the way that Melville himself did in and through \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick.\u003c\/i\u003e Vivid, humorous, and of unparalleled originality, this new work from Frank Lentricchia will inspire and console all who love and ponder both great literature and those who would write it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Lucchesi and The Whale,\" with a daring that verges on recklessness, Frank Lentricchia closes the traditional gaps dividing critical practice from creative writing. One has encountered intertextuality before; this is something more adventurous: inter-genre. Only a great literary critic could pull off the fictional tricks on display here. The ambition of this remarkable work is summed up in one of the hero-narrator's Melvillean instructions: 'A word to my students: live like a no-holds-barred autobiography of yourself, hide nothing, so that you'll be free for serious writing.' This is very serious writing.\"--John Sutherland, University College London\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrank Lentricchia is Katherine Everett Gilbert Professor of Literature at Duke University and author of such books as \u003ci\u003eAfter the New Criticism, Critical Terms for Literary Study, Introducing Don DeLillo, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAriel and the Police. \u003c\/i\u003eHe is also the author of a memoir, \u003ci\u003eThe Edge of Night, \u003c\/i\u003eand several works of fiction, including the novels \u003ci\u003eJohnny Critelli, The Knifemen, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Music of the Inferno.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 128\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.36 x 9.12 x 4.84 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 25, 2003\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47450078216370,"sku":"9780822331711","price":46.91,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0770\/3891\/1666\/files\/81f5fd7781c0f8b4fb309553ad193e68.webp?v=1778779693","url":"https:\/\/box.dadyminds.org\/products\/lucchesi-and-the-whale-paperback","provider":"DADYMINDS BOX","version":"1.0","type":"link"}