New around here? Register your SA Forums Account here!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
justcola
May 22, 2004

La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo

quote:

Within the pages of this book are contained some of the most beautiful words ever written in the English language...This volume of work has become part of our heritage and, translated into all the tongues of the world, has become for each nationality, for each culture, part of their heritage, too; a cornerstone of literature and drama...like the music of Bach or the painting of Leonardo, have transcended the pettiness of time and place and have become part of those eternal things that speak to all men at all times.

The above quote is from the preface of the works of William Shakespeare, but I think it should apply to Moby Dick.

Moby Dick is about a sailor called Ishmael who ends up on a whaling ship captained by Captain Ahab, who's blinded by his lust for Dick. I imagine most people will be familiar with the basic plot of the book as it has become integrated into modern culture. You might say someone is 'as mad as a ship full of Ahabs' if they act a certain way for example, or that something is a 'white whale' if it resembles an albino cetacean. It was my prior knowledge of the plot that made me imagine the book to be a certain way, although after reading it I can say my expectations were nowhere near what the book is actually like.

Context



In the mid 19th century we used whale oil in lamps and as an industrial lubricant. The most prized of all oils was found in the dome space of the Sperm Whale in the form of spermaceti, a kind of waxy gloop which seems to serve no purpose other than to be good at making candles from. Roughly 50,000 whales were killed annually until the invention of electricity, and most sea faring nations gained +2 gpt from whaling (England, America, France, Netherlands).

Herman Melville happened to be born at a time in which whaling was not only a profitable business but also mostly ethical. After spending some time himself aboard various vessels and writing love poems he embarked on writing the greatest whaling novel that could ever be. Due to an overly complex printing fiasco, there were various versions of the book, some missing the epilogue, others being heavily edited, and became panned by critics. But as everyone knows, criticism in the 19th century was entirely wrong. Nowadays Moby Dick is rightfully hailed as the relative post-modern Old Testament, going on to influence Matthew Barney, Gene Roddenberry, Ernest Hemingway and a whole host of pop culture immortals.

Analysis



There are many themes to be explored between the covers of Moby Dick. The unabridged version weighs in at a whopping 600 or so pages, try holding that in one hand as you ride the subway! Running parallel to the plot of nautical revenge are dozens of chapters that cover philosophy, history, comedy, art criticism, geography, slavery, god, biology and so on. The book doesn't stick to any particular genre or style, I don't think I've read a book quite like it. The closest I can think of would be Cormac McCarthy or Thomas Pynchon, though as different from them as they are from each other. I haven't read much literature written before the 20th century, but I found Moby Dick to be relatively accessible for the most part. Although the narrator is Ishmael, the reader becomes more like Ahab, chasing the whale through the pages until approaching the apocalyptic end. In a way.

There are several underlying themes that run throughout the book. Is the Whale a metaphor for God, Satan or eternity? Is the book a meditation on the failings of revenge or a saga proclaiming the glory of standing for what you believe no matter the consequence? The way in which man dominates and is dominated by nature? And what's with all the homo-eroticism? I think every reader will take something different away from the book, which makes it more or less perfect in my opinion.

Watch the trailer here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT-eVxb6kzI

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

mallamp
Nov 25, 2009

Moby Dick is the best book ever written. I've read it twice, second time without skipping the whaling parts.
I guess some people are forced to read it in high school and hate it forever because of that, it's a shame.
(And no wonder, I didn't read anything but crappy fantasy in high school either and hated every mandatory classic, refusing to read most of them).

Baron Bifford
May 24, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 2 years!
English classes in school made me and many others hate poetry, and that is a great sin.

Kilmers Elbow
Jun 15, 2012

I sort of enjoyed it when I read it (about five years ago) and I even bought a new edition in anticipation of re-reading it, but the interminable whaling sections have put me off ever picking it up again.

Life is too short. There's a million books I'd rather read and enjoy rather than grind through Moby Dick again.

Captain Mog
Jun 17, 2011
Moby Dick is a bit of a slog because Herman Melville is a good descriptive & mechanical writer but a tad bit blase when it comes to everything else such as characters, plot, and style. It's like reading the sermon of a rather long-winded priest from the middle of the 19th century. I'm not going to bash him or his writing but he was very much a product of his time in the worst way.

