I literally just finished the behemoth of a novel that is Moby Dick over the weekend. It was a rather long project of mine that I had been working on over time while reading other things as well. But, I have finally made it.
Large portions of the book are very dry (to put it lightly) because Melville either enjoys just jerking off to the thought of whales or he likes to set up a scene so precisely that it takes tons of time to get to the juicy part.
Overall, I thought it was a great novel. I guess I can see why people thought during the time that it was a captivating read. Considered one of the first great modern novels, though I am not entirely sure why.
Overall, probably give it a 9/10. Lots of gay scenes, whale hunting smut, and dry clinical descriptions of shit.
What did you guys think of it?
Who among us are fans of the dick?
shut up retard
>mfw some bitch told me she didn't like the parts about whales because they didn't advance the plot
Kill all women
elaborate please?
wat? LOL. I whale masturbation portions were tedious and dry at times, but I didn't dislike them necessarily.
Sure, one could argue that Moby Dick is two totally different books squeezed into one. One is a whale dictionary and another is a story about a crazy captain.
>dry masturbation across the seas
do you even read what you type sometimes
>Makes green text out of a collection of words that were not used in that order in any part of the previous post
I'm sorry, but are you literally retarded? I didn't type that and you know it. Plus, don't comment unless you have actually read Moby Dick, because only then would you realize how what you actually greentexted could be an actual line from the novel and nobody would know the difference. The book has some serious gay overtones.
I hate how this board is such a meme horrorshow sometimes. The OP brings up a really good novel worth talking about and everybody just acts like retarded kids.
Moby Dick is actually a really good book and this board shouldn't be opposed to talking about it.
what i paraphrased literally makes more sense than your poorly written post.
I have 50 pages left. It's going pretty slowly because every other page gives me an orgasm. Yeah, I like it.
The descriptions aren't overall the best part but can still be great sometimes, and are never actually boring.
You are a retard. I'd talk about poorly written.
Congrats on almost being done with such a great work. Why does it make you orgasm?
It's just so beautifully written. I could pick a random paragraph, admire its beauty and analyze its philosophy.
any scholarly types care to tell what IS the point of the endless whale talk?
The Whiteness of the Whale chapter, for one
True, It is quite beautiful. Care to pick one at random and lets go through it? I am intrigued.
I seem to forget that one. What was said in it? was it relatively early in the novel?
I'm actually interested in the same thing. I mean, I get it... its a book about a whale.
But the main story, it seems at least, is about the hearts of men and the insanity of Ahab.
Why do I have to be an expert on EVERYTHING about whales to get the story?
Not that I dislike the whale sections... It just doesn't flow all the time.
I'm at about 200 pages in. When does it get masterpiece level again? He's talking about the Town Ho and Gam and shit. Drier than Sahara right now.
The technical parts aren't more than a small portion of the book, relative to the rest of it (and they aren't entirely so technical as whaling lore, for instance, he says a whale is a "fish"). Most of the sidetracking is not technical at all, it's anecdotes and philosophizing.
It is actually funny that you bring that up. Town Ho is a really weird part of the book. It has been talked about for decades. It is written completely different from the rest of the text and stands out very well from the rest. So once you get past that it is basically the book as it was before that shiz.
However, Don't think you are out of the desert yet. It gets dry AF down the line from where you are.
For the record, what part in the beginning 200 pages did you consider "Masterpiece level"? Jc
I don't know if I would call them a small portion. I mean, relative to the size of the rest of the text... sure.. But they are HUGE sections all about just different types of whales, fins, tails, the spout, their habits, how they live, where they go, why... Its like my god dude.
Also, did you actually read it because you have that part wrong... The technical parts are VERY technical. At least for his time period. It isn't really lore. It actually is very much so the written anatomy and whale life. Also, He only refers to whales as "fish" as a sailor might. He makes it blatantly clear in the text that Whales aren't fish. That's Why I think you didn't actually read it... because he is very clear about that.
the point is entertainment. at least i loved it; the way the novel unfolds an entire world centered around something that before reading i'd never cared about is the best part.
Personally, I picked it up the first time expressly BECAUSE I loved the thought of being a sailor and the nautical lifestyle. I have experienced the lifelong pull to the sea that Melville speaks of early in the book. The Whaling part I didn't know so much about besides I have always thought they were beautiful creatures. I think that the novel is great in introducing people to that world. Especially in today's world when whaling is dated for the most part.
That's because MD is generally hated by Reddit and were in the middle of another reddit influx of newfags.
Like this motherfucker that can't into greentexting.
I mean at least his thread is Veeky Forums, but considering the Veeky Forums population is now mostly Redditors, what would you expect the thread to look like? It's like when tourists flood a nice locale and suck the life out of the goddamn place.
Chapter 23 i think, when he talks about a one Bulkington. He describes the "six-inch chapter" as a "stoneless grave" for Bulkington. Amazing prose and complete mastery of his themes of life, death, ships with obsessions and shit. I thought that chapter is one of the reasons the author must've kept going. It's just beautiful so i kept going as well.
Just read this part. Its a list of things (there are many) that are white. Sometimes these things are sinister. Its fine but 50 times too long. Some Melville scholar must be able to shed some light on this repeating shit until the reader has an aneurism technique.
thats not actually technically incorrect, even now
A book about a dude who is obsessed with a white whale has chapters where the author obsesses over everything white and whale. Brilliant.
How the fuck did you read it in two days? Shit is so dense.
Not that user.
It's somewhere in the middle. Melville talks about how the color white is always attributed noble aspects in every culture and is an approbative. Then he beautifully contrasts that with the dreadful feeling it evokes at the same time. He attributes that to different things mainly white being the absence of color.
> But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous - why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.
Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows - a colorless, all- color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues - every stately or lovely emblazoning - the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if
Masterwork bar none.
>Who among us
>Whomongus
>Hugh Mongus