/lit/ - Literature

>>19950914
No one here has actually read it.

I'm gonna read it, just you wait.

>>19950914
It's the best novel i've ever read. I unironically wish it was longer. I got to the point where I was excited whenever he started getting side tracked because I wanted to hear what he had to say about every topic under the sun.
>>19950917
I've read it 3 times.

One of the few books I stopped reading.

Read it three times in a course of 28 years.

>>19950914
Just finished it last week. I believe it's the greatest novel ever written. It's the only novel where every page is gold. Don Quixote might be funnier, and Ulysses might be a technical masterpiece, but Moby-Dick is the only book where I would read bits and pieces at random.

>>19950914
Just finished. The way it ended seemed a little sad, events wise. I skipped over much of the autistic descriptions. I would re-read it--this round taking my time to really appreciate the autism in the prose.

>>19950914
why didnt he just let the fish go?

>>19951103
woman moment

I got meme'd into buying the Arion Press version. But the novel is wonderful

>>19950914
I read it but I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I could have. Wish I had done what my sister did and took a full course on it in college. Blood Meridian is my favorite novel so I’d like to see what others find in it.

>>19951097
>skipped over much of the autistic descriptions
this means you haven't actually read it

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side; the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

I had it in my to read list for ages. I read the first chapter with a view to read the first chapter only.

After that I knew I’d have to read the whole thing and I wouldn’t be able to put it down again till I was done.

I was shocked at how readable it was, I always thought it would be an impenetrable tome but it just flows of the page.

>>19950914
I'm an ESL. How hard is it?

>>19951604
Literally nothing sexual about this at all, fucking zoomer trash.

I read it translated in greek since I am ngmi and I loved it

>>19951712
medium difficulty.

>>19951145
What’s wrong with it? It looks nice

>>19950914
I read it 3 times. Favorite book

>>19950914
Yeah, its my favorite book. I plan on going through Melville's full ouvre

>>19950914
I haven't, but I do have a moby-dick

>>19950914
easily one of the greatest books i've ever read. melville's prose is unreal

>>19953890
No meme arrow

brothers what are some of your underrated passages? for me its ch. 68 the blanket
>It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides […] How wonderful it is then – except after explanation – that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! […] It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a stronger individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! Admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole

I heard this book isnt a easy read ( as far as vocab goes), so I am a little hesitant until I feel comfortable

>>19950914
no, because i don't read anything older than 80 years

>>19954814
Emerson's influence over Melville is very much at the fore in that and other chapters in Moby Dick.

>>19951777
that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep...
...Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg- a cosy, loving pair.

We had lain thus in bed... Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.

Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the headboard with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

...Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over...

>>19950914
Very manly nautical adventure. He goes into a lot more detail of sailing and sailing terms than I would have ever imagined. The image that is portrayed by pop culture is such that it would almost be expected to be a kids book. This is not the case, it is a complex book that gave me insight into the times.

>>19954814
I love the part where Melville invokes God as his muse
>If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman’s arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just spirit of equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God!

>>19954814
>“No, sir; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, “I will not tamely be called a dog, sir.”
>"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!”
Melville is great at dialogue.

>>19955061
Melville was a bit of an odd bird, wasn't he? I mean he was a genius, so it's to be expected that he was a bit odd.

>>19950917
what makes you say this?

>>19955827
>"Ginger? Do I smell ginger?" suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. "Yes, this must be ginger," peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!--what the devil is ginger?--sea-coal? firewood?--lucifer matches?--tinder?--gunpowder?--what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg here."

>"There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this business," he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just come from forward. "Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell of it, if you please." Then watching the mate's countenance, he added, "The steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?"

>"I trust not," said Starbuck, "it is poor stuff enough."

>"Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, "we'll teach you to drug it harpooneer; none of your apothecary's medicine here; you want to poison us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?"

Stubb was based

This book is irrelevant. The irony of liking or disliking it is also irrelevant.

Now, instead of talking about Dick let's talk about Pussy. These young twenty-something women that think they are the shit for browsing 4chan will inevitably mention Moby Dick just like all the bullshit for brains college men will bring up infinite jest. The trick, and I will be clear with you, is that if they say they like the book, they are the type to let you sleep with them so long as you put on a front of being a caring and mature "person who gets it", since they are immature and soul-searching enough to be taken advantage of by an image of intellectualism and maturity (MD). Simply embody the notion of being a chart-like or meme-like authority and your in.

