It really sucks and I'm tired of pretending it's good. It was astroturfed and shilled in the 1920s for some reason probably by some pack of elite pedophiles and no one has dared re-examine its status as a classic. There are a few masterful chapters among so much, well, blubber. This might be the masterpiece people claim it is if a solid two-thirds of it was completely excised. As it stands, it's not even close to being the best American novel ever written. Don't pretend to like something (if you don't) because everyone says you should.
Nah, there’s a quality to it that allows it to surpass even great american books. Just the way the author writes, even in a random letter or just commentary in general, is beautful and descriptively interested in our world and thoughtful in expression. The book is not about Ahab and the whale, it is about the philosophical meanderings the author takes you down, asking questions about the world that few people were, and frankly do, today.Something like this rarely gets written, maybe Tolstoy comes close in terms of sheer effortness, in writing greatness.
Was the most boring thing I have ever attempted to read, which is saying something. I have read manuals on elevator maintenance that were far more entertaining while also being a better use of my time.If I am reading a work of fiction I expect to be entertained. Instead it commits the worst sin of fiction, being dreadfully boring while also being long and meandering. The most overrated piece of crap ever.
>>24991363Only morons are impressed by Moby Dick's consistently amateurish purple prose
>>24991335>and shilled in the 1920s for some reasonthe reason was that the US went to war with europe and they had none of the greats at the timelovecraft is one of the greats, melville is trash and a retrospective construction by editorsthe original got four song and dance numbers that is in the late 19th century, totally unacceptable
>>24991437ask the anon about the scene where the sailors sing and dance with stage directions with captain ahabor the one where they bath in sperm frolickingor the dozen of encyclopedia entries
>>24991335>It really sucks and I'm tired of pretending it's good.True, it's boring as fuck as a light read. But if you're into artsy fartsy, it is a book worth your time in finding guides to lead you through all the layers of how deep it is, but who wants to do that with a book that wasn't an enjoyable light read to you in the first place?
>>24991335I love this book. But what is it about Moby Dick that the people who hate it seem to be more obsessed with it than anyone who likes it? I mean, there are lots of classics I've read that I really didn't care for much, but I don't have much of a desire to waste my time convincing other people why they shouldn't like it. Let alone making the same thread or a variation of it every other week, regurgitating the same talking points. I guess the fact that even the ones who hate it just can't seem to move on from this book speaks to how unforgettable and unique it is.
>>24991553Moby Dick consistently ranks very high in /lit/'s favorites and has even won the number 1 spot in the 100 multiple times. This has put a lot of its uneducated detractors under the impression that the public widely regards it the same. It is considered a classic of American literature but definitely not regarded as highly as /lit/ regards it, Huckleberry Finn and the Great Gatsby are generally considered more important American literature
>>24991437>Moby Dick is amateurish purple proseOther than the whale autism, the elaborate grammatical nuance, and incredibly meticulous layered symbolism. If you know an amateur who writes like that introduce me.
>>24991587Yeah but that wasn't my point. See, the Great Gatsby is a great example since you mentioned it. I really didn't like that book, I thought it was overrated as fuck and I bet a lot of people on /lit/ feel the same way, yet none of us ever make frequent threads about why the Great Gatsby sucks. Moby Dick is entirely unique in how frequently people make threads talking shit about it and it doesn't seem deserved. I mean, even OP who evidently didn't like Moby Dick at all, said that underneath what he deems unnecessary blubber, there is a masterpiece. Sounds like OP didn't even hate the book but just wants to shit on it anyway, as some kind of ritual to fit in because at this point hating on Moby Dick has become some kind of contrarian /lit/ counter culture.
>>24991591Ah yes, the "symbolism">The villain is playing with a mouse trap... as he leads our hero into a trap! WAAAAAOWWWWWW SYMBOLJISM!!!
>>24991671Are you being retarded on purpose, or do you have a very shallow grasp of the concept of symbolism as a result of limited reading?
>>24991335Americans can't create art. They are constitutionally incapable of it.
