Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

8/10

This book has a reputation. That it is long and boring. Not so, well, I guess it is long, but boring it is not. True, there are many chapters that talk on and on about whales and why they are so awesome. Those chapters were tough at times, but I'm all for a challenge. I ended up really liking this book. Melville's language is about as good as it gets, and good enough to get me through the whale description chapters. This book is deep and full of meaning, not just a book about revenge, but, I suppose it is about that too. Symbolism is laced all throughout, enough to keep my thinker thinking. The whale named Moby-Dick, it could be argued, represents God or spiritual power. Captain Ahab is out to destroy it and he is described many times as being "monomanaical" which is a really cool adjective. He also describes himself as "madness maddened". Awesome. Meanwhile, the narrator Ishmael, is obsessed with learning as much as he can about the whale, thus all the whale description chapters. He could be viewed as a man in search for God. Interesting stuff.

This book is also hilarious. Melville's phrasing of events is extremely funny. Especially at the start, so many funny parts. My personal fav is when Ishmael has to share a bed at an inn with a cannibal harpooneer that he has never met and all the nervous, panic-stricken thoughts going through his mind. Oh man, classic.

This book did not become popular during Melville's life and not until the 1920's. I feel terrible for Melville that he wrote such a profound, epic novel that got no recognition during his lifetime. Much, much more can be said about this book, but in an effort to make sure this post is not too long (for I have many a sweet quote to share), I will cut it short.

Selected quotes:

"Ignorance is the parent of fear."

"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"The pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried,...Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow."

"But what is worship? - to do the will of God? - that is worship."

"To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more."

"Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs."

"Thy thoughts have created a creature in thee."

"Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!"

"In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority." Ha ha. Funny quote.

"How immaterial are all materials!"

Looks like my new blog will soon develop a reputation for being long and boring as well. Yowza.