Baron Bifford posted:

English classes in school made me and many others hate poetry, and that is a great sin.

Not to derail, but I'd argue that what makes teenagers hate "classical" literature is more in the way it is taught and what is taught. Moby Dick is, IMO, more of a college-level text. Same with the Scarlet Letter. Books like "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby", "Fahrenheit 451", ect. are all rich, well-written works that are easily comprehended and enjoyed by students without frustrating them. If you want a kid to hate reading forever, give them Molls Flander in freshman English and assign a hundred pages in a week (yes, some of my colleagues have actually done this).

Captain Mog fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Sep 30, 2014

LLCoolJD
Dec 8, 2007

Musk threatens the inorganic promotion of left-wing ideology that had been taking place on the platform

Block me for being an unironic DeSantis fan, too!

justcola posted:

It was my prior knowledge of the plot that made me imagine the book to be a certain way, although after reading it I can say my expectations were nowhere near what the book is actually like.

From its reputation I expected Moby Dick to be a complete slog, but I really enjoyed it. The whole thing was much more approachable and interesting than I had expected. Also:

Rusty
Sep 28, 2001
Dinosaur Gum

LLCoolJD posted:

From its reputation I expected Moby Dick to be a complete slog, but I really enjoyed it. The whole thing was much more approachable and interesting than I had expected. Also:
Same, I expected a much harder read, but I even enjoyed the whaling and sperm parts. It was something I really didn't know much about, both whaling itself for the oil, and the interesting things about the different whale species.

The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!
I just don't get this book. I tried to read it recently. People go on about how serious and beautiful it is, but to me it seemed like a super wordy and comical account of a dude and his adventures with a savage native with whom he was having a bromance. Dude and savage eat lots of chowder. Dude and his savage are forced to sleep in the same bed and hilarity ensues.

I gave up when I realized I had just read 10 pages about the color white.

mallamp
Nov 25, 2009

The Dregs posted:

I just don't get this book. I tried to read it recently. People go on about how serious and beautiful it is, but to me it seemed like a super wordy and comical account of a dude and his adventures with a savage native with whom he was having a bromance. Dude and savage eat lots of chowder. Dude and his savage are forced to sleep in the same bed and hilarity ensues.
Yeah the first 100 pages or so are pretty different from rest. The narrator fades more and more to the background and the focus shifts to more universal level.

Baron Bifford
May 24, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 2 years!

Captain Mog posted:

Not to derail, but I'd argue that what makes teenagers hate "classical" literature is more in the way it is taught and what is taught. Moby Dick is, IMO, more of a college-level text. Same with the Scarlet Letter. Books like "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby", "Fahrenheit 451", ect. are all rich, well-written works that are easily comprehended and enjoyed by students without frustrating them. If you want a kid to hate reading forever, give them Molls Flander in freshman English and assign a hundred pages in a week (yes, some of my colleagues have actually done this).
I guess for me it was really the essay writing. I hate writing essays by hand, especially for exams. It is both physically and mentally painful. They also taught us to analyse poetry in a rather mechanical fashion.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

The Dregs posted:

I just don't get this book. I tried to read it recently. People go on about how serious and beautiful it is, but to me it seemed like a super wordy and comical account of a dude and his adventures with a savage native with whom he was having a bromance. Dude and savage eat lots of chowder. Dude and his savage are forced to sleep in the same bed and hilarity ensues.

I gave up when I realized I had just read 10 pages about the color white.

That's the only part I've read. I really enjoyed it -- I love eighteenth century nautical bromance! -- but I always get distracted by something else and forget to return to the book.

quote:

While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon.

It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a softener; such a delicious mollifier! After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, wove almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as. I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,- literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side; the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!
spermaceti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW8j818w-qE

Otto von Ruthless
Oct 1, 2014
I love the whaling parts. They are kind of weird and scientifically wrong, it's great.

High school teachers just end up cutting it to pieces because it's just not really something that lends itself to being taught in a high school classroom. I don't know how anyone decided that very many teenagers were going to get anything out of it. Even in a college class it's more the kind of work you'd structure an entire class around. I got it in high school as just another text in a regular non honors English class, and don't think a word of it registered.

