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We made it! The read-a-long is over!
Congrats C.J.! Your shirt is on its way.
Before I get to the exciting finish of the book, I have an even more exciting annoucement. The winner of the Moby Dick Read-A-Long Grand Prize, a Moby Dick t-shirt from Out of Print Clothing, is C.J. of ebookclassics! C.J. is a Canadian book blogger who is working her way through 100 free ebooks that came with her ereader. She’s a champion readalonger, and is now reading along to The Odyssey AND will be taking on Tristan and Iseult for the Classics Retold event. C.J. always had the best and most obscure Moby-Dick references from around the web. My favourites were the X-Files clips.
So: the book. This section captivated me. I ended up finishing way ahead of schedule because I just couldn’t stop. The last three chapters were thrilling. Everyone who says classics are boring and don’t have enough plot development? Um… you’re sort of right, but if you can get through the first 120 chapters I PROMISE it’s worth it. Continue reading →
Lost at sea? For all the details on this read-a-long, including schedule and sign up, click here. Then, share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post. Oh, and the last post is next week, which means I’ll announce the winner of the draw next week. If you haven’t posted or commented yet, you might want to get on that! Continue reading →
A Reading Soundtrack was one of my favourite posts to write ever, and I got some good feedback from my readers. I even introduced an American reader to a relatively obscure Canadian band, Wake Owl. I feel like the CRTC owes me some money for pushing the CanCon!
The Book: The Paradise Engine by Rebecca Campbell (my review)
Lost at sea? For all the details on this read-a-long, including schedule and sign up, click here. Then, share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
Things get heavy in this section. We’re nearing the home stretch, and you kind of get the sense it’s not going to be a happy ending. I feel the weight of allusions and imagery and stuff I probably don’t fully “get” in this section, but I loved it. I can’t pick out a particular quote, but I felt like we’re decending into hell.
There are some lighter moments in this section too, particularly, when Ahab finds a BFF who lost an arm, but I’m focusing on the dark stuff – as usual! Continue reading →
50 Shades and 1001 Books rubbing shoulders. Scandalous!
The Moby Dick Read-a-Long continues through July, but so far? So fun. We’ve got a small group, but I love having the weekly writing prompt, and I’ve had discussions both illuminating and hilarious with my readalongers. I’m not used to having to talk about a book before I’m finished, so it’s taking me out of my comfort zone. That’s a good thing, I believe.
I’ve actually finished Moby-Dick, way ahead of schedule, and I’m not sure how I’m going to sum it up. It’s one of those classics that’s so widely regarded that it seems presumptuous to even give it a rating. Who am I to give it four stars? Continue reading →
I finished Moby-Dick way ahead of schedule. I’m still writing weekly posts for the next little while, but in the meantime, I need something to read. So, what does one read after a long, difficult, literary classic? Here is what happens when a book snob looks for a “fun” read.
Lost at sea? For all the details on this read-a-long, including schedule and sign up, click here. Then, share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
So while reviewing this section I keep thinking about the song “Doll Parts” by Hole. There is actually some logic to this, I’m not just stuck in the 90s. I mean, *am* stuck in the 90s, but there’s more to it than that.
Whale Parts: Taking the title literally, this section is largely about whale parts; breaking this massive thing down into smaller and smaller parts until you’re left with an empty shell, which is kind of the vibe I get from Doll Parts. I also interpreted Doll Parts as a revenge fantasy (“one day you will ache like I ache”) which fits in with Ahab’s quest. So that’s where I started, but then I started to think about it more…
Wait, that lyric is “dog beg?” The hell?: Information access, storage, and sharing all sound like modern concepts but they’re pretty well covered in Moby Dick. Ishmael is constantly giving us interesting tidbits about whaling, or going on tangents about, say, a whale’s skull. He likes to come up with ways to sort and categorize information and seems to delight in instructing the masses. Melville’s audience in the 1850s would have had to decide for themselves whether to trust him or not, and whether the information was presented as fact or as entertainment. Today, not only can I have Sparknotes open in another tab as I write up my thoughts (…not that I do that,) but I can check the definition or words on my Kobo and Google just about anything Ishmael states to see if it’s true.
I was reminded of this when I sort of idly Googled “Doll Parts” and found out some of the lyrics I thought I knew were wrong, AND the meaning I gave the song wasn’t what Courtney Love intended. It’s actually about the beginning of a relationship and feeling rejected because he seemed interested in someone else. Whoa. This is a song I listened to hundreds of times as a teenager, so it’s odd to have all this “corrected” years later. It made me think about the hours upon hours I spent listening to songs and trying to write down their lyrics – you know, the ones where the lyrics weren’t in the liner notes – and how today, we can look up lyrics AND in-depth analysis of the songs meanings. I distinctly remember hitting play – rewind – play over and over again trying to hear the lyrics to Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. Yup, on cassette!
Anyway, I don’t have a clever way to sum this up, but having my beliefs about a song from the 90s exploded did make me think about how people in the 1850s would have received all this information Melville is laying down.
Feminism: Hole wasn’t exactly a feminist band, but they were the first female-fronted band I got into that wasn’t, like, Ace of Base, so I associate them with my own awakening as a feminist. Women can be loud and messy and crazy and it’s okay? Who knew? This section of Moby Dick triggered a bit of righteous feminist anger. In case it wasn’t obvious due to the fact that there are zero female characters (Bechdel Test fail,) Melville didn’t write this book for women. OF COURSE I can’t find the link now, but I swear I saw a quote to the effect that he didn’t even think women should read Moby Dick. Ugh.
