Why do people tend to give this book a hard time? Is it because it didn't match their expectations?
I'm most of the way through. Amazing book but I think some people have trouble making it through the "hur lemme tell u bout dis whale body part" chapters.
>>8177376
I never understood that. The chapters arent even long.
>>8177408
the only problem i have with those chapters is that most of the information is wrong. Other than that they're pretty cool to read
>>8177412
same goes for IJ ;)
>>8177424
infinite jest? i havent read it im afraid
Yeah I think expectations have a lot to do with it. Many pieces of media use it as inspiration since it's a sort of archetypal revenge tragedy. Simple pop culture babies are familiar with it by these means, so they pick it up thinking it's going to be a thrilling read. They get stunned by the fact that it's a borderline encyclopedic novel about whaling in general. The highly literary and even somewhat archaic prose doesn't do them any favors either.
That's my theory, anyway.
Ahab is not explored enough.
Are you going to tell me you expected whatever you got from Moby Dick? Because I highly doubt it.
I think most people who come to it blind think it's some kind of Romantic (capital "r") journey with images of the dark depths, nebulous mornings, revenge, tragedy, maelstrom, man against Nature and God. What they get is something closer to the human and the sublime; but most people don't have the patience or understanding to enjoy the truly human or sublime.
I've known people who claimed Kerouac, Thoreau, Poe, Pynchon, Proust, Nabokov, Dostoevsky were their favourite writers without having read even a substantial fraction of their works. They simply read the first paragraph of the wikipedia article, glean some highlighted passages, book covers and summaries. People will go to ridiculous lengths to appear deep and contemplative without putting that much work into it.
when does the book start to pick up?
I'm at the part where he just met queequeg
>>8178933
It never really "picks up" in the way you're thinking. If you haven't enjoyed the writing thus far, it's not the book for you.
The version I have has footnotes which really helps with a lot of the biblical/greek/obscure references
>>8178933
He doesn't get on the ship until chapter 15, about 110 pages in
If the book was less of "lemme tell you about whale anatomy only relevant two hundred years ago" and more "ahoy mate lets go kill whales and shit" maybe it would've been more interesting.
Too bad Ishmael was a total beta nerd that barely did anything with whale killing
>>8178933
If you can't be bothered to continue the book
https://youtu.be/XIoAYq9iD4A
>>8179070
>niggers
Immediately clicked "remove"
>>8179076
back to
>>>/elsewhere/
for you
My favorite book. The amount of useless whale anatomy is totally overblown. Skim the (short) chapter and read the Wikipedia article. Book was written for people that had a very vague idea of what a whale is.
