For some reason PM's thread about Robinson Crusoe put me in mind of Moby Dick - a novel I have read only once and that I had very mixed feelings about. It contains some very powerful writing but there were points - very many of them in fact - during the book at which I felt like just giving up. My God, but that man knew his whales! I didn't know whether to be impressed or utterly bemused. I think everything that I know about whales comes from reading MD.
And it's so long! 321535 pages and you don't get to see the whale till the penultimate one; it was an anti climax, believe me.
Nonetheless, I'd recommend it as an intriguing read. Any fans/detractors?
Moby Dick
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Yak
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Judith Crabb
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Re: Moby Dick
"Moby Dick' is one of the books I promised to read in retirement and I finished it early this year. I was 14 when I first attempted it, in a close-printed Everyman paperback, and gave up after a chapter or two.
This time I chose an attractive edition. Had I owned a first edition I would have read that, but I expect they are all in bank-vaults. Every night I read a chapter, understanding that it is a book not to be rushed. I soon realized that it is one of the books which illuminate the human condition. If you are interested in what it means to be you, this is a book for you. Sections will lure you back to re-read, again and again; other sections will require your grim determination not to evade the horrors. You will certainly learn a lot about whales and whaling.
I was encouraged to add this post by an truly insightful article titled 'Three Favourite Books' which I read this morning in 'Collected Pruse' (not a typo) by Patrick Kavanagh. Of 'Moby Dick' he writes that 'it enlarges the world for us; it brings us through the ivory gates into the expansive world of the imagination'.
If you read seriously, 'Moby Dick' is one of the handful or so of novels it would be a pity to miss.
This time I chose an attractive edition. Had I owned a first edition I would have read that, but I expect they are all in bank-vaults. Every night I read a chapter, understanding that it is a book not to be rushed. I soon realized that it is one of the books which illuminate the human condition. If you are interested in what it means to be you, this is a book for you. Sections will lure you back to re-read, again and again; other sections will require your grim determination not to evade the horrors. You will certainly learn a lot about whales and whaling.
I was encouraged to add this post by an truly insightful article titled 'Three Favourite Books' which I read this morning in 'Collected Pruse' (not a typo) by Patrick Kavanagh. Of 'Moby Dick' he writes that 'it enlarges the world for us; it brings us through the ivory gates into the expansive world of the imagination'.
If you read seriously, 'Moby Dick' is one of the handful or so of novels it would be a pity to miss.
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