So, I come armed with a cup of tea, a cozy blanket, and mad skimming skills to the book that almost schooled me.
However, I know that not all of my readers are readers of Melville and might enjoy a...ahem...condensed version, a la Charity. I am reading the Barnes & Noble Classic Edition, so feel free to follow along.
Pages 1-100
The first-person narrator, Ishmael, meets Queequeg and has many thoughts which would today be considered racist, white-dominant, bigoted, and insensitive – but for the time were probably generous, kind-hearted, and inter-culturally forward-thinking. The two strike up a bromance and decide to go to sea on the same ship.
Best line: Call me Ishmael. [pg 1]
(What can I say? It’s classic.)
Pages 101-200
While in bed together, Ishmael and Queequeg decide to go whaling. They board a ship with a mysterious captain.
Best line: La! la, ma’am! – Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy! [pg 115]
Pages 201-300
We find out that the captain, Ahab, has a heretofore unrevealed agenda: kill a white sperm whale named – you’ll never guess – Moby Dick. (Yes, I know you can figure this out from the cover, but just go with it.) Ishmael processes the symbolic meanings of the color white. Ishmael, Queequeg, and the crew find some whales, but they don’t catch any.
Best line: I am madness maddened. [pg 208]
(Actually, chapter 37 – where this quote is found – switches to Ahab’s internal monologue, and the prose is delicious. I read it five times and actually got stuck here for several months because I was loathe to get back into Ishmael’s head.)
Pages 301-400
The crew captures and kills a sperm whale. Ishmael and Queequeg’s bromance continues. Ishmael treats us to 50 pages of his thoughts about the sperm whale’s severed head. No joke: 50 pages. About the head.
Best line: Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs.
So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters. [pg 342]
(You’re not kidding me!)
Honorable mention: The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. [pg 342]
Stay tuned for the next three installments, coming as I finish the reading. I am freshly determined (mostly by lack of nightlife in Joplin) to conquer the book by the end of 2011. Also, I have decided that heavy skimming is allowed because, well, Ishmael is boring. (Sorry, Herman, ol' chap.)
2 comments:
Good for you! I look forward to those next three - that way I don't have to read it! lol! ;-) Tho - you have inspired me to finish a few books that I have begun, but haven't finished. :-)
Wah, I admire your determination. I had to read this book for English in high school and to this day I hate it and everything associated with it. X)
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