All About Books discussion

Starting in October... Please feel free to join us!

And I have been told that SparkNotes can be helpful so here is the link:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mobydick/

(I must admit that hearing that made me quite nervous about reading this!)

Hooray, looking forward to it! But maybe - eventhough I admit it is a very big book - having one thread for it would be enough ;)? (unless I am starting to see double)

edit: hope I did right in deleting the duplicate thread, I assume it was a mistake or one of GR's interesting new little bugs

Jenny wrote: "Hooray, looking forward to it! But maybe - eventhough I admit it is a very big book - having one thread for it would be enough ;)? (unless I am starting to see double)

edit: hope I did right in de..."

I was unaware of a second thread, so yes deleting it was the right call. Thanks Jenny :)

I will probably start this on Wed. but there is no hurry as I plan to read it in small chunks.

THis is one of my favourite book even if it doesn't recall any of my usual "read".
It gained my the top mark in my first exham of angloamerican literature in University, and since then I read it at least unother couples of times!!!
I'll look into your discussion closely, but I won't reread it now!

I wish I could join you with this, but I just can't at the moment...partly because I am so behind with my own reading plan, and partly because it is such a large book, I can't face it. Hope you enjoy it though, I will be interested in what you think of it, because one day I am going to read it!!

Shirley wrote: "I wish I could join you with this, but I just can't at the moment...partly because I am so behind with my own reading plan, and partly because it is such a large book, I can't face it. Hope you enj..."

Do it Shirley! Really it is something yuo can't miss!!!

I am still waiting for my copy, I probably won't be starting before mid-October, but am I soooo looking forward to it.

Jenny wrote: "I am still waiting for my copy, I probably won't be starting before mid-October, but am I soooo looking forward to it."

You can get the ebook from Project Gutenberg (or elsewhere) as it is in the public domain.

Thanks Leslie, but I'd prefer to read it in German as I am currently reading two English books and I am craving for some mothertongue (especially with a big book like that) plus - as both of them are ebooks - I am dying to hold a 'real' book again.

Jenny wrote: "Thanks Leslie, but I'd prefer to read it in German as I am currently reading two English books and I am craving for some mothertongue (especially with a big book like that) plus - as both of them a..."

Understandable. I am listening to this as an audiobook (although I have the Kindle book also), so I won't be going too fast through it (I find audiobooks not nearly as fast as actual reading).

The most famous italian translation of Moby Dick was done by a famous - and really good, italian writer Pavese Cesare. Really good. The first time I read it it was this version, after that I've reread it in english

There is a very praised (rather new) translation out for it in German as well, that I moved sun and stars for in order to get it from a library ;) By the way, will you please not give credit to the librarian muppet who filed Cesare Pavese by confusing first with second name? ;))))

What do you mean????

lol, your post above!!! pavese cesare;) the poor man is rolling in his grave seeing his empty profile on GR ;)

O my! poor him!!!

My beautiful 1000&something-page book has finally arrived. Gulp. It seems to be the year of the giants for me. Will probably be starting next week!

I only joined this readalong because a few months ago I found a free eBook-copy of the book but now I'm a little worried
the eBook is only ~200 (eBook)-pages long... seems quite short to me, it says it's the whole book but that would mean one page has to be very long :/

Birgit wrote: "I only joined this readalong because a few months ago I found a free eBook-copy of the book but now I'm a little worried
the eBook is only ~200 (eBook)-pages long... seems quite short to me, it say..."

It is a fairly long book Birgjg, and in places also a bit "slow". But with the risk, with me a certainty, to repet myself, it is absolutly a book to read!

Birgit wrote: "I only joined this readalong because a few months ago I found a free eBook-copy of the book but now I'm a little worried
the eBook is only ~200 (eBook)-pages long... seems quite short to me, it say..."

My Kindle edition doesn't have page numbers, so I can't really help. I agree that 200 pages seems like not enough but I have read ebooks which do have 'pages' which are very long (3 screens worth of text per one 'page').

Could also be an abrigded version, couldn't it? In fact when I went to my library it was easier to find the abrigded and children's version (same as Robinson Crusoe) as the 'real' one.

I am starting this today. Birgit, if you are willing to read this in English, you can get an unabridged eBook version at Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701

i think i will read the german version first and if it really is an abriged version and i liked i will try the english version :) thank you for the link

I am up to Chapter 16 (11%) and finding it surprisingly readable after the first chapter. I did find that first one a bit of a struggle to keep my attention.

Some others inside will have the same effect!!! The ones on cetaology - or whatever it's called - nedds all the patien you can get. But you'll be rewarded!!!

