/lit/ - Literature

To piss off pseuds.

>>13853540
>what is a "pleb filter"?

>the plot

This book is too advanced for you, come back when you're a more experienced reader.

If you just care about the plot, watch the movie adaptation or something. These chapters make the book what it is. Also they have a lot of philosophy that related directly to the plot.

>>13853540
>pleb status:filtered
If the plot is all you’re interested in this isn’t the book for you, philosophy is important to it.
This is why i find ‘the whale’ to be a much better title for the book than moby dick because whales as a more abstract concept mythologically and culturally are a big focus of the book

>>13853779
No I understand the philosophy, it’s just not terribly interesting
>seeking adventure for the sake of adventure is foolish
>don’t look for sentiment where there is none (“tar and blubber”)
>subtlize your mind rather than expand it
>you’ll go insane if you can’t let past grievances go
Not exactly groundbreaking stuff

>>13854092
Yeah you've been filtered. This is the kind of stuff I'd expect an 11 year old to gleam from the book. I bet you think it's a novel too.

>>13853540
those are the best parts, pleb

>>13854169
>I bet you think it's a novel too.

Melville was paid by the word, so that's why books in the 1800s were padded out with useless bullshit that add nothing to the book.

>>13853540
It's a manual disguised as a book. Moby Dick is not literature.

>>13854186
But Moby Dick is from the 19th century

>>13854200
The 1800s are the 19th century...

>>13854186
He wasn't paid by the word you retard.

>>13854184
It's not a novel. It's a quintessential whale of a time.

>>13854186
jfc dude...

THE WHALES DID NOTHING WRONG

>>13854186
>Melville was paid by the word
This is the quintessential high-schooler critique. Literally just "why the fuck I gotta read". It doesn't matter if its loquacious as long as the prose is beautiful, which it is. Even the informative sections.

>>13853540
Every “info dump” chapter is actually a metaphysical chapter in disguise.

Try reading the end of “Cetology” again. The chapters on the ins and outs of whaling are actually what make MD special. I often pick up the book and choose from those chapters at random to read. When you read a book that long things can get lost in the tidal wave of pages, but if you look at the chapters individually it becomes much more clear.

>>13854186
that seems like such a bad business program for an editor/publisher. longer books don't sell more, what would be stopping authors from producing 2000 pages books all the time?

>>13854186
Yeah, dude, almost every author has deadlines and other requirements. Guess what? These requirements didn't take away from the authors, who's works stood the test of time. That's what differentiates the good from the bad.

quintessential gay erotica

>>13853540
FOR IMMERSION AND WEIGHT

>>13856036
Book is actually great tho
definitely top 5 for me (granted that I have been slacking on my reading at my 22s)

>>13854169
>gleam
You mean "glean".

>>13853540
I'm in the middle of this book and I kinda like it. I just love how poetic and buttery his prose is. It flows. It's like fishing or relaxing at the beach. You're not there to just finish the session asap

>>13854677
What did u gleam from cetology? I love Moby Dick because I view it as a stream of consciousness insofar it's a recollection of events with digressions and emulates the human experience very accurately, especially since most of our life is told from memory. IDK if that's a correct reading of it though.

>>13856054
>It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught- nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!
This paragraph is an obvious signal as to the implications of the chapter, of Melville’s interest in definitions, categories, and histories, and how they can be metaphors for each other. Another great info chapter that is also metaphorical is “The Line,” ostensibly about the forms of rope used on a whaling ship, but there are so many others as well, and some I haven’t figured out yet. “The Town-Ho’s Story” is an enigma to me but I feel it’s quite important to the book somehow.

>>13856101
Super interesting. Any secondary sources on this interpretation? Or is it your own?

>>13856049
lol ravaged

>I know whales aren't actually fish, but I'm going to keep calling them fish anyway.

Bold move, Herman.

>>13853540
I loved the cetology chapter so much I majored in marine biology

>>13856252
whales are literally and metaphysically fish, get over it eunuch

>>13853540
If you aren't baiting, fuck off immediately from here . Bet you enjoy anime, find Japanese literature deep and consume kpop.

>>13854230
No, they’re NOT. The 1800s are 1800-1899, whereas the 19th century is 1801-1900. Why is /lit/ so FUCKING STUPID.

>>13854498
I need you to know how much that made me laugh.
Mostly because you’re right.

>>13856051 >>13854677
agreed ... sort of like it, and as was mentioned a lot of the "factual" chapters do take a philosophical turn, but a lot of them is just Melville being a whale fanboy painting them like aliens - but it completes what he wants you to get out of the book, the whole whaling experience
i really like how ... expertly he can for example do a psychological chapter on Ahab and you know talking storms and spirits parting ... he just blends art with fact really really well, buttery prose i love it

>>13856101
felt the same way about the town-ho's story, i kinda picked up the ... you know he builds the pequod with a very idiosyncratic crew and it works like a little community, so i think he wanted to show how it can malfunction, how it's a little world inside a large one all inclusive, then also support the superstitiousness of Moby Dick (timely appearance) - and also, that I read in some chapter analysis - how normally when two boats meet each other they exchange all sorts of information, whereas since there was no info on Moby Dick, Ahab just ignored them and behaved not-whalemanlike

>>13856252
To be fair to Melville, a whale is as much a fish as any other based on modern phylogenetics: Ray finned fish like salmon or puffer fish are more closely related to land vertebrates and their descendants (including whales) than they are to sharks, a fish is really an aquatic vertebrate of a certain shape. If you define fish based on genetics they don’t really exist as a monophyletic group, if you define them by physical characteristics then whales probably count as fish

>>13856694
what the fuck ... i literally powered through ... it's hard for a 21st century man to read this, because he says an absurd amount of things that I just don't think are true, or simply aren't true

>>13856049

Irrefragably based

>>13857024
Melville acknowledges the scientific discrepancy. In his tradition, a whale is a fish. An important idea of moby dick is that the metaphysical is not captured in doctrine, notably not scientific or Christian

>>13853540
Dont try to read this one then, the classics are not for you. Grow up and come back to them.

is whale steak fried on whale fat any good?

>>13857431
I don’t know but I would definitely kill one to try it

>>13853540
If you're not interested in whaling, don't read it. I couldn't get enough of it when I read it. I read Leviathan by Eric Jay Dolin after Moby Dick to get more. It's a facinating history.

>>13857024
Melville does this intentionally. Moby Dick is filled with trickery and humor.

>>13857455