I recently picked up a copy of Moby Dick--Marc had salvaged the copy from the bottom floors of his building--and started reading it, basically just as a attention holder until I found something else. I had some ideas for what I wanted to read next, and thought Melville's dense opus could serve to hold my attention on and off for years.
But Moby Dick is a lot funnier than I ever was led to believe. This cat Ishmael, the narrator, is quite the chatterbox, and after reading seventy pages one can imagine how the story can balloon to 600+ pages. Melville's got fart jokes in the first few pages of Ishmael's narration. Then there's Ishmael's first night at the Spouter Inn, having to share a bed with Queequeg, and waking the next morning and finding themselves spooning, with Queequeg hugging Ishmael so tightly he can't break free or wake up the big Q. "You had almost thought I had been his wife," is a quote. Does this anger Ishmael? Not as much as you might guess; he's easy going.
Sometimes the "classics" will surprise...I suppose they don't reach that status without being pretty much great all around.
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