But what about the biginning? I think it's one of the best af all literature!!
"Call me Ismael"
A shot in the utmost silence!!!

LauraT wrote: "Some others inside will have the same effect!!! The ones on cetaology - or whatever it's called - nedds all the patien you can get. But you'll be rewarded!!!..."

Thanks for the warning! I guess if I made it through Les Misérables then I can make it through this. I had worried that the entire book would be that way - glad to find that isn't so!

i don't really like the writing style :/ I think I'll stick with the abridged version...

Birgit wrote: "i don't really like the writing style :/ I think I'll stick with the abridged version..."

I always worry about that when I start a new-to-me classic author. If you don't care for the style, then the abridged version is probably best.

I have hit another place which bogged me down - the two chapters describing some of the Pequod's crew, especially Starbuck (whose name is odd for a Quaker unless he was a native American Indian... and of course, as a coffee-aholic I keep thinking 'Starbucks'!). I am listening to the audiobook, and I keep drifting off during the moralistic musing. Eventually, after 3 attempts at listening to this chapter, I just skimmed the text so I could proceed.

However, I really like Queequeg!

Starting tomorrow or latest Thursday, will have some catching up to do!

Started just now!

Got a big chunk done today while I started a new knitting project - knitting is the perfect activity to do while listening to an audiobook :)

Leslie wrote: "Got a big chunk done today while I started a new knitting project - knitting is the perfect activity to do while listening to an audiobook :)"

I should start it then!!!!

While I am enjoying this story, I find that I have a very modern feeling towards whales and the idea of hunting them is distasteful to me. I have to keep reminding myself that things were different then; certainly man didn't have an overwhelming advantage at this time!

I am a bit further into the book now and though I had to get used to the sound of it in the beginning, my typical if somewhat irrational love for anything sea related (it's an oddity I've discovered lately: hand me a book with bearded man, ships and an ocean and my reader heart will beat faster) is slowly starting to win me over for this book and it's weird and almost entirely male (or fishy) population.

Two first observations:
1. I wasn't at all prepared for the amount of religious reference in the book though it weirdly resonates with me since I've always believed that the only way I could imagine God, is if you were the Sea. Also I suppose being so subjected to the forces of nature as you are being a whale hunter or anyone spending months on the sea, makes you inclined to believe in a higher power. I really enjoyed reading the sermon on Jona and the Whale, I chuckled a bit and was at the same time touched by how he fed this story in a manner that would appeal to those sea-men.

2. I agree with you Leslie about the whole whale hunting thing being slightly distateful, yet there is a strange archaic beauty in it still, which tends to sound like a horrible cliché: the man vs. animal thing, at a time where it wasn't an industrialized killing machinery yet, but where it secured the bread and butter of the men in a much more immidiate way and on a much larger scale actually depended on physical skill and strenght as opposed to the cowardly high-tech hunting proceedures of today.

The religious point of view is really important, even if people don't know it is generally. Think of the initial words "Call me Ishmael" - Ismael is a biblical name, and of the sermon of Jonas in the whale in Natuckett, just to mention the first two things that come into my mind!
And what I really loved about this book is the "jumping" from a simbolic register" - the different meaning of color white, the religious stress, and so on, to the strictly "realistic" one, i.e. the hunting scenes, the stories of the sailors met dutring this voyage ...And you're never vertain which register you're in at that time!

I agree Laura, this is what I enjoy about it too yet at the same time it's the thing that makes this book hard to read sometimes, you need to really surrender to it I find and I need to be in the mood, otherwise I just read over it quickly and miss all the interesting references that are hidden in the text. Loads of philosophy!! I had no idea!

Yes, the right word is "surrender": let it go, it'll come back to you!!!!
The first time I've read it it was a sort of epiphany. You need to pick it up a couple of times more to get through it thoroughly!

@Jenny - I really liked the Jonas and the whale sermon in Nantucket also. I don't know exactly when this was written, but many pre-Victorian books seem to have a fair amount of religious overtones. I have always thought that this was due to the importance of religion in daily life at that time, but perhaps it was also "marketing" tool... to make the books more acceptable to those people who would have the money to buy them. If you think about Jane Austen, there were several mentions about novels being viewed as 'unacceptable reading'.

Although I do like your point that sea-faring men had time to be philosophical and the man vs. nature theme would have been in the forefront of their lives!

The book seems to veer from adventure story to religious and philosophical treatise to exposition on natural history - I (perhaps it goes without saying) prefer the adventure, but find the natural history bits interesting.
For example, the chapter about whether whales were or were not fish - even then they knew that the whales weren't really like fish but I guess that they didn't know they were mammals.

