/lit/ - Literature

I honestly think it's good to go into Moby-Dick blind the first time. It's not Ulysses or The Sound and the Fury; it's not trying at any difficult Modernist experiments in writing. Melville's prose can sometimes be difficult to follow but that's just because it's probably not written in a style you're used to. It's like Shakespeare; once you get the hang of it you should move right along. And I think it's good to move through Moby-Dick the first time in a way that's unguided. Go into it blind. Then, later, you can reread it with a guide if you need to do so.

If you really do want some help, get a scholarly edition that has footnotes, to explain this or that thing to you. But I don't think this is really necessary. Moby-Dick isn't as difficult as some other books.

Moby-Dick

fat girls and weight gain

Yes, I know, the "whaling" jokes write themselves.

>>17778354
>a certain "vibe"

I can agree with this, and I agree that the great books do this as well. Like, think of Moby-Dick. It has a "feel" to it, just as sure as any good anime. Something you can't describe in words, but that just comes to you as you read it. And I think Western works that have a feel, a vibe, do seem to be very rare these days. A kind of... organic-ness, you know? A sense that this is a living, breathing world you are reading about, with people who feel real instead of being mouths for this or that idea or perspective. An earthiness, a reality.

Board's shit, let's have an emergency Moby-Dick thread.

What is the best chapter, and why is it "On the Whiteness of the Whale"?

You have read Moby-Dick, haven't you, /lit/?

I can't imagine browsing this board and being an English-speaker without also reading the greatest novel ever written in English.