>>24991796That is only the European Americans
Our writings are as so many dishes, our readers guests, our books like beauty, that which one admires another rejects; so are we approved as men's fancies are inclined. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli.. That which is most pleasing to one is amaracum sui, most harsh to another. Quot homines, tot sententiae, so many men, so many minds: that which thou condemnest he commends. Quod petis, id sane est invisum acidumque duobus. He respects matter, thou art wholly for words; he loves a loose and free style, thou art all for neat composition, strong lines, hyperboles, allegories; he desires a fine frontispiece, enticing pictures, such as Hieron. Natali the Jesuit hath cut to the Dominicals, to draw on the reader's attention, which thou rejectest; that which one admires, another explodes as most absurd and ridiculous. If it be not point blank to his humour, his method, his conceit, si quid, forsan omissum, quod is animo conceperit, si quae dictio, &c. If aught be omitted, or added, which he likes, or dislikes, thou art mancipium paucae lectionis, an idiot, an ass, nullus es, or plagiarius, a trifler, a trivant, thou art an idle fellow; or else it is a thing of mere industry, a collection without wit or invention, a very toy. Facilia sic putant omnes quae jam facta, nec de salebris cogitant, ubi via strata; so men are valued, their labours vilified by fellows of no worth themselves, as things of nought, who could not have done as much. Unusquisque abundat sensu suo, every man abounds in his own sense; and whilst each particular party is so affected, how should one please all?
>>24991335Very dark hands typed this
>>24991796You don't know what "constitutionally" means so stay in your lane, thirdie.
>>24991335it's underrated and I am tired of pretending otherwise. not only the greatest work of american literature, but the greatest work of all time
>>24991335>There are a few masterful chapters among so much, well, blubber.kill yourself man
>>24991587>Huckleberry Finn and the Great Gatsby are generally considered more important American literatureWrong. Outright wrong. Moby Dick is consistently hailed as THE greatest American novel across many spaces. It doesn't deserve that title whatsoever.
>>24992038>wahh wahh someone attacked my favorite book and now my fee fees are hurtshut up faggot. You probably also loooove blood meridian, don't you, it was your first book you read outside high school and now you can't shut the fuck up about it. Go read and form an opinion about a book that hasn't been put right in front of your face.
>>24991618OP here, I did in fact hate the book as a whole. Like I said, there's some masterful stuff in there, but it's so buried by bullshit that the book, as a whole, cannot be considered a masterpiece, and I didn't end up liking it. Two stars.
muy filtrado
>>24992116>>24991950>>24991987You're a puppet. Look at you. The propaganda worked.
>>24992257Not an argument. Surrender accepted.
>>24991553As a warning to others and as a proposal to excise it from the canon. Which is perfectly valid. I do the same with Pokemon games I think suck.
>>24992431I think the cause is admirable, I do the same with Chrono Nigger, but in this case it's misguided. Moby-Dick is great.
>>24991618Nobody claims The Great Gatsby is Top 3 or anything of the sort, and we have all read it already by default. The cases are not comparable whatsoever.
>>24992438As someone who has not read Moby Dick, I find OP's position more convincing than anything your side has posted ITT.
The first 1/3rd of Moby-Dick is great. The rest is a letdown.
>>24991953The most ironic post of 2026 to date.
>>24991587>Huckleberry FinnNow that was a great book that I enjoyed.
>>24991987you seriously need to go back
>>24992456Does not work in American parlance, sorry. We love laws, legal arguments, and our political constitution.>b-b-b-but I don't like that. Learn the vernacular if you want to be taken seriously, dingdong.
>>24992257Why? Because I value where I live and don't want to be blown up by a third worlder with an axe to grind? Are you mental?
>>24992456You don't even what irony even means, panchito.
I really liked the start. Then it drags on a lot. I don't think it's bad, it's still interesting, but there's only so many interspersed chapters of fish anatomy I can handle.
>>24991335>Everything I don't like is part of a global conspiracy of pedophiles. When is this meme going to finally die?
Take it back.
>>24993003Lmfao are you really unaware of what constitution means
>>24993028Only when it stops being proven correct every few years, so never.
I agree. I think the astroturfing can be attributed to the favourable view of lesser races presented throughout the book. The description of the third mate's harpooner, a 6'5 black man, reads like a cuck fantasy. Not to mention the gay elements of Ishmael literally sleeping and cuddling with Queequeg (actual cannibal). The modernist school probably found this book and thought, hey here is a book which perfectly manifests a transfer from romanticism to modern degeneracy. Oh and Ahab, the iron-willed, ambitious, strong white man? He's bad and insane, mkay?
>>24993008Second most ironic post ITT.
