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I used to read a lot and really love reading but for years I've spent too much time online and on twitter and I could no longer focus on reading a book. But I recently spent a month in the mental hospital without my phone but with books so I was able to re-train my brain to be able to focus on reading again and now I'm really loving it again and reading more. I am telling everyone how great Moby-Dick is. Every chapter is about some aspect of whaling but really it's just a framing device for Ishmael's grand musings on life. It's long and meandering and has many chapters of his musings that don't advance the plot but they're fascinating to read. And the insights into human character and psychology are remarkable. Ahab, Starbuck, are such interesting characters. We see how Ahab's monomania destroys his soul, and Starbuck sees this too. I could go on and on about this and ramble forever but my thoughts would not be as focused as Ishmael's and I cannot convey how wonderful this book is. The prose is amazing. One chapter Ishmael is talking about how whales have an eye on each side of their head with a blind spot in front of them where they cannot see. So each eye will give an image to the brain and the brain has to process it. How does the whale brain do it, Ishmael wonders. This could seem like just an observation about cetology but there is so much more packed into his epistemological ponderings here. How do we know anything besides what our senses tell us? Can we understand how any other animal thinks and perceives the world, can we know how any other humans perceive the world? Stuff like that, makes you think. Another chapter Ishmael is doing some dangerous whaling thing with Queequeg and they're tired together and ropes flying around that could knock one of them into the water and if one of them drowns they both will. Why do such a dangerous thing, you may ask, and why put your life in another man's hands? But ah! Every day in life we are reliant on other people for our lives in some way. The doctor, or anyone in society could do something to help or harm you. And we are surrounded by dangers all the time we could die ay any time. So whaling is really just like life. And so on and on; these are just a few examples I can remember right now but Ishmael is full of so many of these musings to make us think. People sometimes say the whale is an allegory for nature or God or something but I think defining it is too limiting. This book is about life, it's about everything. So I'm trying to read more and read some of "the classics". I also just read The Bell Jar and could go on another ramble about how much I love it. Let me know what you think about these books ITT and let me know other novels you like, thanks. other books I've been recommended: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Gravity Falls Crime and Punishment As I Lay Dying
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Nov 3, 2024 14:49
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well i just read you and this is crazy but here's my number so call me Ishmael, maybe
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Nov 3, 2024 14:50
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Moby-Dick rules because it can spark these kinds of deep existential thoughts but it is also very funny and kind of gay My favorite thing in the book is Queequeg's coffin. The crew sees that he is imminently about to die of some disease and that he is actively wasting away so they start carving him a decorated funeral cask according to the rites of his Polynesian origin. Then while he's lying there dying he remembers he owes some kind of debt to someone back home and is like "oh wait l I can't die yet" and instantly recovers. I imagine him just reinflating like a dry sponge in water. So the cask was completely pointless. Except it wasn't, because it's the very thing that Ishmael clings to after the Pequod is sunk and saves his life so he can go on to write the book It's just brilliant comedic writing
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Nov 3, 2024 14:55
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Yeah it was much funnier than I expected. I laughed when in the midst of the serious discussion of whale biology Ishmael said the purpose of a narwhale's horn is for turning the pages of pamphlets. Oh another part I also love near the end Starbuck is standing outside Ahab's door with a pistol debating whether or not to shoot him and save the ship from its doomed voyage but he doesn't do it
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Nov 3, 2024 14:58
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I like the part where he explains that he knows whales are mammals but in his heart whales will always be fish
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Nov 3, 2024 15:23
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Squeeze the milk of human kindness op
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Nov 3, 2024 15:24
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yea i havent read it yet but im sure itll be good. come join us in the book barn's real lit thread they love Dick over there 
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Nov 3, 2024 15:24
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Extra Large Marge posted:I like the part where he explains that he knows whales are mammals but in his heart whales will always be fish this is part of the mystery of the whale the mystery of the universe. all our science we will never know everything what are categories like mammal/fish except man's made-up terms to try to describe the natural world fish is such a vague term with so many different types of fish to be meaningless in taxonomy
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Nov 3, 2024 15:33
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Fuckin whales
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Nov 3, 2024 15:35
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There's a part near the end of the Iliad, after Achilles has killed Hector and is disrespecting his body and will not give it back to the Trojans for the proper burial rites. Hector's father Priam the king of Troy leaves the protection of the city walls and walks to Achilles' tent alone at night to beseech him to return the body. How can he reach Achilles and convince him to change his mind and let go of his anger? Priam asks Achilles to think of his own father back home, he would want his son's body returned if he was dead. And this shared human connection touches Achilles and he feels empathy for Priam's situation and they hug and cry and it's a very emotional scene the climax of the poem and he agrees to return the body for the funeral. But it's just finding this one thing in common, this shared humanity, that finally moves Achilles and abates his anger. There's a scene in Moby Dick where they find another ship that has encountered Moby Dick. The captain of this other ship was sailing with his son, and his son is now lost at sea in one of the smaller boats used for the whale hunt. The captain begs Ahab, please let me use your ship to help me find my son, our two ships together can cover more sea in the search. Ahab refuses. The other captain repeats his plea. He tries to reach Ahab. Please, think of your own son. If he was lost, wouldn't you want to find him? I would help you if the situations were reversed. He tries the same tactic to find some shared thread of humanity something they can relate to each other over, something to overcome Ahab's maniacal hunt for the whale long enough to help him search for his son. And Ahab still says no. At this point he is too far gone there is no more humanity left in him and he and his ship are doomed their fate is sealed nothing will stop Ahab from his mad quest for revenge. I don't know if Melville intended this to be a direct reference to Homer but that is what it reminded me of
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Nov 3, 2024 15:42
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No mention of the chapter where the sailor wears the whale's penis skin like a raincoat? Very disappointed. 1/5.
