Moby-Dick (Norton Critical Editions)

I have so many thoughts. One is that Moby Dick is an amazing work of literary fiction. It's also an amazing nonfiction book detailing nearly everything that was known at the time about sperm whales. I'm not sure it was a great idea to make these two amazing books into one. It certainly seems to throw a lot of people off- including me. This was my third attempt at reading Moby Dick and my first successful one. My first attempt was in high school, which I guess technically shouldn't count. It's probably useful to have some real grief or heartbreak in your life to understand some of the best sentences.

Another issue is that the foreshadowing is so out of control. Okay, I get it! This is a terrible idea!

The last three chapters pack an action-adventure punch and I was mystified by how Melville made the scenes come to life. There was a very cinematic feeling throughout.

Chapters 83, 93, and 110 were my favorite. They're so good that I don't need to justify 5 stars any further than those three chapters, but I'll add that my Kindle tells me I made 392 highlights.

Such a good book. Melville's character development is fantastic, and while the story itself was likely partly inspired by Homer's Odyssey, it in turn laid the groundwork for such obvious modern stories as Jaws. Blah blah blah. I know...It's been said before, but you need to read the book to truly appreciate it. The message about how even the smartest amongst us can fall prey to arrogant, obsessive thinking was well delivered. As it was with Benchley's Quint... It took some rumination after reading the book to connect the dots on "Mankind is smart, but no match for Mother Nature / God". Despite the long narratives on all that was known about the technical aspects of whaling, it didn't matter in the end.