How is it so good? I expected this book to be pretty dry and serious, and padded with le whale facts. I'm only 200 pages in but the chapter about mast-heads was such beautiful prose and followed by what is essentially a dance number by sailors from around the world who come together to sing and dance. It's such a life-affirming adventure that's both funny and brings up questions about the mystery and nature of reality and God. There's only been 1 chapter about whale facts so far and that was like 8 pages.
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It's great. Never base your assumptions on midwits on Goodreads who write reviews that are mostly blogposts about themselves with purple prose
This made me laugh. The competition between Goodreads reviews and cooking blogs continues.
most of people's expectations about this book stem from the reviews of midwit modernist libtards who hate authenticity, who hate beauty, who hate sincerity and dignity and who most of all hate themselves and would rather read the 100th 200 page novel about a non binary latino going on a space adventure
It‘s so funny when performative trads outstep their depth and have to maneuver subsequently around Melville‘s fawning adoration of his invented brown/black harpooners‘ strength as compared with his meek White navigators.
Not even who you replied to, but you're projecting
The prior posts clearly imply a pre-neoliberal value set from older literature, in contrast of which there are many instances such as I described: Queequeg and Ishmael in bed being the most infamous, the harpooneers overwhelming the White cook notable for its absolute nature within the cast. I‘ll grab this from Chapter 48 as perhaps one of the more illustrative examples.
> Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the boat, the gigantic Black, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to Flask’s foot, and then putting Flask’s hand on his hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean against and steady himself by.
> At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious; for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble Black to every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to the Black’s lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that.
you're obviously baiting but I'll say that if anything I admire the respect Melville gives to all whaling peoples and persons of the world, and I think it's cool to have a diverse cast in such a setting (which was undoubtedly inspired by his own real life experiences). And this diversity is real and meaningful, unlike the mulatto soup rampant in modern media
i've never read it, but i bet there's no black people, no gay, bi- or transbian sisters present and a serious lack of women present. i also bet that in the future, novels like these will be weeded out and changed in such a way to allow for these corrections with the help of algorithms and surveillance monitors.
Jesus. Fricking. Christ. My dudes, what crawled up your ass and died there?
>hey uh moby dick is pretty good huh guys
>THE WOKE ARE TRYINF TO KEEP YOU FROM MOBY DICK BLACK PEOPLE TRANS LIBLIBLIB LIBTARDS KYS LIBTARD DAE HATE TRANS I HATE BLACK PEOPLE I HATE WOMEN PHBBBT BRAAAP
You guys have NOTHING else going on in your lives jesus christ. Wokes are annoying but I've never in my life met a liberal who shoehorns sjws shit into literally every conversation they have like the people here do. No one cares!
thousands upon thousands of articles and blogs shitting on classic literature from a modern woke perspective, no exceptions and no regard for any nuance
a couple anons on an annonymous mosaic collecting forum complain about this
>ugh, get a life already, stop shoehorning this into everything!
> There's only been 1 chapter about whale facts so far and that was like 8 pages.
This seems fake to me. I dropped the book after 100 pages or so, and from my memory it was pretty much all facts about whaling. That was three years ago though, so I might be misremembering.
There's always musings about the whaling industry, life as a sailor, the nature of sailors and and ocean's effect on the mind. But only 1 chapter (so far) is a strict exposition about different species of whales and their characteristics
What’s your favorite line from it so far?
>How is it so good?
He had a natural aptitude for metaphor, yet he didn't knew he had it. When he discovered Shakespeare's work he realized what could be done with language. The blood of his imagination was sweetened and heated into foaming mulled-wine after reading Shakespeare.
It is as if he had discovered that angels exist and, in trying to sing like them, found out that his skin was also capable of blazing and that the freckles on his back could be inflamed into wings.
While most writers that become enthusiastic with Shakespeare's angelic fire can at best become fireflies, at most create a little bit of luminous butter to comb their hair, Melville has really managed to dress himself in lightning. Other poets drew a little inspiration to cover one or two teeth with gold, but Melville created canines of thunder. This is as much due to his natural talent as his daring.
He discovered a writer that most of the literary tradition revered and that a good part of the reading public used to - and still does - praise because of the creation of characters. But Melville realized that Shakespeare is great more than anything else because of his language. And instead of just admiring this writer, instead of just revering him, Melville decided to challenge him, decided to try to be as good as he was, decided to try to write poetry and create metaphors as well as Shakespeare (that is, as well as the person who did it best in all of human history).
In short: Shakespeare is good for your brain. And if you have him as a teacher, and you try to outdo your teacher, the results can be wonderful.
Here's Melville on Shakespeare, by the way:
>“Ah, he’s full of sermons-on-the-mount, and gentle, aye, almost as Jesus. I take such men to be inspired. I fancy that this moment Shakspeare [sic] in heaven ranks with Gabriel Raphael and Michael. And if another Messiah ever comes twill be in Shakespere’s [sic] person.”
this was beautifully written, thank you. I myself am about 2/3 done with Moby Dick and have concurrently read Macbeth, King Lear, Coriolanus and am now moving on to Timon of Athens.
Some of the passages are written with the same beauty and sensitivity of when one looks at a painting. The part where Ishmael is up on the mast staring out to see and contemplating life carries, in my opinion, the same emotional impact of that famous Friedrich painting. In life, adventure and discovery always seem to be waiting just over the horizon, pulling the soul forever towards it.
I was shocked when I read the first chapter because it seems like the kind of book that would be boring, stodgy, and stilted, but I found it to be whimsical and full of beauty and vitality. Melville’s prose is vigorous and immediate but also has a biblical overtone. Anyone who is hesitating on this piece, READ IT.
From the 2022 Oxford World's Classics edition
Any ESL that has read it in both original and translation here? Is it worth it to suffer with the original?