I’m 28 and just discovered this novel. There is something special and sublime about it that sets it’s apart from so many other novels and makes it a masterpiece. .
I initially heard about Moby Dick from the heavy-metal band Mastodon album Leviathan released in 2004. I bought it 18 years ago with hopes to read it, it travelled along with me through life for those 18 years in boxes only to collect dust. I came across it late last year with a thought of I was always going to read this later. when is later? I finished reading this book a couple days ago and I feel like it changed me.
I like that “ It was experimental, much driven by his psyche than it is about the material”. I’m in my later 60’s and really like this book and am inspired by Melville.
I have to admit I heard it via Audible but still WOW..I can't stop thinking about how good it was. The book pulls you in and the characters are still with me now. Fantastic use of language I felt like a greenhorn Whaler experiencing his first voyage! forget metaverse this was better.
"It's a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."
"Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched, But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through. --It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale. --It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements. --It's a blasted heath. --It's a Hyperborean winter scene. --It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathian himself? In fact, the artist's design seemed this; a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads." - Chapter 3 Moby Dick
"Moby Dick" has been a favorite of mine since I first read it age 10. After learning about the real disaster that inspired the book in high school, my fascination and interest in the story intensified. It was very disgraceful that the novel did not get the renowned praise and appreciation literally, emotionally and academically when Melville published it. The text is one of those that stands the test of time and never loses significance or lets the reader go with a sense of comfort. I certainly plan on re-reading the book to experience the adventure again and immerse myself in what I missed as a kid. Also eager to read Philbrick's books especially "In The Heart of the Sea."
“Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless-well, finish the sentence for yourself.” Herman Melville -Letter, 1877
Ahoy! Hast seen the white whale? Hast seen Moby Dick? Thou Hast? Thou Hast actually seen Moby Dick? Then thou must report to Captain Rehab right away - 'cause you be trippin.
One of the things that is just simply wrong is the "Because it is theirs...' line made in reference to landing a whale in port and which apparently automatically becomes the property of the King of England. But this is indeed a wilful corruption and deceit of the facts of the matter. If I may: 'A charter granted to Hilary, Bishop of Chichester in 1148 gave him the right to “any whale found on the land of the church of Chichester, except the tongue, which is the King's.”[3] The English king had asserted the right to the entire whale by 1315 when Edward II reserved “to himself the right of all whales cast by chance upon the shore.” [4] Whales came to be known as “Royal fish”, the disposal of which was an exclusive right of the monarch, or his local representative.[5] Indeed, to this day, the Crown Estate asserts that "theoretically The king can claim ownership" of beached whales and other "Royal fish".' Less of the anti-British prejudice and propaganda if you please!
It’s a literary tool in the book. A strand in Moby Dick is the celebration of democracy. The multiethnic, multiracial crew of the Pequod symbolise the light of the city on a hill that is a young America, a nation built on ideas of freedom and equality of men before god. In contrast to the darkness of the class system and the hereditary rights of kings, in old tired England.
@@HkFinn83 It is a literary tool that is otherwise prejudiced as explained, in detail. That is an unthinking hostility based on a bias, not reality. America was not and is not a shiny city on the hill, it has always been wildly corrupt, and still is. And Ahab is not equal to the crew, he is the absolute ruler of the Pequod, and when Starbuck criticises the mission he is imprisoned! That is not freedom. You see... You can't tell the truth. You think you have to be deceitful - probably because other prominent Americans do so. It is a culture. In England there has been the Common Law since before the Conquest, Parliament and a Commons with the last word on taxation since the first half of the c.14th, a feudal order that was practically nothing more than the lightest of tax regimes - four days work in the year in the early 1200s, and the lord of the manor paid a money tax to the government - that disappeared across the 1300s and 1400s. See my video about the Peasants Revolt of 1381. And further you refer to the darkness of the class system... but what class system? And as for the king of England the president of the USA had and has more power than the KoE in 1700. Since then there has been a robust and vigorous and sovereign Parliament (if not before). Old yes, tired... we are the human race. And the values of England are the values of the modern world which England did so much to establish. America owes much to Magna Carta does it not... that is the foundation of freedom... and everyone is and always has been equal under the law, explicitly including the monarch and all people not matter what. For example a woman took the King of England to court in the early 1200s and won. Ordinary people took abbots, squires, knights and Barons to court in the middle ages and the Tudor period, and won! America like the American dream is full of the free and good people of America but is also a grand exercise in PR, (and casually so against England). England is the reality of the free world. The values of England are the values of the free world: liberty, freedom, democracy and the rule of law, free markets, responsible regulation and manners. Not two wall street crashes, but none, at all. Not failed and wrong headed foreign policy at every turn practically - Iran, Suez etc etc.
I’m 28 and just discovered this novel. There is something special and sublime about it that sets it’s apart from so many other novels and makes it a masterpiece. .
'Heart of the Sea' is an awesome book...
Wonderful, wonderful talk. You are better worth immortality than most of us.
