Moby-Dick: or, The Whale

It's been nearly twenty years since I read Moby Dick so I really don't remember much. Just two main things, really.

1. The tattoo guy? Pretty freakin' cool.
2. Entire chapters of blah blah blah... I'm sorry, what where we talking about?

I'm pretty sure that if I had read some children's abridged version of Moby Dick, I would have enjoyed the storytelling a lot more. As it is, the story is derailed entirely by the insertion of essays throughout.

I will not be purchasing a copy to share with my children.

3,5 stars

I must admit, this was a difficult read and a lot of it likely went over my head. I intend to return it, possibly a couple of years later when I am more knowledgeable and well-read. It???s likely that the book would be more enjoyable if there weren???t so many chapters describing whaling, whale anatomy.
Seeing things from Ishmael's perspective was quite interesting, albeit quite odd, especially when Queequeg was involved. The plot of the book was amazing, especially the final chapters, the intense chase, the ignored omens.

Read it if you???ve read your bible (optimally), like slow-progressing whaling stories, loaded with metaphors and complex motifs, symbols, etc.

‰ЫПAs I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, ‰ЫУ literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger: while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulence, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

‰ЫПSqueeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers‰ЫЄ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, ‰ЫУ Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

‰ЫПWould that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.‰Ыќ

—

‰ЫПIt does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator, keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter‰ЫЄs, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.

‰ЫПBut how easy and how hopeless to each these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter‰ЫЄs! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!‰Ыќ