Omoo

He’d been plagued by questions about the truthfulness of “Typee” and “Omoo,” and he felt shackled by having to stick to facts.

After “Typee” and “Omoo,” none of Melville’s books made much money.

He mostly tells stories: how he glued himself to a boat he was repairing and had to rip himself free and wander off in his underpants, how he nearly sank in the Bermuda Triangle, how he has named vessels after the Herman Melville novels “Typee” and “Omoo.”

They’re sharing a bill, as part of the Sound It Out series, with Emilie Weibel, a vocalist and composer who builds loops and samples in real time under the guise of oMoO.

It’s about how Melville could have played it safe and gone on writing popular adventure books in the style of “Typee” and “Omoo” … … The storm that blew him past the Cape of Sensible Success that cries ‘This rock is Eden, shipwreck here,’ but deafened him with thunder and confused with lightning, The maniac hero, hunting like a jewel the rare ambiguous monster     that had maimed his sex, hatred for hatred, ending in a scream.