Has anyone else read the book Moby Dick?
I just finished it last night and I was not terribly impressed.
First, about half of the time Melville trivializes whales by referring to them as “fish”, and the other half of the time he demonizes whales by calling them “monsters”, “beasts”, or “leviathans”. I kept thinking that I just wish he would make up his mind as to what type of creatures that whales really are.
Second, he is continually showing off his knowledge of whaling by going into extended details about the type of wood used in the whaling boats, how the rope is laid out in the whaling boats, how the whale fat is rendered, and on, and on, and on.
Third, the dialog is rather hard to follow with terms like “thee”, “thine”, and other such odd pronouns being cast about.
Fourth, Ahab has a really annoying way of constantly referring to himself in the third person.
And fifth, Ahab is constantly referred to as an “old man”.
Ugh! I think that Melville would have been much better off he wrote two books. The first, a non-fiction account of whaling where he could wax endlessly about all of the various details of the business which had so much fascination for him. And a second book, which would be much shorter that would compose his very interesting story of a half-mad whale ship captain who is determined to kill the whale which took off his leg.
I just finished it last night and I was not terribly impressed.
First, about half of the time Melville trivializes whales by referring to them as “fish”, and the other half of the time he demonizes whales by calling them “monsters”, “beasts”, or “leviathans”. I kept thinking that I just wish he would make up his mind as to what type of creatures that whales really are.
Second, he is continually showing off his knowledge of whaling by going into extended details about the type of wood used in the whaling boats, how the rope is laid out in the whaling boats, how the whale fat is rendered, and on, and on, and on.
Third, the dialog is rather hard to follow with terms like “thee”, “thine”, and other such odd pronouns being cast about.
Fourth, Ahab has a really annoying way of constantly referring to himself in the third person.
And fifth, Ahab is constantly referred to as an “old man”.
Ugh! I think that Melville would have been much better off he wrote two books. The first, a non-fiction account of whaling where he could wax endlessly about all of the various details of the business which had so much fascination for him. And a second book, which would be much shorter that would compose his very interesting story of a half-mad whale ship captain who is determined to kill the whale which took off his leg.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=264932&goto=newpost
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