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/lit/ - Literature

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19066874 No.19066874 [Reply] [Original]

I just finished reading the /lit/ Annotated Moby-Dick, and I will now present my thoughts to thee, O Anon.
This was my second reading of Moby-Dick, the first being during the /lit/ read together in May 2020. I love this book, and my second read through deepened my understanding of the Dick immensely. I caught so many things that I missed my first time around.
Now, to what makes this printing unique. First, the Endnotes. There were a few endnotes in here that were deeply moving. Some of you here have amazing insight into this book and my experience was greatly booned by peering into your minds. These remarkable endnotes comprised of perhaps a quarter, perhaps fewer than the total amount. The remainder were either shallow recaps of the chapter (which every so often misinterpreted the chapter in question) or silly, funny, and/or retarded shitposts either tangentially related to the content of the chapter or completely unrelated. These endnotes gave this book it's/lit/ signature, and I enjoyed reading them. I did need to use two bookmarks as the first page suggested, and there were no marks signaling the presence of an endnote besides a few times where a footnote would mention it, so after every chapter or every few chapters I flipped to the back to check.
Second mentioned will be the Footnotes. The first few dozen chapters were rife with content, some chapters so much so that I had to read the chapter completely ignoring the footnotes, and only then go back to see what they said, or else I would have lost my understanding of the chapter by breaking concentration every few words. As the book progressed, the footnotes became sparse, and there were droughts of anonymous content for several chapters. Every so often a few chapters in a row would have at least one footnote, then nothing for a long time, and then a single chapter would have more footnoted text than the entirety of the chapter itself, followed by nothing for a while. It would have been quite exhausting to keep up with footnotes for the full duration of the book, but at least one footnote here and there evenly spread throughout the empty chapters would have been nice. I will say, there was not a single footnote on the chapter where Ishmael is squeezing the sperm and holding his fellow seamen's hands. The absence of any commentary here only made the chapter funnier.

>> No.19066879
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19066879

>>19066874
Third I will speak of the front and back matter. The front matter contains a biography, translators note, foreword, introduction, preface and editors note. This in itself is hilarious. The various allusions to other highly esteemed /lit/ books, funny original content, and references to our board were magical, and the translators note that pretended Moby-Fiut was a book originally written in Polish by Władysłav Herman Majewski cracked me up. There was a book curse featured on the copyright page, and while retaining Melville's original dedication to Hawthorne, our edition is also dedicated to "the proud and noble people of Neuschwabenland" which I found rather fitting for a book set largely in the Southern Ocean, not far from Antarctica. There were 4 "critical essays" in the back, two of which were shitposts about reading the book in a feminist context which I found pretty funny. There was an essay on why Melville named his narrator Ishmael which I found super interesting and well written.
There were a couple weird things with the formatting unfortunately. Anytime the character æ was present, it glitched out and replaced, for example, what would have been Cæsar with CÃ|-sar or something similar; oddly, œ was unaffected. There were a handful of these throughout the whole book. Not a major issue though, and it was still legible.
All in all I really enjoyed reading this, and though I wish there was a bit more original content, or at least the same amount more spread out, I am super proud of /lit/ for producing such a great feat of anonymous collaboration. This book will remain on my shelf as long as I have a shelf on which it can be put.

>> No.19067266

>>19066874
Thanks for the update! I wish i’d bought it but not enough to actually order it. I am now waiting for it to be too late so i can regret never having bought it.

>> No.19067294

Can this still be purchased?

>> No.19067658

>>19067294
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/herman-melville-and-anonymous/moby-dick/paperback/product-7wgny7.html?page=1&pageSize=4

>> No.19067966

>>19066879
Thoughts on the 'Further Etymology'?

>> No.19068020
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19068020

>>19067658
Thank you.

>> No.19068818

>>19067966
I loved the further etymology - it felt like it could have been part of the actual book. Great job etymologybro

>> No.19069185
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19069185

>>19067658
Nice

>> No.19070674
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19070674

>> No.19071494

>There were a few endnotes in here that were deeply moving. Some of you here have amazing insight into this book and my experience was greatly booned by peering into your minds. These remarkable endnotes comprised of perhaps a quarter, perhaps fewer than the total amount.
What were some of the best endnotes?

>> No.19071644

>>19066874
>>19071494
Yeah, what’s your thoughts on the blood meridian orgy i wrote? Did you like?

>> No.19071857

>>19071494
Chapter 55 endnote is the one I know from the front of my mouth but there are more, I'll say which ones I liked when I'm with my copy later
>>19071644
>Yep, said he
>Yep, said he
cracked me up