Herman Melville - Moby-Dick

"As long as this is truly NOT about whales, I think I'll be ok."

TROUBLE BREWING


"BOOOOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNGGG! Yeah! It was boring! I said it! And I was reading this motherfucker in jail!"


"I bought this book for a friend in jail. Alas, he was unable to read it because the font was too small."


"The problem is, though, that if Herman Melville were to submit his book to any modern-day editor, I’m sure it would be rejected for publication ... The narrative finally meandered to the bit about Captain Ahab and his failed whale hunt at Chapter 133. That’s right – we have 132 chapters of exposition. Tedious, tedious exposition, long on minute details and Weird Portents (a la Shakespeare). In fact, Melville seems to have forgotten sometimes that he was writing a novel, because he writes some of his chapters with stage directions, just like Shakespeare"


"Call me Ishmale.

Yeah, that's all I got out of it."


"Another great book of words and sentences. This one delves into great detail of the daily life, sights, sounds, smells, reactions and tenses of the period. But on the whole, the book itself, while each paragraph is a great read, has so MUCH description the story is lost."


"This book has outlived its usefulness."


"I consider this to be one of the worst novels ever written. It is over rated. I have started it four or five times and never finished it."


"I really and truly dislike this book. Personal reasons."

DID HERMAN MELVILLE EAT YOUR LEG


"I can't read old english."


"I can has editor?"


"Sometimes a classic is just an old book that was popular."


"What can you say about a college-course-required read? The only reason it is still on my self is because it is a classic...and I am a bibliophile."


"I can see how this would have been great before the times of radio and tv"


"I have to say, as time goes on and literature becomes easier and easier to get out into the world, and technology is such that we can get books in just about any form, we are inundated with new works all the time. Having said that, I think this is one of those books that because of when it was written, is a classic, but very limited in depth. I had to read this book in high school and it was picked apart by my English teacher from why Ahab was hunting the whale to the motion of his hand beckoning his crew to continue his quest. (If you read this, you should know what I mean). Unfortunately, like many "great" authors such as Shakespeare, Stephen Crane, Hemmingway and in some ways Poe, I think they were greats for their time, but lack luster in today's literary pool. If these were all there were to read, then beggers can't be choosers, but that is no longer the case. Regardless, this is not one I would have picked up to read had I been given the choice. It was boring, uneventful, and it is too difficult to compare with modern stories that are so full of symbolism and have much more exictement in them. I can appreciate the classical historical value of the stories for their time, but don't find them interesting works themselves. I would simply not waste my time on this one had I had a choice."


"the only exception in having something interesting to say before WWII seems to be the germans (e.g. hesse, mann. Not kafka)."


"While I recognize that this book has some vaulable things in it that I could appreciate, this book was very difficult for me to read. This is a man's book and I am a woman."


"The ending is exciting, though rather depressing, because the only survivor was the thinnest person in the book."


"Seriously, were editors not invented yet?"


"Homeboy, Melville, could have benefited from a good editor."