Fucking disgusting though. To even be involved with reading this post instead of writing it. I don't do this shit I'm God Fuck you.

>>19954814
Im not quite sure if it's underrated, but I love this description of New Bedford in chapter 6:
>Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?
>Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.

I read Moby Dick for the first time after just moving to Massachusetts, and that perfect little image of mansions dragged up from the sea kept popping into my head as I visited all the little seaside towns.

I find that Melville is really good at describing specific regions and places- really deftly touching on the geographical, economic, and spiritual aspects of an area and how they all intertwine. Another example of this is when he talks about the Erie Canal region in chapter 54.

>>19950914
I recently reread a spanish translation (that sadly has some missing chapters) because i love it so much. like >>19954973
said it has that New England/transcendentalist philosophy that is so cool. i hope to one day buy a better translation or even read the original.

>>19950914
will give an unironic reply.

I think although it often goes off on tangents, its a good cosy book to read for the vibes.

I'm up to the part where it moves into a play like format as sailors talk on the deck and sing. It's been alright so far. Some nice sections, some that drag, no real motivation to read further other than its reputation

I don't read mutt 'literature'. You can feel the grease seeping through the page

>>19957913
That is just you drooling on the book.

>>19957913
You should. I'm English but I have to admit the superiority of American literature. Reading the yanks has fundamentally changed my opinion on their nation. All the negativity and American hatred is meaningless when a culture can produce works of art as powerful as theirs. If I were an American I would be very proud indeed.

>>19950914
I've read it
Very much enjoyed it overall, although won't deny it can be a slog at times. The chapters on ishmael's philosophising and musing about various aspects of whaling and whales themselves were actually quite comfy, it was interesting to get inside the head of someone from those times. It's a nice window into the lives that these people lead, almost like its own time capsule.
I will say I don't think I took it all in in one reading. There's so much there that it will probably require me rereading at some point, although I think it will be a while before I muster the willingness to embark on that journey again.

>>19957913
Melville is 100% English, ethnically.

>>19950914
Yeah I read it. Its average. Nothing special imo. It drags on a little long and the big show down is a major let down.

The main character is alright.

I didnt find it too hard to get through even when searching whaling terms. So its certianly readable. Not as exciting as other "difficult" (but actually easy and just long) books like War and Peace and Cristo which you cant put down.

Might mean more to Americans. I generally hate american literature but it was ok. Far better than Gatsby or TKAMB. Far worse than Steinbeck or Vonnegut

>>19958380
>implying mutts have their own ethnicity. Well maybe you could class their rampant consumerism and morbid obesity into an entity onto it's own...

>>19958338
>superiority
>Shakespeare exists

>>19958510
its*****

>>19958425
Bro you cant place Vonnegut and Steinbeck above freakin Melville. Feels insulting.

>>19951777
I hate fag revisionism as much as the next person, but if you missed the homo subtext of Moby Dick, you should really stick to comics.

>>19959687
Faggot media has poisoned your brain.

Moby Dick
Mobius Cock, even

>>19950914
Yup, read it a few years ago. It immediately became one of my favorite books. The prose is just wonderful, and the world it presents is so detailed that I have no issues saying that it's the most immersive book I've ever read. Reflecting on it a few years later, the scenes in the book are just as vivid as they were the first time I read it. One of my pipe dreams is getting paid to housesit some huge Cape Cod mansion over the winter and getting to read my nice copy of Moby Dick with the window open and the cool winter ocean wind blowing around the house. Someday.

>>19950914
Sounds boring, I heard there's a chapter where tge Author describe the specific species and genus of whales that went for a chapter, I've read American Psycho and have had 90s band and fancy furniture explained in detail, but if it has no specific and detail description of woman being murdered, extreme violence, or dark humor, I'm not gonna read a whole chapter of regurgitation.

>>19950914
Yeah I read it. Yes it was good.

>>19950917
Just finished it this year, chud.
>>19950914
I felt swept up by the oceanic rhythms of Melville, the prose was the best I’ve seen, at least in a way that has been imitated by the likes of McCarthy et al. There’s so much taxonomy and essays filtered throughout that I really think it’s one of the most passionately researched novels ever. I don’t think Ahab is mad, he is merely a hero standing up to the preternatural world.