Baron Bifford
May 24, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 2 years!

Otto von Ruthless posted:

I love the whaling parts. They are kind of weird and scientifically wrong, it's great.
Melville was a whaler so this surprises me.

Otto von Ruthless
Oct 1, 2014

Baron Bifford posted:

Melville was a whaler so this surprises me.

This is a pretty good explanation. I find it fascinating particularly because it's a glimpse into how science as we think of it wasn't quite fully formed yet - still more entangled with philosophy, less authoritative places to refer to. You get to look at something that has almost, but not entirely clicked into place.

Wraith of J.O.I.
Jan 24, 2012


Surprised this hasn't been posted yet:

The Time I Spent On A Commercial Whaling Ship Totally Changed My Perspective On The World


I am currently reading this, the Norton Critical version. I just got to where they spotted the white whale. I'm really ready to be done with it. The prose can be great but I, for one, found myself skimming over most of the whaling parts. Starting to get pretty good now though as it's getting more focused.

aslan
Mar 27, 2012

Otto von Ruthless posted:

High school teachers just end up cutting it to pieces because it's just not really something that lends itself to being taught in a high school classroom. I don't know how anyone decided that very many teenagers were going to get anything out of it. Even in a college class it's more the kind of work you'd structure an entire class around. I got it in high school as just another text in a regular non honors English class, and don't think a word of it registered.

I'm just surprised anybody's still attempting to teach it in high school. Was it an abridged version or the full thing?

I was an English major in college, and nobody at either of the two universities I attended assigned Moby-Dick anymore, for the reason you mentioned--it comes pretty close to a semester-long text. Bartleby, Benito Cereno, and maybe Billy Budd have all surpassed it even at the college level, I think, just to make sure students are exposed to Melville without having to subject them to the length of Moby-Dick. Which is unfortunate, because Moby-Dick is so worth reading even despite some parts being such a slog, but I'm not sure how you could teach it appropriately without devoting at least a couple months to it and ideally more.

Otto von Ruthless
Oct 1, 2014

aslan posted:

I'm just surprised anybody's still attempting to teach it in high school. Was it an abridged version or the full thing?

I'm sure it was some kind of abridgement but I don't really remember, it was more than a decade ago. Mostly I remember just staring at the pages. It was assigned by an otherwise excellent teacher who played a big role in getting me interested in 'real' books. I think he may have just been overly optimistic about his students.

kaworu
Jul 23, 2004

I was never forced to read this in high school, and ended up reading it on my own in a break I took between High School and College. I had always imagined it to be this sort of stuffy, dense, difficult-to-read nineteenth century novel about a subject (whaling) that I supposed I had little to no interest in. So I was fairly shocked when I picked it up, started reading it, and had read it twice through a week later. I just thought it was absolutely stunning. It's still one of my favorite english-language novels ever written.

I actually find the beginning, with the seemingly out-of-place homoeroticic content between Queequeg and Ishmael to be fascinating, and it absolutely confounded my expectations as to what I expected the novel to be like. That particular chapter - "The Counterpane" if I remember correctly, where Ishmael wakes up to find a tatooed savage clutching him like a lover - is what convinced me to stick through the entire thing no matter what, because the entire chapter was both exquisitely written and completely bizarre.

ulvir
Jan 2, 2005

This book holds one of my favourite chapters ever written in English. I can't recall which chapter it was, but it's the one written in a similar style as "Ithacha" in Ulysses (or rather, the other way around).

Just like the OP I thought I knew exactly what the novel was all about before I started reading it. "yeah, yeah, an old stuffy sailor is chasing a white whale around the globe to find purpose and revenge, right?". I think not actually realising what kind of novel I was getting into, or getting into it with the wrong expectation, made me appreciate it a whole lot more. I need to reread this book at some point.

justcola
May 22, 2004

La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo

I think the essay portions of the book are what make it stand out. The way in which Melville approaches a, mostly, scientific topic with a mixture of philosophy and misunderstanding give the whole thing a sort of cosmic flavour, and they also punctuate the book nicely, with the first section being a more comic homoerotic adventure with essays on boating, upon seeing Moby Dick the chapters are more based on whale imagery before plunging into the actual hunting and slaughter of whales and the final section is an examination into the whale itself. There is a certain kind of rhythm to the book, and whilst not being especially challenging to read I think it's easy to make the mistake that Ahab finding Moby Dick is what the book is about, when the actual meat of it is an author trying to deal with his relationships to whales in an existential manner. Perhaps.

