# I'm reading "Moby Dick" for the first time ever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 27, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173 "2014-07-27T17:45:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@Slade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slade)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/41 "2014-07-31T16:10:31Z")
I’m reading it for the first time too - rather a lovely hardback edition, since you ask. I’ve just finished the chapter where Ahab’s pacing the deck, preparing to nail the gold coin to the mast. Flask and Stubb watch him pace, see that something’s boiling up within him, then Stubb whispers: “D’ye mark him, Flask? The chick that’s in him pecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out.” The book’s full of wonderful language, but so far that’s the phrase that I think will stick with me most. I can’t think of a better image do describe someone with an obsession churning inside him that’s just about to burst loose. I haven’t found a chance to use the phrase in casual conversation yet, but can you bet I’ll shoehorn it in there somehow. The chick that’s in me pecks the shell… ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/42 "2014-07-31T16:36:04Z")
Reading it now. So far, very funny and astute. I’m also having deja vu–not sure if I might have read the first chapters at some point, or read something where this was part of a pastiche, or just hung around New Bedford too much as a younger person. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/43 "2014-07-31T17:50:51Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I have no idea about movies…but, very, very definitely, a good teacher can, by showing his own enthusiasm, go a long way toward making the course inspiring to most of the students. Teachers who just phone it in are a drag, and can turn even the best books into anchors. > > I hated Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” The futility of it all just weighed me down. And, too, the teacher was a dolt, and completely ruined any possible enjoyment. Since then, I’ve never read a word of Hemingway. I know that’s foolish; I’m denying myself a treat. > > (It balances out: I had several of the very best math teachers you could ever hope for!) A good teacher is a wonderful thing. It really is a shame that there aren’t more of them; and I’ve had my share of some plainly horrible ones , too. I suspect you should give “Papa” another chance; The Old Man and the Sea left me feeling better in the end, not worse. Sure, we all fall in the end but the fight you put up is what matters. I read Moby Dick when I was 13 and haven’t picked it up since. The chapters on the nitty gritty of whaling were dragging me down although I enjoyed it overall; now that I’ve had some time to mature (sort of) I should sit down and give it another go. I might just give Walden another go around as well because I LOVE that book. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/44 "2014-07-31T18:08:56Z")
I rather like the whale biology chapters. They’re interesting reading. I happened to go for a hike at Point Ano Nuevo State Park this last weekend, and the park ornamented one of their trail heads with the colossal vertebra of a whale. I kicked it thoughtfully and measured the spinal cord aperture with a critical eye, seeing as I had just been reading about whale skeletons the day before. Ahab’s nuttiness is beginning to wear thin. How many omens and portents of doom can he ignore? I’m looking forward to him becoming Purina Whale Chow. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/45 "2014-07-31T18:51:46Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > I rather like the whale biology chapters. They’re interesting reading. I happened to go for a hike at Point Ano Nuevo State Park this last weekend, and the park ornamented one of their trail heads with the colossal vertebra of a whale. I kicked it thoughtfully and measured the spinal cord aperture with a critical eye, seeing as I had just been reading about whale skeletons the day before. > > Ahab’s nuttiness is beginning to wear thin. How many omens and portents of doom can he ignore? I’m looking forward to him becoming Purina Whale Chow. Ahab isn’t ignoring the portents, he is challenging them. “if the Sun insulted me, I’d strike it!” IIRC. He is way nuts. But the peeps keep following him. That’s the way it works in real life too. People will follow a nut to their destruction. > [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Stay away from literature favored by H. L. Mencken, then. He praised works such as \* An American Tragedy–\* which certainly lived up to its title. I loves me some H.L. The original gonzo journalist, he is the rare funny conservative writer. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/46 "2014-07-31T18:55:16Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Forget the plot. The book isn’t about plot. Guy goes on a boat, the captain goes crazy and chases a whale, the end. There’s your plot. People get confused because the first few chapters start out like a novel with a plot–there’s a guy, he meets a guy, he signs up on a whaling voyage, and so on. That shit gets abandoned pretty fast. The blogging analogy is pretty apt. It starts out like a guy blogging his day to day activities, but then he gets bored with that and starts writing about whatever comes into his head. > > Can we talk about what the whale symbolizes yet? Because Melville lays it out plain… > > Revenge against God, baby. And Ahab doesn’t give a shit whether the whale is God, or just one of God’s creatures. Either way, killing the whale is spitting in God’s face. Best post I’ve read in weeks. Well said, and many thanks! ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/47 "2014-07-31T19:31:23Z")