I initially heard about Moby Dick from the heavy-metal band Mastodon album Leviathan released in 2004. I bought it 18 years ago with hopes to read it, it travelled along with me through life for those 18 years in boxes only to collect dust. I came across it late last year with a thought of I was always going to read this later. when is later? I finished reading this book a couple days ago and I feel like it changed me.
That metallic tribute(Sanatarium)part during Megalodon
I like that “ It was experimental, much driven by his psyche than it is about the material”. I’m in my later 60’s and really like this book and am inspired by Melville.
I have to admit I heard it via Audible but still WOW..I can't stop thinking about how good it was. The book pulls you in and the characters are still with me now. Fantastic use of language I felt like a greenhorn Whaler experiencing his first voyage! forget metaverse this was better.
"Who-ee debel you?"... Quite a feedback from the world that takes melvillean courage to not dismiss!
"It's a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."
I love the way he says 'environment' in his Bostonian accent. 'Invinement'
Such an amazing author. I love him!
Love this fellow boomer homage to the Whale!
"Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched, But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through. --It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale. --It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements. --It's a blasted heath. --It's a Hyperborean winter scene. --It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathian himself?
In fact, the artist's design seemed this; a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads." - Chapter 3 Moby Dick
"Moby Dick" has been a favorite of mine since I first read it age 10. After learning about the real disaster that inspired the book in high school, my fascination and interest in the story intensified. It was very disgraceful that the novel did not get the renowned praise and appreciation literally, emotionally and academically when Melville published it. The text is one of those that stands the test of time and never loses significance or lets the reader go with a sense of comfort. I certainly plan on re-reading the book to experience the adventure again and immerse myself in what I missed as a kid. Also eager to read Philbrick's books especially "In The Heart of the Sea."
The Essex!
'A short, ridiculous, and irrational life?' Where is thy equal eye, now? I say, long, profound, and portentous, in the least!
“Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless-well, finish the sentence for yourself.”
Herman Melville -Letter, 1877
Moby Dick: The GOAT of novels. Only surpassed by the King James Bible.
Ahoy! Hast seen the white whale? Hast seen Moby Dick? Thou Hast? Thou Hast actually seen Moby Dick? Then thou must report to Captain Rehab right away - 'cause you be trippin.
One of the things that is just simply wrong is the "Because it is theirs...' line made in reference to landing a whale in port and which apparently automatically becomes the property of the King of England. But this is indeed a wilful corruption and deceit of the facts of the matter. If I may: 'A charter granted to Hilary, Bishop of Chichester in 1148 gave him the right to “any whale found on the land of the church of Chichester, except the tongue, which is the King's.”[3] The English king had asserted the right to the entire whale by 1315 when Edward II reserved “to himself the right of all whales cast by chance upon the shore.” [4] Whales came to be known as “Royal fish”, the disposal of which was an exclusive right of the monarch, or his local representative.[5] Indeed, to this day, the Crown Estate asserts that "theoretically The king can claim ownership" of beached whales and other "Royal fish".' Less of the anti-British prejudice and propaganda if you please!
It’s a literary tool in the book. A strand in Moby Dick is the celebration of democracy. The multiethnic, multiracial crew of the Pequod symbolise the light of the city on a hill that is a young America, a nation built on ideas of freedom and equality of men before god. In contrast to the darkness of the class system and the hereditary rights of kings, in old tired England.
@@HkFinn83 It is a literary tool that is otherwise prejudiced as explained, in detail. That is an unthinking hostility based on a bias, not reality. America was not and is not a shiny city on the hill, it has always been wildly corrupt, and still is. And Ahab is not equal to the crew, he is the absolute ruler of the Pequod, and when Starbuck criticises the mission he is imprisoned! That is not freedom. You see... You can't tell the truth. You think you have to be deceitful - probably because other prominent Americans do so. It is a culture.
In England there has been the Common Law since before the Conquest, Parliament and a Commons with the last word on taxation since the first half of the c.14th, a feudal order that was practically nothing more than the lightest of tax regimes - four days work in the year in the early 1200s, and the lord of the manor paid a money tax to the government - that disappeared across the 1300s and 1400s. See my video about the Peasants Revolt of 1381. And further you refer to the darkness of the class system... but what class system? And as for the king of England the president of the USA had and has more power than the KoE in 1700. Since then there has been a robust and vigorous and sovereign Parliament (if not before). Old yes, tired... we are the human race. And the values of England are the values of the modern world which England did so much to establish. America owes much to Magna Carta does it not... that is the foundation of freedom... and everyone is and always has been equal under the law, explicitly including the monarch and all people not matter what. For example a woman took the King of England to court in the early 1200s and won. Ordinary people took abbots, squires, knights and Barons to court in the middle ages and the Tudor period, and won! America like the American dream is full of the free and good people of America but is also a grand exercise in PR, (and casually so against England). England is the reality of the free world. The values of England are the values of the free world: liberty, freedom, democracy and the rule of law, free markets, responsible regulation and manners. Not two wall street crashes, but none, at all. Not failed and wrong headed foreign policy at every turn practically - Iran, Suez etc etc.
🐋
He’s just vacuous talkative. Get to the point yo! 🧐🤨