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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
Still great. Read this as an RSS feed or like a blog this go round, and it's not my favorite format for this book (great format for Dracula, though!)...
I struggled with how many stars I should give this book. It was long, it was tedious, and it taught me more about whaling than I ever wanted to know. Seriously. Did not need all of that information.
But! Herman Melville wrote beautifully. I actually found myself chuckling here and there and there were a few passages I thoroughly enjoyed. There was a lot of quotable stuff (which I'm not looking up because I'm tired and lazy) and, when he wasn't rambling on about the exact process of beheading a whale or some such thing, the action was truly exciting.
The problem, though, is that there was a LOT of rambling. A lot. I could probably man a whaling vessel myself with all the detail Mr. Melville gave me about whaling. Never would because whaling is awful... but you get what I'm trying to say. No one needs that much information about whaling unless they are, in fact, about to man a whaling vessel. I like detail in a story, don't get me wrong, but there is a fine line between just enough and too much and Herman went WAY over that line.
In the end, I get why this is a classic, but it's really not my cup of tea.
But! Herman Melville wrote beautifully. I actually found myself chuckling here and there and there were a few passages I thoroughly enjoyed. There was a lot of quotable stuff (which I'm not looking up because I'm tired and lazy) and, when he wasn't rambling on about the exact process of beheading a whale or some such thing, the action was truly exciting.
The problem, though, is that there was a LOT of rambling. A lot. I could probably man a whaling vessel myself with all the detail Mr. Melville gave me about whaling. Never would because whaling is awful... but you get what I'm trying to say. No one needs that much information about whaling unless they are, in fact, about to man a whaling vessel. I like detail in a story, don't get me wrong, but there is a fine line between just enough and too much and Herman went WAY over that line.
In the end, I get why this is a classic, but it's really not my cup of tea.
It was hard to rate Moby Dick. The story is wonderful. The last several chapters were absolutely spellbinding. The characters were rich, the story fascinating, however there are many, many chapters devoted to whaling and whales which read like text books. They were difficult to plod through, and did not do much to enhance my appreciation of the rest of the book.
So glad I planned to read this in the winter. This book is very atmospheric and I felt CHILLED. I am a little confused what to rate it. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and I would read an abridged version over and over, but there were a few too many chapters of 19th century marine science for me.
Favorite quotes:
The waves rolled by like scrolls of silver.
See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Favorite quotes:
The waves rolled by like scrolls of silver.
See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
If nothing else, I can say that Melville seemed very honest in this book. Perhaps my greatest achievement in lockdown.
i did not read this entire book but i’m counting it because i was assigned to read 275 pages in one night
I only gave this book three stars because I appreciate it for what it was and is; HOWEVER, it is arduous to read. I wish I liked this book.
The great American epic. A masterpiece. I'm glad I finally got to read it.
Okay, so reader response section of my review is basically this: sfhagsfgkljfdhglfdjg;lsfkjg;sdflkjg;fdslkjgfdsl;lkjgfdsl;kjg
I really don’t know where to start. I guess I’ll preface my review by saying Moby Dick is a masterpiece – I mean, it’s just excellent. For those of you who haven’t read it, I’m sure you’ve heard of the story or have some understanding of what its about. But, it's so much more and you simply need to read it. The first part of the book is a kind of a homoerotic love(?) story between Ishmael and Queequeg. It was all very lovely. “Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.” Sorry, I just loved that line. But yeah, then we meet Ahab and learn about his quest for the White Whale and the rest of the novel shifts focus. And by focus, I should state that this is a dense and convoluted novel so focus might not be the right word here. Ahab embarks on a journey to find the whale that took his leg, but really it is a quest for meaning (as are all quests, right?), and this book just doesn’t allow for any one meaning or interpretation, and if you read it you’ll kind of see what I mean. If I were to try to give meaning or communicate some semblance of it, I would be doing Moby Dick a disfavor.
One of my favorite things about the novel definitely overwhelms the text more so after we’ve met Ahab. And that’s all the Shakespeare references and Shakespearean prose. I thought I was being all clever picking up on these references, but at one point in the book it becomes blatantly obvious that Melville had been alluding to Shakespeare because he literally uses a word that isn’t often seen in texts, and so in a footnote he’s like, 'oh and by the by, this is a word used in King Lear' and he offers the excerpt and etymology for said word. But, beautiful language abounds so that’s a plus, and oh my, is the language plentiful.
“Call me Ishmael” is probably the most famous first sentence in the history of literature, and if it isn’t, it is pretty darn close to it. And what I find really fascinating about that as a first line is that it is so direct; Call me Ishmael, that’s who I am, that is my identity. And throughout the first section of the book, it’s heavily narrated in the first-person and Ishmael often starts off his sentences “I, Ishmael,…” before he goes on to describe the boat or Q or whatever. BUT THEN, and maybe this is intentional or maybe not, but we start to lose Ishmael as the narrator and it transitions into third-person narration. And this brings me back to a point I made above- this is quest for meaning and yet its full of it and then again, it completely lacks it, and maybe that was a small way Melville could incorporate that complexity into the text. In the epilogue, Ishmael is described as being “just another orphan.” He’s lost that sense of self, that identity he had from the get-go: there’s meaning or maybe none at all, and this loss of meaning is a product of the quest, which was initially a quest for meaning. See, convoluted.