Right here Judy!!!!

I finished last night - the last 15% or so is very exciting!! I didn't know how it was going to turn out so I won't put in any spoilers.

I had trouble deciding how to rate the book, though. As in Les Miserables, I could see the appeal of reading an abridged edition. On the other hand, all the digressions into whaling life and natural history were so true that it was like reading non-fiction - you could really feel like you knew what whaling was like in the mid-1800s.

I am about to hit the last 15% so your comment is encouraging! I was honestly struggeling a bit during the last days. To me the sections of actual plot and the excursions into whale-life and more precisely maybe whale-philosophy to me is out of balance. Though I enjoy the latter quite a bit, to me there are slightly too many in a rhythm that after some time becomes very predictable. And though it might create some structure it also creates and atmosphere of: I kind of already know what those next 400 pages will look like, in fact the plot seems almost secondary. Now I imagine that this was part of the creators idea, and I generally have a lot of time for seemingly plotless books, yet for some reason with this one it isn't really working for me.
That however doesn't change the fact that I am slightly in awe of Mr. Melville for writing something that tricks you into believing your reading a adventure story on whales when infact it sometimes seems you're reading a (very long) philosophical treatise on human nature, philosophy and religion - all covered in whale skin.

I wish I didn't have a library deadline knocking at my door, because I do feel that read in smaller portions I would appreciate this book more fully.

Leslie wrote: "I finished last night - the last 15% or so is very exciting!! I didn't know how it was going to turn out so I won't put in any spoilers.

I had trouble deciding how to rate the book, though. As i..."

The last pages are its best feature!!! And I also didn't know how it ended, but I do agree Jenny, the plot is, somehow, secondary. It is the whole "atmosphere" which enthralled me the first time I read it. It is the fight against all hope, against all odds, the fight that had to be done whatever ... idealism at its pure state, and therefore hatefull but fascinating at the same time ...

Judy, thanks for your comments, what you say makes a lot of sense. I am finding this book incredibly hard to rate. I went for 4 stars right now but it could be three tomorrow, who knows. I have hardly ever read a book that intellectually I was so impressed by, yet my reading enjoyment kept bouncing back and force between barely any pleasure in reading, and loving every word that I read. Like I said before, the way he keeps interrupting his flow really annoyed me at times, eventhough the actual content of the interruptions was very interesting.

What a very modern book for it's time too! These odd little excursions into drama for example, the parts that read like a play, the parts that read like non-fictions and then back to a classical adventure story.

Judy, I wish I still had the book with and could read the "white chapter" again, but had to return it to the library today. I thought it was one of the most interesting chapters as there is so much to read into the colour white: religious aspects, guilt vs. innocence, racial aspects, cleanliness and in all of these 'white' used to be, or still is usually regarded as the 'desired' colour. Melville on the other hand - after going through the obvious positive connotations of white - defines 'white' to be representing an absence. An absence of trades, of characteristics and therefore resists any definitions maybe? Also making it the perfect canvas for projection which the books illustrated perfectly. What did you make of it Judy?

I thought that it was interesting that Melville viewed white as being frightening:
"...associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood."

And he then goes on to list the creatures which are more terrible when white - the bear, the shark, the tiger, the albatross.

@Jenny - I too found this hard to rate. I chose to start lower but may increase my rating.

Judy wrote: "What I recall about it was that I thought that all the connections to white were brilliant."

Definitly! especially the connection with the "evil" side, in an Italy where white is always likned with pure women and grace!

I think he wanted to say that "white is not always white"

@Judy - yes, I noticed that about the polar bears also! And even though this idea about white seems funny to me, I must admit that polar bears and great white sharks probably are the scariest of their species!

However, I am sure that there are lots of philosophical implications such as Jenny and Laura mentioned. Jenny said something about white as an absence but from my nerdy chemistry perspective white is all colors (black being the absence of color).

Laura, do you mean that he is saying "don't judge a book by its cover" - that despite the white ('good') outside, the animal inside is dangerous ('bad')? Perhaps that is why he views them as particularly scary?

Leslie wrote: "Laura, do you mean that he is saying "don't judge a book by its cover" - that despite the white ('good') outside, the animal inside is dangerous ('bad')? Perhaps that is why he views them as particularly scary? "

Exactly so

Leslie wrote: " Jenny said something about white as an absence but from my nerdy chemistry perspective white is all colors (black being the absence of color). "

I completely agree, but I thought Melville made it sound like the absence of definition, the perfect canvas for our projections of evil or good or whatever we'd like to project.