>>19950914
>If you haven't, why not?
There are too many books in the world for me to read books I've heard discussed to death rather than enjoying ones that will be much more fresh to me.

>>19961805
Why are you listening to discussions of books you haven't read?

I read a few chapters but stopped because it was pretentious and boring as fuck. Maybe I'll keep going eventually.

>>19955061
nothing gay about two bros being snugs as bugs in rugs you tranny

>>19958425
I fucking love steinbeck... but he's not in the same fucking stratosphere

>>19950914
>have you reddit
Jesus we've been brigaded

i'm a booklet who started as my first official dive into books if you don't count me reading House of Leaves which i was convinced to read from a friend and then finished it about a month or two ago. it was really neat and i plan to reread it sometime in the future.

>>19951604
Retard

>>19950914
I've read it but I'm an ESL faggot who hasn't read Shakespeare or the Bible so I'm afraid I missed most of its value.

I really liked some parts but overall I had the feeling it was pretty meh.

I got filtered, didn't I?

>>19951712
>>19951837
Medium my dick. It's really fucking hard for an ESL.

>>19955061
>>19963351
HOLY SHIT WHAT A FUCKING FAGGOT

>>19964160
Go read Don Quixote, Manuel.

It's one of the few books where almost every line in it is bursting with beauty and meaning. I'm actually stunned that this came from a human being like you or me. It is the very definition of a masterpiece.

>filtered by a fucking whale

>>19964154
Not really. People just have different sensibilities, and that's fine. There'll be something else that you really enjoy that I couldn't.

>>19950914
I read it when I was like 11
borrowed a copy from the school library that had sick illustrations and I devoured the entire book during that same rainy night.

>>19964628
No way you did, it was probably abridged.

>>19964630
it wasn't abridged
maybe the original english is harder to read or something like that, but the portuguese translation I had in hands (pic related) was pretty easy to follow

>>19964669
forgot to attach

>>19964669
m8 its a 500 page book from over 100 years ago. you didn't read it in one night as an 11 year old. it was abridged and/or for children.

>>19964680
maybe it was abridged after all but who cares, I still enjoyed it

>>19961699
>I don’t think Ahab is mad, he is merely a hero standing up to the preternatural world.
I personally think that one of the most important questions for the reader is whether they see Ahab as this debased man with no soul, which is why he carries out a psychotic quest for revenge, or if you see Ahab as a man of greater soul than any of the other characters, so great that he can rise above the pettiness of most people and heroically stand against the impossibility of killing Moby Dick and everything the whale represents (hence the pasteboard mask passage where he admits that it's the thing behind Moby Dick he truly hates). I think I fall closer to the latter in my interpretation.

>>19964377
Not Manuel, but: is DQ really worth the effort?

>>19964803
It's an easy read. So yes.

>>19964803
Yes, DQ is very fun

I've read 1/3 of it. I didn't like it.

Maybe the real moby dick was the friends we made along the way..

>>19950914
Yes. Good.

>>19956626
yeah. my dad grew up in new bedford, dirt-poor with an abusive alcoholic father
it's a shithole now and has been for a while, so it's was nice to hear melville's perspective

>>19964680
Lots of people here are autistic, it’s definitely possible

One cannot deny the homoeroticsm in this book. Melville was at least bi, and totally infatuated with Hawthorne. He was just a self hating gay who couldn’t deal with his desires. Just read Billy Budd where he basically goes about killing the gay aspects of himself.

>>19966421
To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal—
Ease me, a little ease, my song!

By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-trees’ crape:
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.

>>19956574
Schizo?

>>19955061
You couldn't even muster one fake sentence that remotely imitated his brilliance. A whole paragraph of prose to take inspiration from and you shit out that horrid line. You are worthless.

>>19950973
I’ve also read it several times. It’s tied with Blood Meridian for my all-time favorite. As for the question “what makes it great?”: It grapples with many of the unfathomable truths that humans grapple with on a daily basis.

>>19966421
I realize you subscribe to the current jewish critical-theory paradigm, but not everything was about homosexuality in the 19th century.

>>19967749
I skipped around a bit to make it more salacious for the joke of it, but it's all straight from the book.

>>19950914
I've read it
It started off very pleasantly
Then it becomes a bit of a drag at times, but overall still good
The last few parts leading up to the end are great
It's a good read, well worth it. It's not even that long

dick lol