Hi Nightbane! What was it you most disliked about the book?
Reading slowly and carefully, I enjoyed many of the themes interlaced behind the prose and the poetry. Even-though the whales description are sometimes long, difficult, complicated, I found many of them turn interesting just because they end with an incisive comment on society. The story is deceptively simple and I most enjoyed understanding/figuring out the allegory behind it. It was Hawthorne who advised Melville to turn the tale of "the Essex" he was basing Moby-Dick on, into a symbolic/metaphysical commentary about the world. Melville later writes in a letter to Hawthorne "I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb" (http://www.melville.org/letter7.htm) There's also lot from Shakespeare's theater written in there, making for vivid interactions between characters. References to science and art (whale's description in actual painting, ch55), many stories from the bible and references to the religious atmosphere within new England/Main during Melville's time (2nd Great Awakening, The Temperance movement, interactions between Quakers, Puritans, Presbyterian etc). All this gives a lot of food for thought as i enjoyed wrapping my head around it. I also recommend the Norton Critical edition (2nd edition) edited by Hershel Parker which provides a lot of helpful footnotes, if you can get your hands on it!
Reading slowly and carefully, I enjoyed many of the themes interlaced behind the prose and the poetry. Even-though the whales description are sometimes long, difficult, complicated, I found many of them turn interesting just because they end with an incisive comment on society. The story is deceptively simple and I most enjoyed understanding/figuring out the allegory behind it. It was Hawthorne who advised Melville to turn the tale of "the Essex" he was basing Moby-Dick on, into a symbolic/metaphysical commentary about the world. Melville later writes in a letter to Hawthorne "I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb" (http://www.melville.org/letter7.htm)
There's also lot from Shakespeare's theater written in there, making for vivid interactions between characters. References to science and art (whale's description in actual painting, ch55), many stories from the bible and references to the religious atmosphere within new England/Main during Melville's time (2nd Great Awakening, The Temperance movement, interactions between Quakers, Puritans, Presbyterian etc). All this gives a lot of food for thought as i enjoyed wrapping my head around it. I also recommend the Norton Critical edition (2nd edition) edited by Hershel Parker which provides a lot of helpful footnotes, if you can get your hands on it!