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Nov 3, 2024 16:07
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the word penis is so vulgar Ishmael only says it in Latin but the Latin word for penis is also penis
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Nov 3, 2024 16:09
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It's OK as far as books about whales go.
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Nov 3, 2024 16:12
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Ahab was definitely an rear end in a top hat but Moby Dick had plenty of opportunities to de-escalate and he never did.
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Nov 3, 2024 16:17
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I liked the parts where Ahab is forging his giant spear to take down Moby Dick. Where he forges it in blood and then I think gets it struck by lightning or something. Then the final chase scenes at the end felt so hardcore after all that buildup, I was absolutely there for it. Really made you earn the hunt.
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Nov 3, 2024 16:24
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I liked the part where Moby Dick and King Kong fall in love and fight the kaiju
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Nov 3, 2024 16:26
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yeah and I like when Ahab is talking to the blacksmith he says you can hammer out the dents in that metal but you can't hammer out the dent in my soul
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Nov 3, 2024 16:27
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It's okay
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Nov 3, 2024 16:27
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I like the preacher who lives in a church made to look like a whaling ship and dresses in a whaling outfit and gives his one and only sermon on Jonah and the whale and since the sailors only even in Nantucket one week of 52 he just reuses the same sermon over and over. It’s like how every part of Pokémon worlds society revolves around pokemon but its whales
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Nov 3, 2024 16:30
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Mozi posted:well i just read you sometimes I want to go kill a big whale so here's the Pequod and call me Ishmael
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Nov 3, 2024 16:30
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It needed a sequel or whole cinematic universe to reach full potential. Imagine retired Ahab, sitting in his whale penis hammock, looking at overdue bills and gettting pulled into the whale game for one last job.
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Nov 3, 2024 16:31
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Colonel Cancer posted:It needed a sequel or whole cinematic universe to reach full potential. Imagine retired Ahab, sitting in his whale penis hammock, looking at overdue bills and gettting pulled into the whale game for one last job. Ishmael is always making references to other jobs or adventures he's had, so they could expand them into their own full stories
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Nov 3, 2024 16:35
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Colonel Cancer posted:It needed a sequel or whole cinematic universe to reach full potential. Imagine retired Ahab, sitting in his whale penis hammock, looking at overdue bills and gettting pulled into the whale game for one last job. I'm too old for this poo poo....
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Nov 3, 2024 16:38
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7u7Yoc0KMI
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Nov 3, 2024 16:38
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maybe try reading a better book op, like lord of the rings
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Nov 3, 2024 16:41
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The one ring was truly Sauron's white whale
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Nov 3, 2024 16:44
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Moby Dick 2: Too Dick, Too Real
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Nov 3, 2024 16:45
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I haven't read Moby dick since I was in HS, so I can't say much about it, but I did enjoy it at the time. Now The Brother's Karamazov, that's a novel for the ages, and really dives into the author's musings about society, class, religion, faith, and government. I read it once around 2010 and I've never stopped thinking about it. It made me a little more forgiving on a person's faith but even more intolerant of organized religion. People can be many things at once, and it loves to dive into the hypocrisy of the human condition, even with the main character we follow that is supposedly the "good" brother. Really cannot recommend this book enough.
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Nov 3, 2024 17:08
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I am legit going to re-read Moby Dick because of this thread though.
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Nov 3, 2024 17:22
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Watch the movie too
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Nov 3, 2024 17:25
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Yep, its very good, melville is an absolute master
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Nov 3, 2024 17:25
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you broke my grill posted:Ishmael is always making references to other jobs or adventures he's had, so they could expand them into their own full stories Moby Dick prequel where Ishmael signs up to teach at a doomed school where the one-legged principal is obsessed with tracking down and killing an albino truant
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Nov 3, 2024 17:50
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Hard to argue against it, having one of the best openings in literature. "Call me Ishmael."
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Nov 3, 2024 17:53
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you broke my grill posted:Gravity Falls I liked the cartoon better.
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Nov 3, 2024 18:00
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Reading a book about Dick and giggling every time I see the title
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Nov 3, 2024 18:04
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I like the chapter about blubber squeezing, it's unabashedly eroticquote: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.
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Nov 3, 2024 18:04
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Rubber Chicken posted:Reading a book about Dick and giggling every time I see the title Check out the works (lol) of Philip K Dick
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Nov 3, 2024 18:07
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The Gregory Peck movie is great. The Patrick Stewart one, not so much. Content warning: The whale hunt scenes look real because they were.
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Nov 3, 2024 18:09
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yeah moby dick is is one of those books where you read it and you're just like "oh ok. yeah. I can see why this is a classic, it's great" I'd even go to bat for the unabridged version a lot of people flippantly frame it like melville was just showing off what he learned about whales, like a michael crichton book, but those people are missing like half of what the book is doing imo. things mean things. the relentless descriptions of whales do this amazing thing where they situate you in something very grounded, then start looking at it from these other angles until you don't know what you're looking at, they grow in your understanding from scientific biological real flesh and blood creatures that exist in the world, like, we straight up kill the motherfuckers, to... still that, but also something unearthly and eternal, something that almost makes mockery of our attempts to understand and contain it but also, yeah, it's really funny, and it's really gay, and in there there is the simple story everybody knows of one man's destructive obsession with revenge on an indifferent force of nature it's just a really good book
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Nov 3, 2024 19:16
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Basically every time I read a classic novel I come into it thinking it's going to be such a slog but then you start reading and it hits you that these books are marked as Classics because they're really good, duh.
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Nov 3, 2024 19:26
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