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Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Herman Melville

Start date: July 1, 2019

Finish date: September 30, 2019

Discussion: Moby Dick - July-Sept 2019

Why we're reading this: July-September 2019 Completist Big Read Poll Winner
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Moby Dick - July-Sept 2019

General Discussion - Moby Dick
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 20 posts · 23 views

last updated Oct 04, 2019 08:02AM

Review - Moby Dick
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 6 posts · 14 views

last updated Aug 21, 2019 07:47PM

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What Members Thought

May 13, 2023 Jason rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own

What a strange and sordid and meandering affair this book be - as if a demonic creature of the depth twer made up of nothing but connected tales of separate interest, yet all would be allowed to have their full say before the demonic beast and all who laid eyes upon it were once more slowly, oh so very slowly, sunk to the darkest of chasms beneath the surface - just as had been prophesied and foreshadowed in every conceivable fashion.

"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage

"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America."

With a prophesy such as the above we know things will not go well by the end, but neither will they come to their conclusions in a clear fashion. This intriguing MacBeth-like prophesy is well toward the end, but is way down the list of predictive indicators of ill fate and yet also not quite the last.

The beginning was perhaps my favorite part, in no small part because I knew where eventually the story would inevitably go but did not know how it would really start and was pleasantly surprised by the searching of Ishmael for a ship to join and his unexpected friendship with Queequeg. I had an impression that Melville's door stop of a book about whaling was to be a brooding, tense, slow journey for which it would feel to the reader a dark an ominous journey taken at real-time, but there were many humorous scenes that did little to drive plot but did develop characters seemingly for little purpose in hindsight but also lightened the reading considerably. Much of the humor was stunted however by the discomfort a modern reader will feel when reading a book that so clearly was written by a white author who comments on people of other races and nationalities in the common mindset of his time - 1851. Melville wrote much that was derogatory, that in today's light illuminates his ignorance, but perhaps a little to his credit he seemed to remark on his narrators' ignorance (and thus likely his own): "Ignorance is the parent of fear". There is also a lot of information about whaling, whales, ships, rope, related science and so forth in the middle of the book that is all very dry and again with time has been shown to be merely the thoughts of a specific time period ... by which I mean largely inaccurate. So, yes, many are the detractors, but these detractors did not manage to fully swamp the boat as it were. Melville's writing manages to largely stand up to it's shortcomings, his characters so completely and purposely flawed, the narration so clearly undependable and changing in view that it somehow manages to maintain some unnatural propulsion of interest. Did I ever seriously thinking about stopping this read once fully begun? No. Was I glad the book ended? Absolutely - I wanted no more of this obsessive book at sea. I was rather done with the mad-hatter jocularity of Stubb and the morosely limp morality of Starbuck, though I valued them both at different times during the book. I wanted more and less, and yet while this was a book I went into with trepidation I would say my fears were not met, but neither were potential expectations surpassed. It is a book of myth and grandeur, for many a white whale in itself and while I am glad to have pursued it to it's end, I am also glad to have it behind me.

As an afterthought, I shall just set this down at the end - there was something of Butcher's Crossing about this book, though clearly it would be the other way around, it's just that I read that later written prior to the earlier so it is switched in my mind. In both books there is a romanticism of something that when told with any detail shows itself to be barbaric, repulsive, and all together mad. Both seem to stem from some desire to annihilate that which is grand, snuffing out that which is beautiful and wonderous. ...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Tracy Reilly rated it liked it

Shelves: didn-t-finish

I can never finish this book, and not because it's long...the language gets to me after awhile. I like the early chapters about Ishmael and the Tattooed guy, but somewhere about halfway through I just can't read anymore..it seems corny. I like other books and stories of Melville better. I've tried at least 4 times to read it...one of the few classics I can't bear. ...more

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