# Should I read Herman Melville? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763 "2005-11-26T02:32:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/21 "2005-11-26T21:31:42Z")
You should absolutely read Melville. He’s one of the brightest lights of American literature, and was decades ahead of his time as a writer: a lot of his stuff has a very strong post-modern bent to it, which is pretty impressive for someone writing in the 19th century. _The Confidence Man_ feels like it could have been written by John Barth, almost. For all that it gets tagged as inscrutable or hard to read, I found _Moby Dick_ to be wonderfully accessible. The chapters on the biology of whaling drag a bit, but the nice thing about them is that their entirely discreet chapters: you can skip them entirely without losing any part of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/22 "2005-11-26T22:08:52Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Should I read Herman Melville? No, but you _really should_ **write** him, as he loves to get mail, and you never even send him a postcard. And you _know_ he _always_ sends you a Xmas card. ---
**Author:** ![Hedda\_Rosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hedda_rosa/32/1204_2.png) [@Hedda\_Rosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hedda_Rosa)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/23 "2005-11-26T22:26:05Z")
I read _Moby Dick_ because I kinda thought I should, and surprised myself by really enjoying it. I even found some few parts laugh-out-loud funny. It is kind of like \*Les Miserables \* someone once told me. Just as its perfectly ok to skip the boring war in the middle of that book, it is fine to skip the yawners about whales and whaling in _Moby Dick_. I took that advice for both books as I read them. Twiddle ---
**Author:** ![Glassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Glassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glassy)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/24 "2005-11-26T22:40:18Z")
I liked it. It’s not my favoritest book of all time, but it was interesting and, IMO, worth the time and effort. I liked it ten times better than \*Tess of the D’Urbervilles \* by Thomas Hardy, I must say. That book would have been nothing but improved by a few characters getting eaten by vengeful whales. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/25 "2005-11-26T23:07:22Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The essays are mostly nonfiction descriptions of the process of whaling, written by someone who worked on a whaler (and who was a good writer). If you were researching any book about whaling, **Moby Dick** is the best original source out there. Nuh uh. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/26 "2005-11-26T23:50:09Z")
I read Moby Dick as a 12 yo. I was big into things nautical. I read both an adaptation, and the unabridged monstrosity. I’m glad I did read it. And like others say, I found the bits about whaling to be very well told. And the bits about whale biology were interesting, too, even when I knew they were wrong. The book leaves one with a number of images that just stick, even 25 years after I first read them. But, Sweet Og preserve us… the florid language was hard for me as a 12 yo. And when I had to read it again for High School English it hadn’t gotten any better. What got me, in particular, was: the scene when the reader, and Ishmael, first realize just how far Ahab has gone around the bend: When he dashes the sextant to the deck, destroying it. Now, I know it was a terrifically dramatic and important action. But did it need three pages of florid description to emphasize how artistic the action was, before getting to the reactions of the crew? Having said that, I like Moby Dick much better than I ever did Billy Budd. Of course, part of the problem I may have had with Billy budd was that it was taught by my pervert English teacher. (This is the one who spent three weeks discussing Hamlet: Two weeks and two days on the various incestuous relationships in the play. Three days on the rest of it.) So you can imagine what the focus of the discussion had been. I might have a different view of Billy Budd, now, but I’m not about to find out. In short - you may find either one a rewarding read. I don’t think of either as an easy read. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/27 "2005-11-27T00:24:32Z")
A guy I worked with read _Moby Dick_ and it took him weeks. Every day he would arrive at work with it, his bookmark a little deeper into the pages of the beast. One day I hoisted the volume before my eyes to see what he had been reading. It was a sentence about **white** , a long, long, long sentence, rather longer than you would get for some petty crimes I imagine. It became a page and then another sentence and before you knew it a whole bloody chapter about **white**. Horrified I returned the book to it’s place and then the epiphany struck me. Why do books like _Moby Dick_ remain timeless classics? Because no bastard reads the bloody things. Ask anyone for a quote and they give you the last bit they read before closing the book - “Call me Ishmael”. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/28 "2005-11-27T00:31:45Z")
