Moby-Dick discussion

Hi -
With a number of members, as well as NE and I, finished with the book, we've decided to switch on the light in the Spoiler Room.

Anyone who'd like to discuss Moby Dick without fear of spoiling the plot for others, can do so here.

cheers

I finished a few hours ago. Now I'm off to New Bedford to celebrate and have dinner with some friends nearby. And then to Boston and then back home next week.

I managed to read the book slowly and carefully. I found it one of most profound literary experiences of my life -- and I've had a few.

I feel pretty comfortable with the themes, but it would be interesting to go through it again, perhaps in a year or two, much more slowly, much, much more slowly, looking at it is as a work of literature, examining its structure and how the pieces create a whole -- and what kind of a whole it is. It feels as much lyric as narrative to me, and I know no novel of this size and cetacean proportions that has left me feeling like I'd read a fabulously complex poem.

I'm rereading The Iliad at the moment, a poem explicitly about anger (the anger of Achilles) and I've been thinking to some extent of Moby-Dick in those terms. It begins with an angry Ishmael in the mood to knock the hats off people in the street and moves to a far angrier Ahab, revenging himself on reality for the loss of his leg. He is in a kind of fabulous mourning for his limb -- and grief and mourning may lead to fury.

Interestingly, he's less on stage than Achilles, although man, "the money-making animal" is in part his alter-ego. Opposed to it is the glory of the whale, whom I found myself rooting for, although I was sorry to see the crew drown as well. I'd grown fond of Starbuck, Stubbs and Queequeg. Flash is as close to a non-entity as possible, a "mediocrity" in Melville's terms. I'd formed no love for either the carpenter or the blacksmith.

And it does make me realize it's been almost a year since I last read Shakespeare.

I also not only find it amazing that Melville thought this novel would make him money. It is so complex, so demanding -- what was our lad thinking?

Gone for a week.

Yes, it is crazy that he thought this would be a best-seller, although I've known (know) a couple authors who suffer similar delusions. In the end, it did make millions, I suppose - such is the luck of many authors of enduring literature. One only knows with the years what is worth keeping. Which is why I cringe when I hear a review that says "instant classic!"

Actually, Sarah, an instant classic is an oxymoron. The whole point of a classic is that it's not instant.

I finished this past week also and found myself very glad i made the journey. Perhaps surprisingly, I didn't know in advance exactly what the outcome would be though I knew it would not be good for Ahab. I had an idea going in that he was obsessed, but I was surprised to see him as a man actually on the edge (or over)of madness. The struggle of man and God is everywhere in the book and MD gets to stand in for God. I was sad to see the entire crew but one lost, but that certainly makes for dramatic flair!

There were some truly wonderful sections in the book--descriptions of nature, the nursing whales, some of the actual whale chasing --that surprised me by their beauty. I didn't expect that of Melville. Some of the more technical was a bit more, well, technical and occasionally skim-worthy.

All in all a great read and one that seems well suited to this slow, measured approach. Thanks to my fellow readers for helping me along.

In Melville's day, you can see how people who just thought of "whaling" in the abstract could learn much. His book is better than any drydocked encyclopedia, and certainly better than any wicked pedia on-line.

It's knowledgeable like these sources, but it's human, too. It breathes. And it crosses that line we call emotion and what it means to be human and to be cetacean.

Not only do you learn it, you live it, in other words. In a word: Wow.

Yes NE--Wow is a definite description of the whole experience.

I'm with Bill in #2.....so glad I made the effort and I would also like to re-visit it in a year or two......

I am also glad I made the effort. It was worth the experience.