Sunday, February 28, 2010

From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee

So, I finished reading Moby Dick. What a load of whale oil. It didn't take quite as long as the Pequod's actual journey, but all in all I would rather have spent the time watching Star Trek: Nemesis over and over again until my eyes bled.

Maybe Melville was born a couple of hundred years too soon. In some ways, the book reads like a blog. The chapters are mostly a few pages long, loosely related but not what you would call a tight story. Spoiler Alert: the first time we see the whale is like page 485 of 500. It's not exactly an action yarn. Nor is it really the deep psychological character study of Ahab that I expected. He's obsessed with the whale that bit his leg off. We get it. The whole thing could have been a short story.

We will not speak of this again. But I will have my revenge on Herman Melville, if it's the last thing I do.

7 comments:

  1. I have to agree with you. I''m a former English Teacher and I wasn't very fond of Moby Dick, either!

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  2. congratulations. now, on to "The Brothers Karamazov". i'm nearing the end of "Omnivore's Dilemma" - an important book that is tough for me to read. but i shall finish it tonight, come hell or high water or giant whales that eat my leg....

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  3. I've had an ongoing struggle with "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Kazantzakis. I usually love his writing, but this one puts me into a coma every time. Yet...for whatever insane reason, I still keep trying.

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  4. I bow down to you. I tried to read Moby Dick years ago and never got past page one. I doubt I'll every try it again.

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  5. I'm just wondering what the revenge will consist of. Hehe

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  6. I remember trying get through MD years ago with no success. Good for you for seeing it through.

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  7. I read MB. I didn't like it. Now I feel life's too short to finish books I would rather stab myself in the eye than read. But I had to laugh when I read that this book is listed as Ethan Hawke's 10 essential reads......

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