Another Moby Dick Post
By novelRose
So I just finished Moby-Dick today. Honestly, I wasn’t really all that interested in reading it until I kept seeing people talk about it in comments/posts last year. It took me around a month and a half, and there were a couple stretches where I didn’t pick it up for a week or two. I started to lose steam somewhere around chapter 80, but I didn’t want to stop completely, so I had to kind of drag myself back into it. I’ve got mixed feelings right now, because I’m still thinking it all over. Like… is Ishmael a trustworthy narrator? He’ll tell you stuff from conversations he wasn’t even there for, and then he’s also the one survivor of the Pequod. And when he recounts the story to the Spaniards, they’re just locked in like it’s the most intense thing ever—so is he just really good at suspense, or is he exaggerating? Also I got the sense that early on he didn’t really know much about whaling at all and then suddenly he’s acting like a total expert. That said, it was entertaining enough. I actually liked all the details about the ship and the whale parts and how whale hunting works. It helped make the last few chapters (which are super action-heavy) easier to picture. I also loved the early chapters with him at the inn with Queequeg. And the ending—when that Parsee is hauled up dead and just stares at Ahab—ugh. I actually gasped out loud and got chills. I could really feel how terrifying it would be. I spent a lot of time looking up definitions and even had to look up some of the paintings he mentions so I’d get what was going on. Some of the language definitely lost me in a not-fun way. I had to force myself through a bunch of it, but I’m not ruling out rereading it sometime later.