I wouldn't say there's any one superior way of reading the book or conclusions that everyone would agree with, but as a book I don't think I've read anything quite like it. Once I'd finished I was more stunned that a book like that could be written in the middle of the 19th century, and that every reference I'd heard previously totally waxed over what makes the book stand out so much for me.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
OK, this thread inspired me to reattempt this book and it really is just hilarious once you get your ear used to the narrator's humor.

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

Same. I am at page 200 now and really liking it. It's also a lot easier to read than I expected, but maybe thats because I've read Gravity's Rainbow already.

Juaguocio
Jun 5, 2005

Oh, David...

aslan posted:

I'm just surprised anybody's still attempting to teach it in high school. Was it an abridged version or the full thing?

I was an English major in college, and nobody at either of the two universities I attended assigned Moby-Dick anymore, for the reason you mentioned--it comes pretty close to a semester-long text. Bartleby, Benito Cereno, and maybe Billy Budd have all surpassed it even at the college level, I think, just to make sure students are exposed to Melville without having to subject them to the length of Moby-Dick. Which is unfortunate, because Moby-Dick is so worth reading even despite some parts being such a slog, but I'm not sure how you could teach it appropriately without devoting at least a couple months to it and ideally more.

One of the best classes I ever took was an entire summer semester on Moby-Dick. Even after three months, it felt like we had barely scratched the surface.

I posted a thread about it at the time, and some good discussion followed. You can read it here, if you've got archives: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3180617&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Dear God, I wrote a lot of words in that thread. I'm shaking my head, but also kinda wanting to read the book again.

YAMAGATAAA!!!
Oct 27, 2007

YAMAGATAAA!!!
Yesterday was a damp and drizzly November [day], so I picked up my copy and am like 100 pages into it instead of reading any of the new books I just got. I don't know what it is about this book that just drags me in over and over again.

I forgot I also picked up the awesome version with all the Rockwell Kent illustrations.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



WAY TO GO WAMPA!! posted:

Yesterday was a damp and drizzly November [day], so I picked up my copy and am like 100 pages into it instead of reading any of the new books I just got. I don't know what it is about this book that just drags me in over and over again.

I forgot I also picked up the awesome version with all the Rockwell Kent illustrations.

Yes! Kent's illustrations are awesome. Something about his blocky silhouettes and stark lines really fits Moby Dick better than any of the elaborate thin lined styles usually used to depict the final scenes on the covers and frontspieces. The latter are beautiful, sure, but for interior illustrations, Kent is fantastic.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
I've just been reading the Gutenberg edition. Is there a particular hardcover edition that people recommend?

Juaguocio
Jun 5, 2005

Oh, David...

Spoilers Below posted:

Yes! Kent's illustrations are awesome. Something about his blocky silhouettes and stark lines really fits Moby Dick better than any of the elaborate thin lined styles usually used to depict the final scenes on the covers and frontspieces. The latter are beautiful, sure, but for interior illustrations, Kent is fantastic.

Gilbert Wilson's "Insanity Series" is one of my favorite pieces of MD art, even though I've only ever seen crappy scans of the paintings: http://www.nku.edu/~moby/fletch2-2.html

He was apparently apprenticed to Kent for a while.

WoG
Jul 13, 2004

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I've just been reading the Gutenberg edition. Is there a particular hardcover edition that people recommend?
Well, it's not translated, so the gutenberg edition will be the same content, but for something pretty, it's part of the new Penguin Drop Caps series.

Or if you want something too fancy to actually carry around, there's Easton Press.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

WoG posted:

Well, it's not translated, so the gutenberg edition will be the same content, but for something pretty, it's part of the new Penguin Drop Caps series.

Or if you want something too fancy to actually carry around, there's Easton Press.

Looking over the thread it seems like what I'm looking for is

1) Complete and uncut text, whatever the most authoritative and "best" version is.