REMINDER: NO ONE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT WHALE FACTS. THEY PRETEND TO. THEY PUT THE BOOK DOWN AND READ NO MORE WHALE FACTS. BUT THEY PRETEND TO LIKE THEM WHILE READING MOBY DICK. THEY WILL NOT ADMIT THIS OR EXPLAIN WHY THEY DO THIS. TRULY A FASCINATING PHENOMENON.
>>24993715I'm majoring in marine biology. I careAlso it's been over 174 years since this novel came out and people still can't seem to understand that Melville is in fact NOT Ishmael and the extensive treatise on whaling and whale biology is not done because Melville was hyperfixated on whales but to further the themes of the epistemological and metaphysical fanaticism which can take root unto a soul when searching for meaning and reason in a meaningless and reasonless world that ultimately lead to their demise, and the demise of others (at least, how I interpret it) Ahab and Ishmael are more alike than they are different, in that they both seek understanding for what is inherently beyond their understanding, that is, why they must suffer, why both have been seemingly shunted off by some cosmic deity. Ishmael is also not a very reliable narrator, projecting his own defects and qualities upon almost everyone else.Again, this is all just my interpretation; the beauty of Moby-Dick is that it's completely different for everyone, because it's all about perspective in the first place Furthermore the book is not endorsing or promoting savagery. Ahab's demise is precisely because he resorted to and exploited pagan ideals. Not to say Melville doesn't personally believe that there are faults in his contemporary society that can be learned from simpler people but Ishmael, again, is not Melville and just because he says he thinks savagery is more noble than civilization this is refuted in the aforementioned return to savagery seen by Ahab.The book is pretty gay, though. Melville was gay. I won't try to argue that.
>>24993715i fucking LOVE the whale facts and if you don't like cool animal facts about some of the coolest animals out there and if you somehow REMAIN ambivalent despite melville's HYPNOTIC, LITERARY navigation of these incredible facts i have nothing else to tell you but that you are NOT ensouled and you will NOT see the light even when it is THRUST upon you by the finest, deftest hand that has had the BENEVOLENCE to pick up the quill you PUTRID CUNT
>>24992446The part about you not having read it makes you perhaps the only objective judge
>>24992091Moby Dick is way less often a part of anyone's curriculum than Huckleberry Finn or the Great Gatsby, and in polls in America for favorite books only blacks tend to rate is their favorite, with whites ranking Gone with the Wind as theirs and Hispanics ranking Gatsby
>>24993898How many whale facts have you read outside of Moby dick??? I love animals IN REAL LIFE and I love STORIES and POEMS with animals IN THEM. I do NOT pretend to enjoy ANATOMY TEXTBOOKS>It's SOUL to read boring infodumps that the hivemind has pre-approved because I don't know how to ACTUALLY experience and enjoy art>if it's written pretty and flashy enough I'll read it REGARDLESS of the poverty of ACTUAL CONTENTSAD
I really like the early section in the whaling towns, especially the chapter where he orders chowder in the inn. It is a very comfy aesthetic, sort of like the intro to a Lovecraft story but the monster never shows up.
>>24992091>Moby Dick is consistently hailed as THE greatest American novelby?
>>24991335The fact that weird gnostic ideas are interweaved (wink wink) with the mundane whale facts is what makes the book so strange and charming, despite how much of a slog certain sections of it are at first. Also, the deranged mystical whaling chapters make the last 150 pages more riveting by contrast.
>>24993233>>24991671Ahab is the protagonist, not the villain. Ishmael literally doesn't appear for 4/5ths of the novel. Ahab forging his own harpoon out of razor blades and considering it to Satan by baptizing it with the blood of the cannibals on the ship will never not go hard as fuck.
i bought the /lit/ edition of moby dick but haven't read it yet except for laughing at all the footnotes
>>24993715
>>24994280Where did you find it? I've been interested in perusing through it for a while now but the links I've found are expired
>>24991335Melville invented going down a rabbit hole on wikipedia 150 years earlier. Now that we have actual wikipedia it doesn't seem as impressive, but taking all these tangential subjects to whaling and cramming them into one book was incredibly ahead of its time.
>>24993164You are illiterate.
