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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
Lives up to it's reputation. Wasn't what I expected at all, though I'm not really sure what I expected.
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Words can't tell you how much I loved this book, and I am ashamed it has taken me this long to read it, although that is probably a good thing. Melville's novel is layered...very, VERY layered. Want to know in-depth about various whales? It's there. Want to read luscious, visual, heart-wrenching prose? Moby Dick is absolutely covered in it, and is probably the most beautifully-worded novel I have ever read. Religion? Melville covers various aspects of several religions, mostly Christianity, and there are numerous references to Jonah (of course). History? Moby Dick is based on several different historical whales of massive size. Again- I could go on and on and STILL come nowhere near telling you how great this book is. I absolutely love it and am honestly glad I was able to wait and read it and appreciate it instead of having it "assigned" to me in a literary course. This is an adventure. An epic. An odyssey. It truly, without a doubt, is an absolute masterpiece and I cannot encourage you enough to read it.
As an English teacher, I promise never,ever to make a student read this bloody book!
It’s a great story they said. Awesome drama they said.
They lied.
Boring laxidasical meandering rambling.
Some interesting detail on whaleing practices in the late 19th century. But my god it goes on and on and on about detail about the taxonomy of whales as described to someone who described to Meldrum
They lied.
Boring laxidasical meandering rambling.
Some interesting detail on whaleing practices in the late 19th century. But my god it goes on and on and on about detail about the taxonomy of whales as described to someone who described to Meldrum
epic.
i admire most the collage-like progression of the chapters, some encyclopedic, some narrative, some like scenes from shakespeare, some like cutscenes in a video game.
assisted by the notes in the appendix, i enjoyed the reference to Melville’s evolution in the text. plot-holes, erroneous details, and incomplete characters reveal the tortuous and chaotic nature of the book’s writing.
while reading this book, i’ve reflected on the somewhat intangible characteristic of great art: idiosyncrasy. systematic plots have no heart, and certainly randomness is artless, but somewhere in between, with charming oddities and beautiful clumsiness, is where deep art is found.
i find too that Melville is a master of the nautical, wet clime of his prose. i feel, as in synesthesia, in some Didion or Pynchon novels, the arid dustiness of southern california; in Faulkner, the swampy and cloying humidity of the south. so too in Melville to i feel the dank, mossy darkness of the open ocean and the Pequod’s taverns. Melville employs humorously the salty language of the sea, like the demasting of Ahab.
I know that this is like “the great American novel” or whatever but it is such a fucking snooze. I’m convinced that people who say they genuinely enjoyed this are just lying, and so many people have done just that that now we’re forced to consider it a classic.
slow-paced