>reading moby dick online>get to the end, 400 pages>end of vol 1>theres a vol 2bros...I can't take any more of this whale shit
>>23971665Should have read it on Kindle, mine was only 358 pages total
>>23971665Moby Dick is a book about pursuing your monomania even if it knowingly brings you ruin and destruction. it's not about whales.
>>23971699filtered
>>23971699it's literally a whale encyclopedia
>>23971699There's a whale literally on the cover
>>23971699>half of book consists of musings and factoids regarding whales>it's not about whalesget a load of this guy
>>23971699It’s a book about hunting pussy. Several things point this out>no women in the entire work>brolove moments>a ship named “Jungfrau” (German for virgin) can’t get any whales because it only chases the ones it can’t catch>a ship named “Bachelor” is so successful at hunting whales that it has to go back to Massachusetts before the end of the season due to the ship overflowing with sperm oil>Ahab has oneitis for Moby Dick which brings nothing but ruin and disappointment in the end
>>23971748publishable thesis desu
>>23971665when i was like 12 i read a shorter version that was around 150 pages, it was atrocious, i can't even imagine reading the whole book
>>23971699yes but the execution is bad xd
>>23971748Uh based?
It's about a big white penis
>>23971665Describe the taste of whale shit to me
>>23971699it's a 1800s wikipedia page on whales
>>23971745I like whales. Maybe it's time for me to finally read my dad's copy of Moby Dick
>>23971665>bros...I can't take any more of this whale shitThen drop it. I don't see what's the problem.
>>23972104The whale parts are the best parts of the book. He stops the story every two chapters and just talks meta about whales
>>23972135I just hate leaving anything unfinished (be it books, films or TV Shows). If I start it, I have to go until the end.
>>23972146How much whale anatomy have you read since finishing the book?
>>23972167zero, because i know all i need to know already
>>23971665I genuinely think Moby Dick is the true NPC filter. You MUST be lacking in soul or consciousness if you can read it and not love it. I don't feel this objectively about any other work of literature. Btw if you don't understand what "feeling objectively" means you are definitely incapable of parsing non-mechanical ideas of the human spirit (you are an NPC).
>>23972480Typical p-zombie opinion above, feel free to ignore.
He was gay, Herman Melville?
Is it okay to skip the cetology chapters, or will I miss something important?
>>23973280The singular Cetology chapter (32) is only half-important. The first half of it is, but once he starts classifying whales into different book types it's, to my knowledge, useless and doesn't matter for the book's symbolism.The other chapters are hugely important, and ones like the Tail are some of my favourites. They don't advance the plot, but their language yes beautiful and they're crucial to the book's meaning. Treat them like lyric poetry rather than chapters in a novel; Moby-Dick is an epic poem in all but form anyway, heavily inspired by the likes of Paradise Lost.Just read it all.
I got two chapters in and quit. I didn't even get to the whale stuff yet. But I hate whales IRL so I doubt I'd like this. Just him roaming the town looking for a hotel room in chapter 2 and veering off into a full page tangent over the Bible was enough to drive me away.
>>23974155The whole whale thing is just an excuse to talk about philosophy and religion through metaphors.
>>23974157>The whole whale thing is just an excuse to talk about philosophy and religion through metaphors.can we stop this meme take before it becomes a genuine opinion on /lit/, please?
>>23971665>>23971795>>23971799Are you niggas retarded or somethingMelville's just insanely good at writing it literally doesn't matter what it's about. Let him paint a picture and let your imagination go wild, holy shit how soulless are you
>>23971699It's about Trump and the 2016/2024 US Presidential Elections and the dangers of charismatic monomania
Blood Meridian is just Moby Dick with a big bald man instead of a whale
>>23971665> But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb’s boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.
>>23974485>He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.Those are some nice sounding words, but I have no idea what they mean.
did they really make candles from whale sperm back then?
>>23975076And was there really no better way to get their sperm besides jerking the whales off?
>>23971665The character of Ahab is genuinely one of the greatest character of all time. When he appears in a chapter, he dominates everything, he takes the stage like the best of all Shakespearean characters and delivers either rants, soliloquies, or philosophical musings aside in the best manner contrived by any author of any century. His plight has so much depth of meaning, so much symbolism, so much of that which is human it can not fail to move even the most stoic of readers. Ishmael's friendship with Queequeg is also very well handled, and the different backgrounds of the characters serves to highlight the fact that camaraderie can transcend all arbitrary differences. Even the much maligned whale encyclopedia chapters are fine and serve to enrich the story by both immersing the reader in the subject matter while also highlighting the main character's own background as a former teacher/academic. I personally loved it from cover to cover and would highly recommend.
For me, it was that chapter about the shipbuilder who reduced human beings to machines
>>23971748solved
>>23971699it's about craving for cocks
>>23973226There are some evidence he was but no one knows just because of Moby-Dick and how he wrote his letters to Hawthrone he was influenced by
>>23971748very based
>>23977042>There are some evidence he wasSuch as? It seems like a cut and dry issue.
>>23973226kek
>>23971748Interesting
>>23975317>Ishmael's friendship with Queequeg>friendshipdid you miss the chapter where they had hot gay sex?
>>23971699It's just some dudes chasing a whale bro
>>23977200Homies can cuddle in bed and be described as "like a man and his wife" in a totally no-homo way, duh. Two naked men embracing under the sheets of a bed is just the heights male friendship can attain. If you haven't felt every inch of another man's body, he isn't fully your friend yet. The sublime essence of friendship must not be blocked by petty concepts about clothing and nakedness. It's just obvious.
>>23977200I bet you don't even take broshowers with your friends, faggot.
>>23971665Melville was a fucking Autist and it shows.
I knew a guy IRL like this. Literally obsessed with whales. Whale license plate, whale stickers on his car, whale PC desktop wallpaper. He got a Master's in whales. Lived and breathed the damned things. Ended up working at a gas station, last I heard.
I started typing Moby Dick a few days ago. I am on Chapter three now
Fun fact, the title is an anagram for M'boy Dick
>>23977759I just finished the ambergris chapter
>>23972225Well well well
>>23972153Then kill yourself
>>23971665
>>23971699I came out of Moby Dick knowing more about whales than any other animal on the planet
>>23977759Pierre Menard, is that you?