>>24994409>invented
a late century novel that is a trash stage play with 4 song and dance numbers, with humans bathing in sperm at one pointencyclopedic episodes at lengththis got zero place in any hall of fame, you have to measure him against verne or cervantes and against them it is clear that moby dick is an inferior work
>>24993871>Ahab's demise is precisely because he resorted to and exploited pagan ideals.lolwutIf anything, Ahab (literally named after Abraham) represents the mania and destructiveness of Judeo-Christianity.
>>2499450229 And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.31 And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.32 And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.33 And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.
>>24991335>everyone says you should.around here, we have always said it sucks long big whale dick
>>24994502>(literally named after Abraham)There's an Ahab in the bible retard you can't even shitfling properly
>>24994017i have read ONE other book specifically about whales and it was a FUCKING CORKERif you reduce ishmael's SERMONS and MEDITATIONS on the noble whale to ANATOMY you have FAILED as a READER. they are DIVING BOARDS into the realm of LITERARY CRITICISM except turned outwards towards LIFE ITSELF
>>24994292https://www.lulu.com/shop/herman-melville-and-anonymous/moby-dick/paperback/product-7wgny7.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4
>>24994506are you fucking retardednobody who hates on Moby-Dick actually read the book or the bible
>>24994957>>24994506disregard this anon, I meant to reply to the person you were
Ahab should have won if we're being honest. The whale was not only sapient but malicious, possibly even demonic in nature.
>>24991335My 8th grade english teacher shat all over it so I never read it. My brother read it in high school and hated it. I might try it soon with Critique of Pure Reason which filtered me in college (i'm an old faggot now). wasn't a philosophy major took it for fun and it was the hardest class I took in college.
>>24994982Impossible to read Critique without help. Sorry. Can’t be done. Too much exclusive vocab and prior history and proper work required. Also Moby Dick is great, love the whales, love Nantucket, hate savages, glad they all died. Well written beautiful work
>>24995105I'm saying I took an advanced ethics class and that was the text, which filtered me. I wasn't a philosophy major, took an intro class by same professor and liked it. The advanced class was not the same at all lol
>>24995121Yeah lol critique will still filter you hard. No offense. Just a difficult read. Could try Prolegomena
>>24994288Rys types in all caps at all times doh
>>24994982>My 8th grade english teacher shat all over it so I never read it. based, it shocked me as I fell for the hype.
>>24996207you thought it was shit?
>>24994510don't know who this "we" is you're talm bout
I'm saddened to see so many people talk so negatively about it ITT. I think its the most beautiful work of art ever made. I have a strong suspicion that the vast majority of people who claim to dislike it haven't actually really read it. Maybe it starts off a little too challenging somehow, hence, they'll say its boring and sucks to cope with their unbotheredness? Especially in the face of how lauded it is by many. I suppose that also makes it an early book for many readers when they first start getting into literature and they might never overcome that original response which might've only happened because they weren't ready yet.I cried a few times while reading this book, usually out of the sheer sense of awe, or perhaps ecstasy caused by nothing but the mere privilege to have been able to witness and/or comprehend such an astonishing monument. Anyway, I really hope that at least one person who is getting into literature for the sake of genuine artistic engagement and not for an ego-stroking sake of feeling superior and/or smarter than their peers or w/e sees this post and reconsiders the level at which they engaged Moby Dick because it stands, I believe, among humanity's greatest achievements.
>>24999817Stfu
>>24999817>Maybe it starts off a little too challenging somehow, hence, they'll say its boring and sucks to cope with their unbotheredness?...>Anyway, I really hope that at least one person who is getting into literature for the sake of genuine artistic engagement and not for an ego-stroking sake of feeling superior and/or smarter than their peers...Kek
>>24994087/lit/ is an obvious example
>>24999817I have never read the book and your pathetic post has told me absolutely nothing about it other than your supposed feelings toward it and devotion to its orthodoxy. You are a pseudo-intellectual who cannot think for himself and has to rely upon pathos and ethos to get anywhere.
In my experience, the people who don't like Moby Dick simply do not like poetry. Which is completely fine, mind you. They should read something more plot-heavy.
>>24999817>I cried a few timesLmao pussy homo fag imagine crying tears as a man because of words on a page
AllHermansAreBastards
>>25001143lmao
>>24999817excellent bait
This is what some in this thread are trying to convince you is trash by the way: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.
