..MOBY DICK! The giant white sperm whale with a taste for human flesh!
Here's some stuff that's been said about M.Dizzle:
And here's my fave.
It starts out:
"ALL THAT MOST MADDENS AND TORMENTS; ALL THAT STIRS UP THE LEES OF THINGS; ALL WITH MALICE IN IT; ALL THAT CRACKS THE SINEWS AND CAKES THE BRAIN; ALL THE SUBTLE DEMONISMS OF LIFE AND THOUGHT --
[continues in Post-it]
I love that. Most of all I love the phrase "ALL THAT CRACKS THE SINEWS AND CAKES THE BRAIN." How great is that? Morbid, yes, but so vivid without getting all metaphorical or thematic (for once in the entire novel). It is a long, long book with many pages and countless words, but those eight words, in that order, are by far my favorite. Way better than "Call me Ishmael."
(I told you know one reads this book -- the only thing anyone remembers from it is the first line!! If they'd read farther or thought harder, people would be saying "CAKES THE BRAIN!" instead. You heard it hear first, since I'm the first person to finish the dang thing since Melville wrote it).
BACK TO THE BOOK. So it's long (have I mentioned it's long?) but extremely well written. All bajillion pages are packed with exactly the kind of stuff we English majors love ("CAKES THE BRAIN!").
But nothing really interesting happens - aside from Queequeg, in a fit of morbidity and possibly swine flu, carving all his tattoos into a coffin pre-made for him -- UNTIL THE LAST THREE CHAPTERS!!
So after you've waded through 129 chapters of Ahab's insanity, you get to this:
THE EPIC FIGHT SCENE, BABY!! IT'S (FINALLY) HERE!!!
In it, Moby Dick goes all Sissy-Spacek-in-CARRIE (just without the pigs blood. Or the suicide. But still. This probably WAS Melville's delusional dream) and kills several boatloads of people.
Ironically, Moby (CARRIE!) Dick doesn't kill Ahab. He's accidentally harpooned by his own boat. (He's there on the left - HARPOONED!!).
Ishmael floats away on Queequeg's coffin (Q's not in it, his body is at sea) and is later rescued.
Moby Dick swims away in victory.
As for the Pequod's crew, and all those other boats that came after Moby Dick...
...EVERYONE DIES.
And I am not even kidding. Even Queequeg dies, which really bummed me out.
Cant believe you finished the thing...I know I could not hang in there. It will be interesting to hear about the class discussion.
ReplyDeleteHey, I found your blog through MckMama's community! I'm an English major too!
ReplyDeleteno way!! great to hear from someone our age -- I feel like most women bloggers out there are all moms, which is great (obviously, I enjoy several of them) but I'm glad to see OUR generation get in on it!! It's actually my first semester as an English major (last year I was in accounting -- ewww) so the novelty (HA!! cheesy accidental pun!) of being able to read literature for hw instead of textbooks still hasn't worn off yet, as you can see! What did you think of Moby Dick?
ReplyDeletei am very proud of you finishing the book. also will love to hear about the discussion.
ReplyDeletelove you Nana
i forgot to tell you how much I also enjoyed the doodling, I am using one of your bookmarkers with the book I am now reading.
ReplyDeleteThe dog with the book about training people.
Love nana
haha that was from 4th grade!!! I remember that one!! Well, I've never been particularly TALENTED in that department, but when the mood strikes me I've been known to play around with it! I use post-it doodles like that to help me remember key characters/events/quotes in all literature, and I thought I'd incorporate Moby Dick's into the post. I'm glad you liked it.
ReplyDelete