Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Herman Melville - Moby-Dick II

"tHIS BOOK IS BORING. iT TAKES A LONG TIME BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS......"


"It seemed a little obvious, but that's maybe because I am an adult"


"I am quite the fan of stories which involve man eating sea creatures, such as Jaws. Moby Dick is nothing compared to such classics, I fear.

In fact, it is boring with a capital B. What is the whales motivation? You dont know. There is no suspense, and I find the idea of people hunting whales offensive. Offensive with a capital O. Whales are lovely, peaceful creatures and that is why their slaughter has been outlawed. This book makes whales seem like demonic, murderous creatures of doom. Such a thing should not be read to a child, for it preaches that animal cruelty is ok."


"I just thought it was not a good novel. I understand it was essentially the earliest form of the novel, but it was soooo long, and with so many tangents that I had to actually labor to get through it."


"This is a book about whaling. Seriously. About whaling."


"I considered this a cruel story because of the unfair treatment of whales. Ahab's obsession is horrible. There were so many characters, it was hard to keep up with who they were in the story. The only reason I kept reading the book was to see if Moby Dick came out alive. It was understandable that he was forced to be mean to those who chased him relentlessly."


"I do believe I have now qualified for a degree in 'whales' or as Melville says, leviathons."


"OK, so you know a book is too tedious when there's a 17-page chapter about the 'whiteness of the whale.'"


"This has to be one of the most
BORING books I've ever attempted to read. I say 'attempted'
because I couldn't get past the first few chapters. Don't listen to
the powers of established academia: this book really is dull. I think
that people say this book is so great because they're afraid of having
an original thought. A thought like 'this book is reallybad.' Yeah, the 'symbolism' is so deep. As deep as
the sea. So deep that it makes me ask all the Big Questions of human
existence. And if you believe claptrap like that then there is
nothing I can do to dissuade you from reading this."


"No narrative drive, no interest. Symbolizism yes, but that doesn't make a book. No wonder Melville flopped as a writter."


"As for the characters, they never quite make sense. If the whale represents Evil and Ahab Good, why is the latter such an unsympathetic person? What are we to make of the livid lightning scar down his side? The book is full of such presumed symbolism but it all remains vague and unfocused."


"Three words. Too. Many. Men. Actually, make that six words. Not. Any. Women."


"I couldn't get into how masculine it was."


"In the chapter, "The Whiteness of the Whale", Melville spends 7 1/2 pages, including a 469 word sentence that takes up just ONE of those pages, saying nothing more complex than that, although white is frequently considered a GOOD color, in the case of Moby Dick, it is a BAD one, because instead of being reminiscent of purity, it is reminiscent of spectrality. Seven and a half PAGES, to say what I, a mere reviewer, can say in 31 words. The whole book is like that"


"Yawn. Check out, Immigrant Song, much better."


"His writing style and sentence structure are poor. It is hard to read. like work. Doubt he could get published today."


"Yeah that's right. I got to be honest, I've only read 10 chapters and that was all that I could take from from this major let down. Honestly I haven't read a good 'american classic' if there is such a thing maybe for the exception of Huck Finn. Those chapters about Ishmael sleeping with whatever his name was and Ishamel had such a good time with the other guy's arm over him and leg over him that he didn't know if he was straight or gay any more. But that's not the point, the point is that this book is horrible, it is even worse then another so called american classic 'the red badge of courage'. I love literatur just as much as the next guy but we must face it 100 years or so ago American literature was reall weak and lagging from the rest of the world, perhaps now they're starting to catch up with writers like Ann Rice and them."


"Man, lots of the reviews on here are pretentious, talking about all sorts of hidden messages of the book that don't exist."


"I personally do not like this book because it was so long. it does not have a bad story line. So i suggest that you read the younger version no matter what age you are. The only way you should read the full thing is if you really love to read, have alot of time, and like alot of boaring points. In this book there is a whale and some men. the men espesially one man was after the whale. i will not give away any names. The whale overpowerd the people all except one. the end was not that good eather. i suggest this for older people who do not have much to do. except read a long book."


"True, literature is seldom interesting, and authors like Dickens and George Eliot are hardly better than Melville, but nevertheless, I believe that a literary text should at least be able to engage the reader and make him/her interested enough in it to finish it, so that the message can be fully comprehended. I did not finish Moby Dick and perhaps never will."

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