>>25003343If I'm being charitable, I would say that different things move different people's hearts differently. If I speak my ire, I would say one deadened to this is not emotionally sensitive at all. I'm just over 1/3 through my first read and I love this book. It starts off rather smoothly with a typical novel structure, but right after setting sail it has kept surprising me with its language and oddities. The chapter on the color of the whale was incredible.
>>25003343OP here, read my post again, more carefully this time, thank you.
>>25003605NTA here, but read his post again, more carefully this time. He says some in this thread. Thank you.
>>24991335christians have ruined this board, all they want to talk about is the Bible, make your own fucking board
>>25004629??? Are you retarded? Clinically??
>>24991335That’s the wrong whale
>>25004765Seethe if you must.
By reading the thread one can conclude fags who use purple prose pejoratively, as in all form without substance, want stories to be written as elevator manuals. Ironically, I blame the Americans for this, as they always try to be utilitarian and want everything to serve a "function" in the text (i.e. need to push the story forward, need to develop characters, need to plant an idea to be used later...)Fucking retards without aesthetic sensibilities.
>>25004860Word salad
>>25004860Huh? Waxing poetically about something better fit for an essay or journal is form without substance
>>25004860Look at the proliferation of genre fiction threads here. Of course plotfags are going to get upset about it. Look for codewords like “it doesn’t say/do anything” which means: “there’s no action like in my Game of Thrones books”. Then they seethe when you call them out. Just watch the replies to my post.
The book looks like 50% terms about whales and ships, looks like a very idiosyncratic read that people pretend to like. I would only start reading it when I run out of books that I'm actually interested in and not a book that is just interesting because "it's top 5 in a lot of lists"
>>25004862Lobotomized zoomer retard.
>>25004601It's funny how nothing in that post implicates Christians or atheists in any way, you just knew pedophile was somehow a dog-whistle that related to your LGBTpedo cult in some manner.
>>25004774at least it wasn't a great white shark
>>24991385>If I am reading a work of fiction I expect to be entertainedLol at this dipshitGood read your Star Wars books
>>24991363>TolstoyIs even worse, a complete philosophical retard
>>24991335is the whale described as larger than the boat in the book?
>>24991363>>24991385anyone else have a theory that this book really tickles a general autism in people and thats why it ends up top of the heap all the time? Man vs his own demon which is essentially a dragon is a great story sure but its coated in squirrely safe autistic rambling that gets collectors, categorizers, etc.
>>25004878Things are meant to happen in stories. You are a delusional pseud if you think otherwise. Your expectations have been usurped by a glut of 19thC "deep thinkers" who should have wrote pissy philosophical tracts that no-one ever read but instead they took what should have been a 10,000 word story and strapped a bunch of bollocks on it to indulge themselves.Actual thinkers can impose thought onto pure event. The Iliad is a far, far more contemplative work than Moby Dick.
>>25005327Do you just force yourself to read without even liking it
I’ve never read the book but it seems to divide people into academics, critics, and other serious readers who love it on one hand and on the other the people who hate it: marvel movie loving plotfags who want stuff to happen or they get bored. Can anyone explain why?
>>25005554Moby Dick fans will really pretend to enjoy books like this:Chapter 1>Dave realises there is no bread in the kitchenChapter 2>Dave heads to the shopsChapter 3>The full history of breadChapter 4>Dave finds himself among the bread aisle, confused by the huge choice on offerChapter 5>The entire works of PlatoChapter 6>Dave leaves the supermarket with a bag of seeded wholemeal
>>24991335It's a book by someone with an adoration for something and the skill to communicate that love in writing. I can tell why many people really love it. That said it's not one of my favorites and I'll probably never reread it. The specifics of and philosophical quandaries that arise from whaling just aren't that intresting.
>>25005566You forgot>Dave (literally) sleeps with a baker
>I don't like the book so everyone who likes it is just pretending toPlotfags should stick to videogames or anime or something - yeah, right, they don't have any talent. >>25005566That sounds really cool tho.
>anyone who doesn't like this book is a plotfagLotta samefagging in this thread using the same tired strawman argument. Imagine liking a book because you were told to. How much more mentally weak can you get?
>>25005663>doubles down on pretending, this time with le heckin bread>admits to being a gamerDickbros?
>>25005934this
Sometimes a scholar's annotated version comes in useful,expecially when trying to keep up with so many generations of readers.
>>25005934Imagine disliking something just because it's popular and critically acclaimedOh wait, thats 4chan.
