Moby Dick is the greatest American novel to date. Prove me wrong

What should i get by RWE then?

>Hermando "Whales are Fish" Melvin
No thanks.

I've read half. It's pretty good.
The greatest American novel is Lolita.
It's very well written with emotional depth.
And who is more American than Humbert? He literally comes from Europe, moves onto someone else land, takes what is theirs, does some pretty bad stuff, and then tells the story like he did little wrong.

You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe is the greatest American novel of all time.

>oh boy this brown sailor is all muscle
>all these wet sailors, their bodies are so strong and flexible
>cannibals are so mysterious and hot
>we're one big family
>I love my sailor friends
>smells like shit in here
>Queequeg please notice me

But you're right

Also a contender

He literally inb4 this

>I've read half.
Read the other half. You have missed some very beautiful chapters.

I am European and don't think much of US-American literature, but Moby Dick is my favourite book. Haven't read Lolita though.

It wore me out. Will probably pick it back up soon.

there you go

Yes. He goes on for ages about it.

Sadly, i can't remember where he talks about it. I've been struggling thru it for the last 6 months and now i', stuck after 230 pages. What's with all the encyclopedic info? When does it stop? Last night i read a full chapter on how whale-lines/ ropes are made?

*pardon the typos, i'm a little drunk

It's the greatest novel period.

moby's a big dick

4 u

When he talks about how the whale usually attacks.

If I remember correctly.

>twf you realise a whale intellectually is the closest creature to human beings on Earth

>Lolita

Nabokov is just an edgelord with superfluous prose. He writes like a faggot, desu.

>superfluous prose

The Recognitions exists.

>corncobs tortillas yecarthy's masturbatory nonsense

into the trash it goes

Maybe.

>Nabokov's 5th best novel (if even that)
>Best American novel

try again baka

Wrong.

See above.

Why's that?

This is coming up soon on my reading list. Salinger might be my favorite writer. How's it compare to Franny and Zooey, aka the comfiest American book of the 20th century?

bump

moby dick is great and all, but what about confederacy of dunces, guys? obviously a brilliant work of genius, better than gaddis by far, i mean i can't even get past the 5th page of the recognitions, so boring, and moby dick, that cetology chapter, had me falling asleep every few minutes. nah, i gotta say, confederacy of dunces is the prime nougat of what US has to offer.

>confederacy of dunces
>serious literature

work on your bait

>sperm whale's eyes are not at all where you expect them to be?
What does it mean? can someone elaborate

I agree 100%. Moby-Dick is the greatest American novel (that I have read, at least).

why is confederacy of dunces not the greatest American literature, so far what you've proposed in opposition has not been an argument.

Kimi no wa, your name. Watched in cinemas last saturday desu~

This desu.

classicreader.com/book/309/74/

fifth paragraph

aha, any idea when i'll be able to nyaa that shit?

Just buy the Library of America edition of his essays and lectures. It's expensive but it's by far the best collection. Then work your way through all the essays gradually. Read RWE like you would sip on a fine wine. Whatever you do, don't be a normie and just read Self Reliance.

i thought he wrote poetry :(

>A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two things- however large or however small- at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison.

Is Moby Dick the real Ulysses?

>ralph waldo emerson
Nietzsche was influenced by him by the way
But he was such an elusive bitch who has never admitted the influence of people like Emerson and Blake, people that wrote on same subjects many years before Nietzsche.

There's about 5 chapters on the physiology of whales.

>For all we know, [whales] represent sonar information as vision.
confirmed for the most Veeky Forums animal
How can you possibly describe this with words, from a whale's perspective?

everyone shits on the whale biology chapters but they're chock full of gems like this

You're right.
It is pretty good

>Is Moby Dick the real Ulysses?
what do you mean senpai?

>tfw Ishmael surrendered his boipucci to Queequg

>prescriptive opinions
Quickest way to spot someone with limited insight; you probably read for the intellectual ego boost don't you

>not Ulysses
This board has gone to shit

Ulysses is Irish, dumbass.

not him but you need to go back to r/books

>this is what plebians seriously believe

Fuck off, idiot.

>>>/reddit/

I didn't even bother to read the threat, but how many people have posted about 'muh boring, encyclopedic chapters' yet?

Why would you date a book you degenerate

I am inferring from context of the doge meme and comparison to Ulysses that you're saying this section is pseudo-profound? I don't want to seem as if I'm boasting, if its the case that you found the language difficult, but it all seems rather straight forward, do you not think? I can't see how it warrants comparison to Ulysses, or any other comment, except that its a nicely constructed contemplation regarding a pretty interesting subject

Is it true that american kids study Melville in school? I've read it a few years ago and I don't think kids/teens would be able to enjoy or understand it

>not him
maybe
>go back to r/books
why, how is that relevant?

Yes, it's true. Personally, I never studied it, but I've heard of other schools that taught it.

I've read it several times over the last 4 years and it's only now that Im on the cusp of 27 do I really feel like I'm fully appreciating it

Which chapter is your favorite? Mine is 'The Town-Ho's Story'.

we read billy budd in HS which was accessible at the time and left a good taste in my mouth.

nothing more American and telling of the times like the greed and techno push in J R. plus he has some hilarious american characters. like the gym teacher and the principal, he'll even the owner of the company they buy stock in. so many great characters. the story also couldn't take place anywhere else.

>J R

Which book is that? Who writes it?

no
sorry nab but no, pnin is better anyway
lol no
lool no not even salinger's best
you must be joking

toughen up m8, the encyclopedia stuff lessens a bit later in it, but you'll miss it once you finish the book

I always loved "The Spirit-Spout"

>Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.

That's so fucking dank.

Gaddis

...

Oh no I meant the real Ulysses as in the real novel that lends itself to fugal interpretation.

I'm European and many of my friends read it when they were younger. None of them got it at all.

Chapter 58 is maximum comfy

>Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat.

>On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from the attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the water that escaped at the lips.

>As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.

>How's it compare to Franny and Zooey
Well of course it's still about the Glass family. There's a bit less "philosophy" in it, but a lot more of them feels, imho.

Those eyes make me uncomfortable

I had mixed feelings about it while I was reading, but its really stuck with me and I must say that it has some really memorable scenes, characters, and metaphors.

blood meridian is awesome, but not the GOAT

Greatest "modern" American Novel. Few books capture the attitudes of present day america better.

Looking forward to it, friend.

Why do you feel the need to lie about reading The Recognitions and McCarthy when it's more than obvious that you've read neither?

someone's been reading their Bloom

why are whales so large

He himself created them that way, friendo.

>buttblasted corncobber

every single time

uve red liek 30 books in yer entire lieftiem

i keep getting dubs

don't you find them a bit indecent? especially the blue whale

>greatest American novel

Not about living in America
Not about being an American

Check mate

God is an American

Double check mate

Not him.
McCarthy isn't really that good.

>You haven't read him
I'll sell you a nigger heart for the price of a nigger.

The greatest german novel is not about living in Germany or being German. So what?

hahaha "dick" psssshhhht ahahahaha hahahaha
*milk shoots from nose*

Who knew 19th century whale biology could have such profound insights?

More like read 30 books in this year alone, friend.

Not really, friend. They are, after all, the most Veeky Forums animals.

Are you alright there, user?

>reads 30 books a year
>thinks thats a lot

wew.

>thinks thats a lot

It is if they all range form 400 to 1200 pages, you fucking brainlet.

>reads 30000 pages a year
>thinks that's a lot

wew

We did Bartelby in AP 12. It was a good read and everyone understood it. They just weren't interested in it, and I don't know what to think of that.