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kiwilapple t1_iwygsly wrote

Reply to comment by Craygor in [OC] Inspired by movie barcodes, I made some emotional barcodes for books by Campbell_MG

I think it's because the red blends in. He's mad at the whale right??? Idk i didn't read it lol

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Craygor t1_iwyh8ee wrote

The book isnt really about Captian Ahap, but follows the story of Ismael and is quite light hearted in the first third (at least I thought so). Ahap doesn't really show up much until the last quarter or there abouts. .

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kiwilapple t1_iwyhb0n wrote

Ohhhh. I should probably read it.... But also. Lazy. Thank you!

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Craygor t1_iwyi6j5 wrote

Warning, the middle of the book is EXTREMELY dry, but I think you'll like the friendship that develops between the New Englander Ismael and a harponner named Queequeg, a Polynesian tattooed cannibal.

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alt_account_6 t1_iwyuojb wrote

I liked the exhaustive discourse on cetology. It's almost religious. But not really a book for people who need constant stimulation and action scenes

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fallllingman t1_ix2emns wrote

The book isn’t dry. The prose is brilliantly evocative and is consistently great throughout.

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fallllingman t1_ix2016v wrote

Abah is a pretty prominent character from about page 200 onwards, and I’d argue the book isn’t about the story of Ishmael. It’s about Ishmael’s role as a witness or observer, not a participant.

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leftiesrepresent t1_iwz4g5v wrote

The book is purely Melville showing off how smart he is. He wrote the novel with the expressed intention of proving his higher command of English than his contemporaries. The "story" and "plot" are alllll tertiary to that goal lmao

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Craygor t1_iwzxjcc wrote

I'm not going to argue. One, is because I'm not that smart, and two, that actually makes kind of sense

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fallllingman t1_ix2058y wrote

I’d argue a great story isn’t as good as a meaningful story.

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2020Hills t1_iwz887j wrote

I thought Moby Dick was a comedy?

I’ve never read it, that’s just what I’ve heard about it

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fallllingman t1_ix20c3v wrote

It’s occasionally very funny and satirical but it’s not a comedy as a whole. Melville is pretty earnest.

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kramerica_intern t1_ix0y3ch wrote

Very little of the book is them trying to kill Moby Dick. Most of it is a textbook about whales.

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fallllingman t1_ix20a59 wrote

Very little of it is a textbook about whales. Only about 4 chapters are like that, out of the 100+ total chapters. I mean, there’s also a lot about whaling, but the actual textbook parts are still pretty brief. It’s like 1/4th of the book, it’s not that much.

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kramerica_intern t1_ix22fam wrote

Yeah, I should have said whales and whaling. I don’t know the percentage of pages that are actually devoted to chasing Moby Dick but whatever it is it feels like a very small amount.

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fallllingman t1_ix2515k wrote

I mean do you expect 500 of 600 pages to be devoted to chasing a whale in hot pursuit? If we choose to call the whale God (and goodness knows Moby Dick is all about it’s symbolism), isn’t it proper that he makes an appearance only in the last thirty pages after we spend the novel doubting his existence? That’s not my personal interpretation of it, but the novel would be much worse if any more of it was devoted to chasing a whale. This is Herman Melville, not Robert Louis Stevenson.

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kramerica_intern t1_ix25vjc wrote

I didn’t think they’d be in hot pursuit the whole time but yeah, kinda. I picked up the book expecting to read about Ahab insanely chasing after Moby Dick. I didn’t expect entire chapters about objects found on a whaling vessel.

Though I suppose that’s what whaling might have been like. Lots of boredom before you finally get the intense rush of the chase.

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