> [@ZebraShaSha](#): > > Even if you do not read Bartleby, there is a recent film that is fairly faithful to the short story. I’d recomend both, but would go for the film since it features a theremin score. Ya mean [Bartleby?](http://www.bartlebythemovie.com/) I could link to the IMDB, but, I would prefer not to. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/29 "2005-11-27T00:41:27Z")
I read _Moby Dick_. I liked it. I notice most of the people condemning it seem to be saying largely the same things … too long, too florid, too discursive … Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for such things than those people. I really _enjoyed_ the digressions, the philosophical musings, the long screeds about whale biology … YMMV. Some people’s M definitely does V. I suspect _Moby Dick_ and _The Catcher in the Rye_ may be tied for “most vociferously criticized literary classic ever fought over on the SDMB”. Personally, I am pro-_Moby Dick_ and don’t care who knows it. My advice: read it, and decide for yourself which side you’re on. You may thank me, or you may curse my name forever … ---
**Author:** ![The\_Punkyova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@The\_Punkyova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Punkyova)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/30 "2005-11-27T05:13:26Z")
I have a friend who has a theory about 19th century literature. Readers then read differently than we do now, specifically, they read more slowly. He says that moderns are used to doing everything as quickly as possible. He recommends reading anything written before about 1950 as slowly as possible. Read a few pages a day, at the most a chapter a week. Read it out loud, if you like. He swears that doing it this way makes a huge difference: Dickens is hysterically funny. (I’ve never had time to test his theory, myself. I present it here for what it’s worth.) Also, **lissener** , let me know what you think of Kristen Lavransdottir. I know three other people who’ve read that particular book. One thinks it is a truly fantastic masterpiece. Two think it should be against the Geneva conventions. I’m torn. I think Kristen was an idiot, and I wanted to slap her repeatedly. But the intensity of my reaction I think says something about the quality of the book. I won’t read it again, I don’t think. In any case, you’ll be among a small group in the English-reading world when you finish it. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/31 "2005-11-27T05:18:20Z")
> [@The Punkyova](#): > > Also, **lissener** , let me know what you think of Kristen Lavransdottir. I know three other people who’ve read that particular book. One thinks it is a truly fantastic masterpiece. Two think it should be against the Geneva conventions. I’m torn. I think Kristen was an idiot, and I wanted to slap her repeatedly. But the intensity of my reaction I think says something about the quality of the book. I won’t read it again, I don’t think. In any case, you’ll be among a small group in the English-reading world when you finish it. I’ve read it twice; I’m the one who nominated it for the group to read. Kristin is slappable, at times. THat’s what makes this book such a masterpiece: it’s one of the most complete, compelling portrayals of a human being’s life every accomplished by any artist in any medium. Kristin is just as fully human as you and me. And god knows I need slapping sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Punkyova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@The\_Punkyova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Punkyova)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/32 "2005-11-27T21:20:57Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I’ve read it twice; I’m the one who nominated it for the group to read. > > Kristin is slappable, at times. THat’s what makes this book such a masterpiece: it’s one of the most complete, compelling portrayals of a human being’s life every accomplished by any artist in any medium. Kristin is just as fully human as you and me. And god knows I need slapping sometimes. Well, you know what you’re in for. I wonder what the rest of your group will think. Everything you say is true, but it isn’t easy to read. I quit part way through another of her books. I wish she had chosen to write about someone happy. ---
**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:** [November 28, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763/33 "2005-11-28T19:38:14Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Ya mean [Bartleby?](http://www.bartlebythemovie.com/) I could link to the IMDB, but, I would prefer not to. LOL! Here’s the screenplay for MY version of _Bartleby_: Boss (putting a stack of papers on Bartleby’s desk): Bartleby, be a dear and copy all this stuff, would you, please? Bartleby (diffidently): I would prefer not to. Boss: Whatever. Clear out your desk. You’re fired. THE END. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-read-herman-melville/332763.md?page=1)