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/lit/ - Literature

File: 47 KB, 400x547, MobyDick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Tue May 1 23:08:59 2012 No.2608906 [Reply] [Original]

What's the point of extreme detail about whales and whaling? I get that he is obsessed.

Can I safely skip these chapters?

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:14:59 2012 No.2608931 File: 10 KB, 225x225, images.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:17:57 2012 No.2608951 bear with it bro it'll make you a man

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:18:57 2012 No.2608960 >>2608906 Well, the way I see it, Melville was trying to slowly force some of Ahab's obsession into the reader. Wait until you get to the chapter about white. It is beautiful but it goes on and on and on and on...

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:23:57 2012 No.2608986 >>2608906 If ya don't like it, don't read it. Life is short

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:24:57 2012 No.2608991 >>2608960 He was probably being paid by the word.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:31:57 2012 No.2609015 A lot of the info on whaling is inaccurate, too. Fucking fucker he was.

Anonymous Tue May 1 23:34:57 2012 No.2609023

Some of the whaling lore chapters have rich metaphors of their own. For example, "Fast Fish and Loose Fish" starts off explaining an odd bit of jargon and whaling law but digresses towards a rant about the philosophy of possession and human destiny.

Also, some of the descriptions of whaling procedure are key to understanding what happens in the chapters which follow.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:35:58 2012 No.2609026 >>2609015 My knowledge of whales and whaling from Moby-Dick has helped me pick up chicks. They didn't notice the inaccurate information

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:36:58 2012 No.2609027 >>2609015 >>2609026 Are you telling me whales are not fish?

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:37:57 2012 No.2609032 >>2608906 You complain about whaling information yet you love DFW and his footnotes about calculus and shit? Nigga please.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:43:57 2012 No.2609051 No. Read the whole goddamn book.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 1 23:44:57 2012 No.2609054 >>2609027 Whales are aquatic mammals, not fish.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 00:16:57 2012 No.2609143 >>2609054 But the bible says whales are fish.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 00:23:57 2012 No.2609172 Fiction that has non-fictional elements, in the style of informative tad-bits are only worth having if they add to the story itself. For examples, see: Victor Hugo, Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' and even Orwell at times.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 00:27:58 2012 No.2609181 >>2609143 That's the joke. Melville knows they aren't fish.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 00:46:59 2012 No.2609242 >>2609181 Melville had a shitty sense of humour.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 00:59:58 2012 No.2609268 >>2609172 Victor Hugo.. lel

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 01:04:58 2012 No.2609283 >2012 >skipping chapters I SHIGGIDYDIGGIDY

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 01:05:57 2012 No.2609285 >>2609143 The concept of "mammal" was only invented a few centuries ago.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 01:10:57 2012 No.2609297 Moby Dick was about penis envy.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 01:11:57 2012 No.2609299 File: 40 KB, 600x600, penis.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2609297 god-tier album

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 01:33:57 2012 No.2609337 Ahab's obsession is so concentrated that it diffuses into the novel itself. People forget that pre-modernist lit has meta-textual devices because it doesn't beat you over the head with them.

Anonymous Wed May 2 01:43:58 2012 No.2609362
File: 10 KB, 200x215, mobydick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

I admit I skimmed some of those chapters. I read the book when I was sixteen though. At the time, it was the longest book I attempted and I tried to set a goal for how much I read per day. Today, I think I'd appreciate it more.

OP has a nice cover. Mine is atrocious, but it was cheap.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:14:58 2012 No.2609427 File: 123 KB, 601x800, MOBYDICK.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2609362 Most Moby-Dick covers are terrible.

>>	Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Wed May 2 02:28:58 2012 No.2609447 File: 98 KB, 398x631, 1967norton.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2609427 They needn't be. Here's mine.

Anonymous Wed May 2 02:28:58 2012 No.2609446

>>2609337

>People forget that pre-modernist lit has meta-textual devices because it doesn't beat you over the head with them.

Absolutely true. Though there are great examples of said devices, with varying levels of subtlety, in some modernist & postmodernist works.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:30:57 2012 No.2609450 File: 38 KB, 290x500, a.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:32:58 2012 No.2609455 File: 37 KB, 500x428, 1334885817201.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2609447

>>	Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Wed May 2 02:34:57 2012 No.2609460 File: 365 KB, 395x515, IMG_1348.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2609455 Errr okay. Check this one. Ridiculous!

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:36:57 2012 No.2609463 >>2609460 ahahaha

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:37:58 2012 No.2609464 >>2609460 That HAS to be fake.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:42:57 2012 No.2609472 >>2609460 That dog just looks delighted to be there.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:45:57 2012 No.2609478 huuuurrr the books about whaling duuuuuur

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 02:47:58 2012 No.2609482 Clam Chowder.

Anonymous Wed May 2 03:14:57 2012 No.2609515

for all you discussing mellville describing whales as fish, its not an intentional fallacy. It was common for18th and 19th whalers to refer to whales in an offhand manner as fish, probably because it was a long standing tradition hearkening all the way back to the days before it was common knowledge that whales were mammals.

TLDR, whalers called whales fish.

Also, yes, pretty much every chapter in the book is relevant, these seemingly superfluous chapters are used to help build up the knowledge of the setting and motivation of the characters, especially, as previously stated, emphasizing the obsession of Ahab.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 03:44:57 2012 No.2609533 >>2608906 Ahab's tantrums about the whales are actually written in unlineated iambic pentameter. The more you know!

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 04:08:57 2012 No.2609541 File: 37 KB, 400x364, john-bonham2..jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] I understand why he would skip parts. Maybe drum solos aren't his thing.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 04:13:57 2012 No.2609543 File: 24 KB, 393x296, 1317306770568.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2609541 >Maybe drum solos aren't his thing.

Anonymous Wed May 2 04:18:58 2012 No.2609549

>Can I safely skip these chapters
You make me cry, anon.
Partly the point of his going over the top is that Ishmael is fucking desperate to make meaning out of his three years wasted on a whaling ship just for everyone to die due to a crazy old man's obsession. So before he goes whaling he doesn't know shit and after he tries the best he can to learn as much as possible in hopes of figuring out what went wrong. And a lot of the whaling chapter matter. Whitness of the whale, pictures of whales, (the ch after that one that I forget the name of), the whales head, the squeeze of the hand, Entomology, extracts.
And to be fair about anything Melville got wrong, he wrote MD in like a year while also reading a shit ton and doing a bunch of research for it while writing it. He didn't have wikipedia so... Or maybe some of it's wrong to show about Ishmael. (IE: Ishmael is convinced that whales are fishes.)

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 04:48:57 2012 No.2609582 >>2609533 Thanks.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 05:58:58 2012 No.2609697 >>2609549 Jesus fucking christ! IE = id est = that is - use when you mean "that is to say" EG = exempli gratia = for example

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 08:08:58 2012 No.2609837 File: 26 KB, 267x400, moby-dick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] u jelly of my limited edition moby-dick cover? pic related

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 08:16:59 2012 No.2609849 File: 34 KB, 245x399, moby-dick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] I like my old penguin classics cover

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 08:18:58 2012 No.2609855 File: 48 KB, 326x500, 1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] I'm quite happy with my Vintage cover.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 23:26:22 2012 No.2611552 >>2609837 is that a dolphin in the background?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 2 23:49:21 2012 No.2611642 >>2611552 Looks like it.

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