2) Thoroughly annotated.

3) Rockwell Kent illustrations, which really do look awesome from what I can see on Google.

At this point if I'm buying a physical copy of a book that's in the public domain, I want annotations and/or illustrations, otherwise I'll just read it on Kindle.

Blood Boils
Dec 27, 2006

Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS
Chalk me up as another "couldn't get through it on first attempt, couple years later it's mah favourite" folks. This book just has that way.

It doesn't have annotations, and I'm not sure what cut it is, but the Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition has the most beautiful cover for my money.

It's the fourth one down: http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.ca/2009/08/back-to-good-stuff.html

Irish Joe
Jul 23, 2007

by Lowtax

justcola posted:

The way in which man dominates and is dominated by nature?

This was it for me. The book starts out describing the whale in Biblical terms and making it seem like this great, incomprehensible force, and then spends the next 500 pages systematically picking it apart piece by piece so that when they finally confront the whale you honestly think they can kill it. It is, after all, just a whale and they caught plenty of whales. Then Moby Dick loving obliterates them and Ishmael is like "I told you the whale was some Biblical monster, dummy" and you're like "oh poo poo, I got got."

I imagine the abridged version is a much different experience for people.

Irish Joe fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Nov 9, 2014

Sir John Feelgood
Nov 18, 2009

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Looking over the thread it seems like what I'm looking for is

1) Complete and uncut text, whatever the most authoritative and "best" version is.

2) Thoroughly annotated.

3) Rockwell Kent illustrations, which really do look awesome from what I can see on Google.

At this point if I'm buying a physical copy of a book that's in the public domain, I want annotations and/or illustrations, otherwise I'll just read it on Kindle.
The Norton Critical Edition has the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry version of the text and is thoroughly annotated, but it's not illustrated.

The Modern Library version has Rockwell Kent's illustrations, but no annotations. It's also in paperback.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Sir John Feelgood posted:

The Norton Critical Edition has the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry version of the text and is thoroughly annotated, but it's not illustrated.

The Modern Library version has Rockwell Kent's illustrations, but no annotations. It's also in paperback.

D'oh. It looks like there was a push to do a kickstarter for exactly what I'd like . . . . and it failed. http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/herman-melvilles-moby-dick-annotated-on-kickstarter_b64465 =(

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
I first read Moby Dick when I was 13. It was a great sea adventure with encyclopedic bits thrown in.
I reread it when I was 16. It talked about a rebellion against nature's order.
Then I read it when I was 20, and it was all about obsession, certainty and how it's shattered by time.
Last time so far I read it when I was 23 and what I remeber most is how magical and surreal it makes otherwise completely ordinary situations look.
Guess what I'm saying is that it's a great book and I need to read it again, hopefully to catch humor. By the way - my copy doesn't have annotations and I recently acquired a Kindle; is there a good annotated version of it somewhere online?

Peel
Dec 3, 2007

Irish Joe posted:

This was it for me. The book starts out describing the whale in Biblical terms and making it seem like this great, incomprehensible force, and then spends the next 500 pages systematically picking it apart piece by piece so that when they finally confront the whale you honestly think they can kill it. It is, after all, just a whale and they caught plenty of whales. Then Moby Dick loving obliterates them and Ishmael is like "I told you the whale was some Biblical monster, dummy" and you're like "oh poo poo, I got got."

I imagine the abridged version is a much different experience for people.

Honestly even after whaling was explained to me I didn't understand how it was possible.

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

I just finished The Whiteness of the Whale and I don't get what people complain about. That was really good and interesting.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

anilEhilated posted:


By the way - my copy doesn't have annotations and I recently acquired a Kindle; is there a good annotated version of it somewhere online?

http://www.powermobydick.com/

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
Right, I guess the reader-capable versions you still have to pay for even though the book is public domain. Thanks anyway.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Irish Joe
Jul 23, 2007

by Lowtax

Peel posted:

Honestly even after whaling was explained to me I didn't understand how it was possible.

Its been a decade since I made my way through Moby Dick, but my understanding is that they spear the fish, attach weights to it to wear it down, follow it around for a few days, and then kill it once its run out of steam.

  • Locked thread