What set me off in this section was Melville’s celebration of male archetypes. We’ve got the the pack of young lads, having fun and causing trouble:
Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness…
the player with his “harem” of females;
In truth, this gentleman is an luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of his harem.
and my favourite, the lone wolf, who’s outgrown these simple pleasures and is now, like, the most interesting whale in the world, I guess? And gee, even Mother Nature herself is moody! Women!
Like a venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives is she, though she keeps so many moody secrets.
Meanwhile, female whales are – duh- having and caring for babies. Now, perhaps that’s they way whales roll, but Melville is obviously making a comment on humans here, and maybe I’m missing the satire (probably) but I was just kind of rolling my eyes through all this.
I’ve got a whole other blog post brewing in my head about the exclusion of women from great works of literature (see Jest, Infinite) but for the time being, I wish I could find my old Riot Grrrl t-shirt and wear it while I finish Moby Dick because these female whales need to start a revolution, stat.
Tune in Next Week: My favourite chapter so far, The Try-Works. Also, more fun with sperm!
I love this month’s question:What is your favourite opening sentence from a classic novel (and why)?
I could have looked through all my books, but I’m going with my gut:
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
That’s the book in one line. Love, bitterness, regret, memory, fate; it’s all there. *swoon*
For even more first line fun, try this first lines quiz over at CBC Books. I only got one right, so you can probably do better than me… IF you know your CanLit.
This section made me uneasy. It was disjointed. They finally kill a whale, but it’s over so quickly… for a narrator that spends pages upon pages talking about the minutia of whale anatomy, it’s very brief. There’s a lot of disorder and upsetting of the natural state of things. Stubbs eats (part of) a whale, which is unusual. The Pequod meets a ship that is in the thrall of a prophet and on the verge of mutiny.
Having read ahead a bit, I now see these chapters as a turning point. Things get real dark after this. I’m reaching a bit of a turning point too, in that I just want to read, read, read and not stop to think or write. But I must, read-a-longers!
Share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, link to your own post.
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Chapters 61-75
I walk The Line: The first chapter of this section is The Line. Like most of the titles, it is very literal. This chapter is about the line that connects the harpoons to the boat. But somehow, while being so literal and documentary-like, Melville brings some heavy symbolism. The line imagery reminded me of the string that connects all the houses and shops in Trachimbrod in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and I’m sure both Foer and Melville were giving a shout out to The Fates of Greek mythology who spin, weave, and cut the threads of life (I totally just had a Grade 12 IB English flashback.)
All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.
Fellow Critters: In a chapter that (I think) is supposed to serve as comic relief, I was cringing at the overt racism and cruelty Stubbs shows in his treatment of Fleece, an elderly, arthritic, black cook. Fleece’s sermon to the sharks, his “fellow critters,” is funny, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to be laughing at him, not with him.
The Jeroboam: I liked the meeting with The Jeroboam and its crazy (?) prophet Gabriel who warns Ahab about The White Whale, but I’m not sure what we’re supposed to take away from it. To me, Ahab and Gabriel are both nuts.
Blubber: The detailed description of cutting away the blubber didn’t bother me. I was prepared to be grossed out, but it didn’t do much for me at all. Next!
Tune in Next Week: Feminism for whales.
Moby Dick is mentioned in this article about the hot new trend in literature: the read-aloud.
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. I am aware that it’s Wednesday. Also, the likelihood that I will read 10 books over the summer is zero, so I am breaking my top ten into top five summer TBR and top 5 summer reads… that I’ve already read. Okay? I’m doing my own thing. Damn the man.
Top Five Books at the Top of my Summer TBR:
1. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen because I am joining #AusteninAugust hosted by the wonderful Room Beam Reader!
2. Bumped by Megan McCafferty because I haven’t read any YA since TFioS and because it’s about teen pregnancy but doesn’t sound horrible like Teen Mom etc.
3. Dance, Gladys, Dance by Cassie Stocks because she’s local, she’s a Leacock medal winner, and I have a signed copy just waiting for me.
4. Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro because it’s Alice Munro.
5. Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant because great historical fiction is so escapist.
Top Five Books I’ve Read on a Beach, Real or Metaphorical
1. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. Read on my honeymoon in Mexico. I was picturing Johnny Depp even though I read this before the movie came out. Read it on the beach, or at least have a mojito going.
2. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Read in Radium, BC, during one of my first vacations with my husband (then boyfriend.) I was definitely in the mood for romance!
3. Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews. Read on New River Beach, Saint John. Bless my parents for letting me read this as a preteen.
4. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Read while laying on the grass in my ex-boyfriend’s front yard in Beaumont, AB. Okay, clearly not the beach, but this was in the year 2000 (/creepy Conan voice) and I still remember how beautiful it was outside, maybe because it was such a stark contrast to dirty, cold, damp Limerick.
5. Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes. Read on a plane. Marian Keyes is lumped into the same category as Sophie Kinsella (psst – go enter this giveaway if you’re a Kinsella fan!) et al, but I find Keyes much grittier and much more adept at tackling issues like abuse and addiction. Rachel’s Holiday was surprising and dark and fun.