I know a lot of people are put off by what they may have heard about the book or are now put off because of my review (sorry). I know when I contemplated reading it in high school for pleasure I was talked out of it because I had a friend who couldn’t get through it because of all the descriptions of whales and she made it sound like it was awful. But, guys, those are like some of the best parts. Melville goes into these amazing whale descriptions of anatomy and there are discussions of whales in art and history and literature. After reading this book, I can’t believe whales are not revered by everyone. Ishmael even states at one point that there is a “multiplicity of other things requiring narration,” which is why he so often deviates from the story to give us all this information. And in these deviations and digressions, we get some of the most beautiful analogies and prose, and OMG, it's amazing.
My final say is just a bit of a head’s up: there are no female characters that appear in the flesh within Moby Dick. Like none. A few females are mentioned at points within the text, but nowhere does a female walk onto the pages and interact with our troupe of characters. Just a small warning.
Okay, so I just compiled my 15 sticky-notes, and my page and a half full of notes into this review, which I’d say is rather condensed for all the thoughts I’m having – so, you’re welcome. That is all dear ones. I must sleep. Please excuse the vast amount of errors above, for I am sleepy and this has not been edited.
ps: you have no idea how hard it was for me to write this review without incorporating all the whale and sea puns that came to mind
PopSugar Challenge 2015: A book with nonhuman characters (x)
I really don’t know where to start. I guess I’ll preface my review by saying Moby Dick is a masterpiece – I mean, it’s just excellent. For those of you who haven’t read it, I’m sure you’ve heard of the story or have some understanding of what its about. But, it's so much more and you simply need to read it. The first part of the book is a kind of a homoerotic love(?) story between Ishmael and Queequeg. It was all very lovely. “Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.” Sorry, I just loved that line. But yeah, then we meet Ahab and learn about his quest for the White Whale and the rest of the novel shifts focus. And by focus, I should state that this is a dense and convoluted novel so focus might not be the right word here. Ahab embarks on a journey to find the whale that took his leg, but really it is a quest for meaning (as are all quests, right?), and this book just doesn’t allow for any one meaning or interpretation, and if you read it you’ll kind of see what I mean. If I were to try to give meaning or communicate some semblance of it, I would be doing Moby Dick a disfavor.
One of my favorite things about the novel definitely overwhelms the text more so after we’ve met Ahab. And that’s all the Shakespeare references and Shakespearean prose. I thought I was being all clever picking up on these references, but at one point in the book it becomes blatantly obvious that Melville had been alluding to Shakespeare because he literally uses a word that isn’t often seen in texts, and so in a footnote he’s like, 'oh and by the by, this is a word used in King Lear' and he offers the excerpt and etymology for said word. But, beautiful language abounds so that’s a plus, and oh my, is the language plentiful.
“Call me Ishmael” is probably the most famous first sentence in the history of literature, and if it isn’t, it is pretty darn close to it. And what I find really fascinating about that as a first line is that it is so direct; Call me Ishmael, that’s who I am, that is my identity. And throughout the first section of the book, it’s heavily narrated in the first-person and Ishmael often starts off his sentences “I, Ishmael,…” before he goes on to describe the boat or Q or whatever. BUT THEN, and maybe this is intentional or maybe not, but we start to lose Ishmael as the narrator and it transitions into third-person narration. And this brings me back to a point I made above- this is quest for meaning and yet its full of it and then again, it completely lacks it, and maybe that was a small way Melville could incorporate that complexity into the text. In the epilogue, Ishmael is described as being “just another orphan.” He’s lost that sense of self, that identity he had from the get-go: there’s meaning or maybe none at all, and this loss of meaning is a product of the quest, which was initially a quest for meaning. See, convoluted.
I know a lot of people are put off by what they may have heard about the book or are now put off because of my review (sorry). I know when I contemplated reading it in high school for pleasure I was talked out of it because I had a friend who couldn’t get through it because of all the descriptions of whales and she made it sound like it was awful. But, guys, those are like some of the best parts. Melville goes into these amazing whale descriptions of anatomy and there are discussions of whales in art and history and literature. After reading this book, I can’t believe whales are not revered by everyone. Ishmael even states at one point that there is a “multiplicity of other things requiring narration,” which is why he so often deviates from the story to give us all this information. And in these deviations and digressions, we get some of the most beautiful analogies and prose, and OMG, it's amazing.
My final say is just a bit of a head’s up: there are no female characters that appear in the flesh within Moby Dick. Like none. A few females are mentioned at points within the text, but nowhere does a female walk onto the pages and interact with our troupe of characters. Just a small warning.
Okay, so I just compiled my 15 sticky-notes, and my page and a half full of notes into this review, which I’d say is rather condensed for all the thoughts I’m having – so, you’re welcome. That is all dear ones. I must sleep. Please excuse the vast amount of errors above, for I am sleepy and this has not been edited.
ps: you have no idea how hard it was for me to write this review without incorporating all the whale and sea puns that came to mind
PopSugar Challenge 2015: A book with nonhuman characters (x)
This story asks "What is God, and who are you?" I started Moby-Dick on a whim and read it over the course of almost a year. The chapters are short and welcoming, except for when they aren't. When they aren't, you'll learn some things you never needed to know about whales. At the end though, I learned something I never knew I needed to know about myself, so I recommend it. I recently picked it up again and realized that reading only the first chapter encapsulates the themes and feelings of the entire book. So if you're on the fence about "the great American novel" read the first chapter and if you like it, you'll finish the book, and if you don't like it then you'll still get the point in under an hour.