/lit/ - Literature

You might be bored. You have to pay attention while you read. Worth the effort.

>>2338246

What are the topics of the story? Is it just Ahab hunting a whale or is there more to it?

>>2338250
Some asshole gets on a boat with a nigger and Ahab. Shenanigans ensue.

Why the 20Q? Just read it. It's a universally well-regarded classic.

>>2338250
It's a mash-up between a story whose primary plot is Ahab hunting a whale, and a marine science book Melville wanted to write to show off how much he knew about whales.

See: Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

It's a great book. I was surprised by how funny it is. Nothing really happens for most of the book, but if you enjoy the narrator's way of expressing himself, you'll be fine.

>>2338257

Well yeah, I might try it. I hope I won't get disappointed or bored.

Between the chapters about whales and whaling, there is an excellent story about a one-legged man's pursuit of vengeance.

>>2338258
>>2338259
>>2338262

I see. Thanks guys.

>>2338261
I enjoyed it. Like >>2338259 says, if you enjoy the narrator you will enjoy the book. The prose is fantastic.

>>2338262

And within the chapters about whales and whaling, there is a tale of a man almost as obsessed as Ahab.

>>2338244
Just watch the movie with Gregory Peck. It's fucking awesome.

It is a parable of our times!
Still.
Nietzsche in fictional form.
What is the white whale? Dumb beast or a god?

How many space themed versions of Moby Dick have there been?

>>2338258
>a marine science book Melville wanted to write to show off how much he knew about whales.

You're semi-literate. Melville uses his familiarity of whaling to cast broader statements about existence. In fact, a lot of the chapters on cetology are just filled with shit Melville made up to fit his metaphors.

Every chapter usually ends with the author going off on some crazy shit that it's easy to dismiss as hyperbole or a feature of 19th century aesthetic. It's not. Instead these are the parts you need to pay the most attention to.

Moby Dick is a replacement of the bible. It is the best novel ever written.

Hint: Before the book "starts" is the etymology, which starts with the following quote:
"While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true."

In other words, Every word (or letter) in the book has significance. There is no filler. You could read it everyday for the rest of your life and still learn from it.

Just finished reading this yesterday, the only book in a long time that I couldn't put down, and because of this finished it in four days of solid reading. A true classic.

500 pages of the "Six Feet Under" routine, then this.

>>2340305

>>2340305
>You could read it everyday for the rest of your life and still learn from it.
>Not Finnegans Wake

>>2338259
THIS! No one I've ever talked to about Moby Dick found it humorous. I loled dozens of times throughout the book especially towards the beginning. I was genuinely surprised too since before reading Moby Dick no one ever once mentioned "funny" when describing it.

>>2340305
>He thinks god is a white whale.
>He thinks god is white.

the fuck you doin nigger?

If Moby Dick was written today, no one would publish it, and there'd be no market for it.

>>2340361
Moby-Dick would not be written today.

>>2340362
It would be written by one of you dickwads, and you'd stew over your misfortune when denied by every publishing house, claiming that none understand your genius.

lol

>>2340369
I wouldn't write about whaling.

>>2340361
There was no market for Moby Dick when it was first published either, yet here we are talking about it 160 years later.

>>2340357
Melville's known by his fans for his humor. I've been to a few "Melville Studies" get-togethers and most of the people present were fucking hilarious as well.

>>2340369
That's pretty much what Melville did. 3,000 copies were printed for the U.S. first edition in 1851. They hadn't sold out when Melville died in 1891.

His next book Pierre is (by comparison) raving insanity with interspersed, barely relevant, chapters deriding the publishing industry.

He spent the last 30 years of his life writing poetry that nobody read and was only published to distribute to friends (basically the 19th century version of self-publishing on Kindle).

Melville's obituary lamented a promising literary talent that never lived up to the potential shown in his first novel, the adventure travel-fiction novel Typee. Moby Dick didn't become popular until the early 20th century.