**Lemur866** I agree completely that the whale is G-d. More specifically, I think it’s a Creator who is indifferent to the suffering of His creations. Re Portents Of Doom Are they portents of doom? Signs of a merciful G-d reaching out to Ahab? Or are they signs that G-d is afraid of Ahab? I say it’s the last one. The Lord seems to react much like a horror movie monster by trying to scare Ahab off or bribe him. ‘Give up your quest and I promise you material riches!’ ‘Give up your quest. You cannot beat me anyway’ The turning of the compasses always seemed to me to be a frightened attempt to lead Ahab astray. BTW There’s a sequel. [The Wind Whales Of Ishmael](http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Whales-Ishmael-Grand-Master/dp/1781162972) I’ve read it many times. You’d think it would suck. But, it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/48 "2014-07-31T19:42:53Z")
Yes, Ahab’s quest is revenge against God. But no, the whale isn’t God. Ahab wants to strike through the mask? Yes, but there’s nothing behind the mask. The whale is just a whale, Ahab wasn’t crippled by God, he was crippled for no reason by a blank–that is, white–moral universe, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/49 "2014-07-31T19:50:55Z")
I’ve just now read the chapter “The Chase - First Day”, and it’s surpassing awesome. The descriptions of the whale gliding forward in the tropical sea are wonderful poetry, in particular, this paragraph: “Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale’s back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.” And after several soothing, musical paragraphs like this, the whale turns flukes and sounds, only to appear abruptly beneath them to take a massive chomp. Wonderful stuff. Quint, step back into second place. ---
**Author:** ![Slade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@Slade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slade)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/50 "2014-07-31T21:09:45Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > **Lemur866** > BTW There’s a sequel. > > [The Wind Whales Of Ishmael](http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Whales-Ishmael-Grand-Master/dp/1781162972) That’s not the sequel. [THIS](http://www.comicvine.com/adventure-comics-332-the-super-moby-dick-of-space/4000-114828/) is the sequel. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/51 "2014-07-31T21:26:02Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > . . . BTW There’s a sequel. > > [The Wind Whales Of Ishmael](http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Whales-Ishmael-Grand-Master/dp/1781162972) > > I’ve read it many times. You’d think it would suck. But, it doesn’t. Grin! I’ve read that’n thrice. Very “Edgar Rice Burroughs” in tone. Good solid straightforward swords-and-air-rafts fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/52 "2014-07-31T21:40:08Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Ahab isn’t ignoring the portents, he is challenging them. “if the Sun insulted me, I’d strike it!” IIRC. He is way nuts. But the peeps keep following him. That’s the way it works in real life too. People will follow a nut to their destruction. > > I loves me some H.L. The original gonzo journalist, he is the rare funny conservative writer. He is also the rare World War I enemy sympathizer. He concocted the Millard Fillmore “bathtub hoax” as a red herring to distract people at that time, lest he be tarred and feathered. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/53 "2014-08-01T15:25:59Z")
Wow, brilliant finale. I knew pretty much how it would end, of course, but it was interesting that the 1956 movie altered the ending somewhat. Thus Ahab’s end in the book came as a surprise to me. “Take another pledge, old man,” said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom—“Hemp only can kill thee.” “The gallows, ye mean.—I am immortal then, on land and on sea,” cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;—“Immortal on land and on sea!” Not quite. No wonder a whole chapter was devoted to describing whale line and how important it was to keep it neatly and properly coiled. Well, that was a masterpiece. It’s not for everyone, though. If I hadn’t had practice in wading through a lot of philosophizing - I love to read Thackeray - I might not have made it. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173/54 "2014-08-11T18:51:21Z")
**Lemur866** ’s blog perspective is helpful. I’m about 2/3 in and have formed the impression that Ishmael’s many descriptions and reports serve two functions: To establish verisimilitude (i.e., that this is a factual report), and as a contrast to Ahab’s monomaniacal obsession–Ishmael has wide-ranging conversations, is interested in all aspects of whaling, and has a relationship with the reader, whereas Ahab only wants to kill Moby-Dick. In this regard, it makes sense that Ishmael as a character fades from importance in the story, which increasingly focuses on Ahab’s all-encompassing obsession. In a way, Ahab is already consumed and dead, while Ishmael, who will live to tell the tale, is engaged and alive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-reading-moby-dick-for-the-first-time-ever/694173.md?page=2)