Old Books, New Readers discussion

Hi, everyone!

This week's reading is about: Chapters 31 - 45

Feel free to post your thoughts! :)

I'm still trying to start it...

I don't know if it matters to anyone else, but I was very curious about Chapter 32, Cetology. I found a Wikipedia page that contains information on the whales Melville was talking about - here. For me, I studied whales and dolphins for my Master's degree, so was extremely curious. ;) :) I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I found it interesting. It was a time when very little was known about whales and dolphins. So, Melville's supposed classification contained a lot fewer species (there are currently 89 species) and, in fact, had the same species listed multiple times (like the Killer whale). Not sure anyone else cares, but it's hard to leave old habits. ;) :)

In this section we learned more about Captain Ahab. I found Chapter 41 interesting. It started off talking specifically about Moby Dick, then changed to talking about Ahab's madness and hatred of Moby Dick. I'm thinking Ahab should never have been allowed to head this trip... He should have remained at home with his bride and found something else to do with himself... But, then, we would never have this book. ;)

Melville likes to change up his writing in this section, too. Several chapters are written more like a play then a book. And, he still goes into a lot of extraneous detail, like when he talks about the charting of whale sightings. :) He must want to educate his reader on everything he learned about whaling... :)

I think I'm going to have to get In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and read it. :) Or, maybe see the recent movie... Although, typically, the book is better than the movie. :)

Kimberly, I'm glad that Melville's whale classification was missing quite a few species because if not, chapter 32 would have been much longer. I'm not reading this book to learn more about whales, so unlike you, I wasn't fascinated by this chapter. I'm glad that's over with now and I hope he'll get back to the storyline.

Kimberly wrote: "I don't know if it matters to anyone else, but I was very curious about Chapter 32, Cetology. I found a Wikipedia page that contains information on the whales Melville was talking about - here. For..."

I read "In The Heart Of The Sea" and really like it. the movie reviews were poor, so I skipped the movie. they changed the story quite a lot. For me a bad movie is not worth the time when I loved the book. I hate being disappointed.

Finally got done with this section it was a chore. I happened to be in MA this weekend (which is why I haven't been to active) so I got to go to Nantucket and see the Heart of the Sea exhibit plus a 1st edition US copy of Moby Dick

I agree the extra chapters were extra hard to get to and somewhat relevant. I'm glad I'm reading this with you guys or I'm not sure I'd be able to continue. I sort of just want to hear more about Queequeg and the voyage. Lol.