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Ignominious:
I just discovered that The City and The City by China Meiville has been televised so now I'm rushing through the book before it gets taken off IPlayer. Its a rare occaision to be glad it isn't one if his finger straining tomes that cripple ligaments long before your appetite for the story is sated.
LeeC:
I did it. I got my harpoon and went a-whaling, I went after the white whale and read Moby Dick. Herman Melville is an amazing author and is very poetic in his writing. I read the unabridged version, so 1/3 of the book was about Ahab and the crew of the Pequod going after Moby Dick. The other 2/3 of the book is everything to know about whales and whaling. Even those parts are beautifully written! It can be a bit of a slog because it goes off tangent and talks about whales. Stories, legends, paleontology, oceanography, history, how to hunt and harvest whales. It really gets into the nitty gritty of it all. I can see why its a classic, the story itself is pretty amazing as we follow Ishmael and his budding friendship with the Polynesian Queequeg as they sign onto a whaling voyage with the bitter old Ahab who wants nothing but revenge!
Honestly, you could probably find the abridged version without all the whale and whaling stuff in it, but I think you really lose out on the atmosphere and foreshadowing that Melville uses with those chapters, to build up tension and under stand what risks are involved when going after the demi-god of whales.
I also have found when talking to other people about this book, that different people get different things out of the story. Sometimes its a vengeance rampage tale, others its a philosophical look on existence, and everything in between. Not only is it a wonderful story, but it may be also worth the read to see what the ink blot shows you. Another book worthy of the title "classic."
LTK:
I totally agree, I'd read the complete version over the abridged version containing only the bits about the Pequod any day. Maybe that's because I'm a huge nerd, but encyclopedic chapters really do add a lot to the overall mood of the book. Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick wouldn't be nearly as credible without it.
A while ago I backed a project for an illustrated version of Moby Dick on kickstarter, and the author had some interesting things to say about the book:
--- Quote ---I recently finished a big series of illustrations for Moby-Dick, and I’m currently running a Kickstarter campaign to self-publish an illustrated edition of the book (but also, you can read the book for free any time you like). I’m going to use this as an excuse to add to the pile of writing about one of the most written-about books in history: a book that is pored over and analyzed and cross-referenced as if it were scripture.
I am obsessed with this book: as a story and as an unfashionable, aggressive effort, and as an articulation of an interest I have in humanity’s confrontation with the limits of itself and its understanding. I am only lately and by the light of this book seeing that particular throughline connecting a lot of the stories I’ve been preoccupied with throughout my life. It’s a good book to get obsessed with, and to build an overambitious, impractical project on the back of.
--- End quote ---
Full blog post
TheEvilDog:
Yeah, its often been said that Moby Dick was less a story about whaling and revenge and more an encyclopedia about 19th Century whaling.
Cornelius:
Recommended background reading: The Ashley Book of Knots
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