tkral15’s Blog

At last the end of the book…

Well i’ll have to say the ending was pretty good. Almost worth the 120ish other chapters. It was nice to see all of the predictions coming true at the end of the book to Captain Ahab. I believe he deserves every thing he got. I mean there were just so many different prophecies from numerous people predicting deaths and negative things. 

So, i am happy that i can say i’ve read Moby Dick. It is such a well known classic that it in a way feels good to know that i’ve chewed on this thing for the past two months. i’m happy its finnally done though. I feel like it could have been a much better book if 120 chapters were subtracted..but then that wouldn’t make it moby dick. Moby dick is about the long torturous adventure. Through the struggles, rejoices, good times and bad times, that is how the story went, and that is how the story is read.

If it was any different people would think completely different of it. People wouldn’t be able to complain…like an old quote, you have to have the negatives to know what a positive is…

so in conclusion..moby dick wasnt that bad but it was definitely not my favorite. I probably won’t willingly read it ever again, but i feel i’ve accomplished something-though i’m not quite sure exactly what it is.

Today in class after listening to the news thing i was really thinking about how they mentioned moby dick and jaws. duh- jaws was based completely off moby dick. this crazy man wanted to go after the huge mean killer shark and would really do anything to get to it, including deaths and pain and lost profit. I think that it is interesting how so many things today make simple references like moby dick. Like the progressive insurance commercial, xxx the movie, jaws, even the war being compared to moby dick is really neat.

Also going back to what we discussed in class today…Seriously when (and if) Ahab and the crew do catch moby dick really what is ahab going to get out of it? Will Ahab ever be satisfied. He can never get his leg back from the whale ever. So, why is he going out on such a risky trip. Why is he so crazy that after hes stopped and talked to other ships and seen what Moby has done to him he is continuing his voyage. Seriously this man is nuts! I am curious as to why other members of the boat are not sticking up for themselves…for their life. Easily i think that the Pequod group members could overpower the captain so why not do it? Are they scared? Maybe this man is not even mentally insane and they’re afraid of him..I would be!

Over the break I had plenty of time to see my family and hang out with friends. My parents actually had to go away for the weekend so i have stuck home with my grandmother…There are only so many things one can talk to with their grandmother. Recent news, my parents, the usual…but unfourtuantly I ran out of subjects. So, why not bring up Moby Dick?

My grandmothers opinion?- She basically stated that you hear people talking about Moby Dick and its greatness. How it was supposed to be some philosophical book that after reading it, it made you a better person. She said that it was a book that within it there were so many hidden messages that every time you would read it, you could get something different out of it. I put in my opinion saying how i wasn’t really too thrilled with the book. I liked the exciting parts, but the tangents that Melville goes off on sometimes annoy me. With a small nod she agreed with me, and also mentioned how she just felt like that was the way people would write back then. She though that really that was just how Melville was as an author.

So, i just think that it is interesting how Moby Dick is viewed through other people too. I am able to see the opions of my classmates, but to hear a view from an older person is interesting too.

I have really come to a conclusion that Melville really wanted to fill up a certain amount of pages and then decide he was done. In this case 470 pages was his quota. I feel like Melville would write about anything that came to mind just to fill up the pages. I mean the tantrums he goes off on sometimes are just so abstract i don’t know how he even got to them or how to understand them.

Also, something that i found interesting… I think it is really neat, (and i planned to write about this last night) how the titles of the chapters can end up being so misleading…such as The Town Ho’s Story, The Crotch, The Blanket, The Pequod meet the Virgin… Looking ahead it makes me wonder what some other chapters will be about…Queequeg’s in his Coffin, Heads or Tails–> are we talking about a coin here of an actual whale body parts? Also just by looking ahead there are a couple chapters that do spark an interest upon me…but could these be misleading and end up boring me? We’ll see…

I really think that it is interesting how Moby-Dick and the presidency/ war on terrorism can be linked together so well. It is also pretty neat how certain positions such as Moby-dick can be compared to the same thing. Like moby dick could be the U.S. trying to end terrorism, or Moby-Dick can be the terrorism that we are trying to catch. I really liked the analgies that were made in the article we read with the sub. Even if i dont one hundred percent agree with the views of the article, i think that the way the person backed up their ideas made them seem like the right views the believe.

After reading these two sections i did get a little bored and annoyed. The few things i did enjoy were the Monkey Rope Chapter. I just thought it was really neat to see how much the shipmates depended on each other. If Queequeg went down, Ishmael was going with him. I also liked the conversation between Stubb and Flask when they caught the whale. They were just bashing on the Fadhella. They things they said about how he was secretly the devil and had a long tail that he kept tucked in his pants i though were amusing.

However, the numerous chapters about the sperm and right whale heads and the differences i hated. I thought they were tedious and borning. Basically they were Melville being “melvilly” which on ocasically is okay and bearable, but not for chapter after chapter.

There were also some pretty detailed chapters about how to cook whale, and how to extract the oils from their heads and how to dismantle its head, and remove its blubber. The images about the blubber being like a rine of an orange will probably stick with me for a while, and i probably won’t be able to eat an orange for a while.