I'm sure a lot of people has read Moby Dick and I probably will too. Give me some reasons why this book is worth reading

I'm sure a lot of people has read Moby Dick and I probably will too. Give me some reasons why this book is worth reading

Here's the only reason you need:

>Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

it's a lot funnier than its reputation suggests, so you have that to look forward to

its homoerotica.

>Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel- forbidding- now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.

Because it’s good, why else?

if you need convincing, its not for you

Because Ishmael squeezes sperm and gets it all over his hands but it's totally not gay.

>>its homoerotica.
> t. only read the first chapter
Suicide is always an option for you, buddy.

Moby Dick is great in lots of ways but one of them is the same way in which King Kong is great - it is immensely *satisfying* on a deep level.
"Deep level", as in, the sort of thing that Jung and Campbell and Frazer wax rhapsodic about.

Just think about what happens:

> Man meets whale
> Man tries to kill whale
> Whale bites man's leg off
> Man becomes consumed with desire for revenge
> Man chases whale for years
> Catches him
> Whale kills him
> Quite right too

How can you not like this?

is the german version even considerable to buy?
or should i just read the english version?

Normies had been telling me for years that it was boring and dry. It was actually very funny, immersive and immensely enjoyable throughout.

Why the fuck would you want to read it in German if clearly you comprehend English?

Dude metal gear lmao

whales are fish unironically

I love the way he doesn't dodge the whole "Are Whales Fish?" question.
I mean we didn't even care all that much. So he wants to call them fish, fine :)
But no, he goes right out there and meets it head-on.
He's not afraid!

>he doesn't prefer his native language

>unironically reading german over english

I'm about 250 pages in right now, so far it's been interesting. It's like if an autistic Shakespeare wrote a book about whaling.

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!--Aye, aye! thy silence, then, THAT voices thee. (ASIDE) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion."

A FUCKING WHEEEEEEEL

(1/2)
MOBY-DICK 2: REVENGE OF THE SON
The air crackled like soda. Gusts of wind rocked the ship harder than a Kiss concert. The crew of the whaling ship iPhone scurried hurriedly about the deck, sweeping and buggering.
"Aye, tis him," grizzled Captain Bhab spat. "Tis the white whale!"
I looked out to sea, considering the whiteness of the sky and the whiteness of the water, pondering how white and white everything was. Could the whiteness be a symbol for evil? Or perhaps man's reckless ambition? Only the author could answer for sure.
First Mate Frappucino gazed menacingly at the Captain and shook his head violently. "Damn that whale! As everyone here knows we have been sailing now for two years round this wretched planet, chasing the beast that killed Bhab's father which is possibly a literary device meant to symbolise his penis, thus his manhood, trying to attain his own personal revengeance while we are all forced along for the ride!"
The turbulent air threw the ship asunder, sending the one whale we had actually hunted on this expedition, this one sort of bluish and at that time hung from hooks, spiralling across ther deck. It smashed into the focsle and exploded in an ecstacy of sperm, sperm got on me, on my good cannibal friend Zegeelqueelgeeequee, more sperm than I have ever witnessed (which, I assure you, is a lot) cascaded in undulating ripples across my vision, splattering my whale-penis coat...

(2/2)
The whale in question was a minke whale, which is actually a type of fish. The minke whale /ˈmJnki/, or lesser rorqual, is a type of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale.[1] The minke whale was first described by the Danish naturalist Otto Fabricius in 1780, who assumed it must be an already known species and assigned his specimen to Balaena rostrata, a name given to the northern bottlenose whale by Otto Friedrich Müller in 1776.[2] In 1804, Bernard Germain de Lacépède described a juvenile specimen of Balaenoptera acuto-rostrata.[3] The name is a partial translation of Norwegian minkehval, possibly after a Norwegian whaler named Meincke, who mistook a northern minke whale for a blue whale.[4].
"To the boats," screamed Bhab horrendously.
We all went onto the boats. Zegeelqueelgeeequee launched his harpoon but it missed.
"Dang," he ejaculated.
The white whale was bearing down on us now. Great white shapes blobbed before us, splashing white water everywhere and we got very wet and white but at least washing off much of the sperm. His mighty tail smashed into our boat, wood splintering and cracking with such force as thunder, and our complement fell haplessly into the wide ocean, thrashing and wailing, clinging to whatever debris we could.
"You came here seeking vengeance for your father, Bhab," the white whale shrieked, "but now it is I who have my vengeance! For your father killed my father also! That's right, Bhab; for I am Moby-Dick 2!"
Many hours later I awoke, alone and adrift amid the carnage, hanging to a gigantic globule of sperm, and some people came and rescued me later.

the thing is i have no problen with english its just that in the older books there are a lot of synonyms of simple words that are rarely used in modern english and to actually get a good grasp of the book without checking words from time to time id rather enjoy it in my native language if the translation is well done

I don't remember much homoerotica in the description of Fates guiding Ishmael's life.
i do however remember Ishmael admiring Queequeg's muscular body and sleeping with him, "as if he were his wife"

That's absolutely not what happens. How can you read a book like Moby Dick and end up with this "interpretation"?
And then there's your spacing
>>>reddit

Nah. I mean, if your english really is shoddy, get one, but otherwise it's better to get it in english and keep a dictionary nearby (I have Merriam-Webster app on my phone and it has helped me with Melville and particularly with Shakespeare). Melville writes very vividly and poetically, often uses puns, alliteration and so on, stuff you can't translate. Put in some effort and you'll learn the archaic vocabulary sooner or later. I read plenty of Shakespeare before Moby Dick, so the only notable problem for me was the naval terminology.

>Normies had been telling me for years
they are normies, what the fuck could you expect??

you're not funny and I bet people find you tiresome

Well, user, Moby-Dick is the single greatest aesthetic prose piece in literature so you'd be doing a disservice by depriving yourself of reading it in the original.

im his friend and i was just laughing at this with him actually hes not a bore hes my FRIEND

t. anonymous

Do it again, Bomber Harris!

I'll only repeat what everyone else is saying:
>the richest prose I've ever encountered; I never understood what a "prose stylist" meant until I read Moby-Dick
>the rich prose is tempered by a detachment of the author, to Ishmael as narrator, making the prose both immediately and aesthetically (in the Kantian sense) enjoyable
>homoeroticism as an effective argument for egalitarianism — way more than Hawthorne could ever pull off
>laugh-out-loud humor (e.g. "Flask, alas! was a butterless man!")
>insane, macrocosmic ramblings in an authentic revival of Tyndale's prose as Ahab's dialogue
>keen psychological insight
>the unburdening of sustained tension leads to a real catharsis at the end

THE great American novel, no competitors.

>homoeroticism as an effective argument for egalitarianism
wew lad

i will give it a try thanks

most books are. a sense of humor is key in understanding high literature.

...

I imagine a reading of this in either Locust Valley Lockjaw or Trans-atlantic.

>I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other

This is the best reason to read it, personally. It helps to keep me from deifying people or challenges. The book made me feel powerful, and I have a lot of respect for someone with so much ambition it kills them.