I just finished it. One hell of a read. Difficult at times. But there are passages of such stunning prose that you find yourself re-reading the same page ten times. Took me a month to finish.
i loved reading monologues and reflections by ishmael, i could listen to that guy yap forever. I just wished he had more interactions with people on the ship
One question I can't find the answer to - why is there so much detail and minutiae about whaling. A whole chapter on rope, a chapter on the function of a quarter deck, a chapter on whale bones, a chapter on payroll, and then the encyclopedia of whales. If the book was written today, a lot of that would be edited out. And I get it that books written at the time had vivid description, more so than today's books. But very few would stop the story for entire chapters of description with no characterization or story whatsoever.
Your mind has been rotted by standards of genre fiction where everything exists to drive forward a mediocre plot. Melville prefers to dive deep than flail around the surface like you.
7:15 "Evil personified" the whale ? No it isn't. "That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man ; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me." He says to Pip: "There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady..... and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health." The hunt is to establish man's place in the world. The whale symbolizes God or No-God, fate, nature - the very universe, existence.
@@NatchathiraOviya Fair comment....but I think you are painting it black & white. "That inscrutable thing" represents otherworldliness. The otherworld may be superstition - maybe there is no God or afterlife. If Ahab looks at it rationally, he wouldn't hunt the whale : he knows he has to be mad to do it. Which is why he makes the comment Pip being "too curing" to his malady. If the whale were Evil personified, then even a rational person would want to exterminate it. But the whale isn't evil, that is why Ahab needs his malady - he needs to be mad to see the challenge the whale represents. The challenge is existential : it is about the nature of our existence - alone in the Universe, a product of nature and evolution, or a creation of an indifferent God.
Bro did you watch the video watch again and you will see that he said exactly same thing as you and you are only framing him for saying something he didn't if you factor in context
@@blacksowrdsman8195 I didn't watch the whole video I confess. But I stand by my comment. "That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate". The drama is entirely played out in Ahab's mind. He ascribes malicious intent to the Whale. As Hamlet said, "“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”
This story is fiction not history so how could one make an historically inaccurate version? STOP! Yes it is inspired by some historical events BUT it's still fiction.
