Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick • Hacker News Board

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#21

Post by dataviz1000 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

m_myers wrote: post #14

Recently ran across this interesting guide to Moby-Dick: "The 100 Chapters of Moby Dick You Can Skip - And why you won’t want to" https://baos.pub/the-100-chapters-of-moby-dick-you-can-skip-... The point is that while most of the book is incredibly boring, that's a feature and not a bug.

In order to be excited some small part of you must be bored or as Melville explains it ...

“To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.”

― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#22

Post by fortyseven » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

1851? For some reason I assumed ol' Dick was much older than that. Neat.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#23

Post by avian » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #17

relaunched wrote: post #8

The language of the reviews is quizzical. I caught myself thinking how high-brow language once was. Then, it dawned on me the sense of intentionality and craftsmanship displayed by each sentence. U up? Who dis? :emoji :emoji :emoji I'm not sure if I'm nostalgic, sad or just a little bit of, "get off my lawn."_

If you think they didn't have slang in the 19th century then you are mistaken. You can't compare academic writing to slang and pretend society has devolved. We live in a time where people who would be locked out of the publication process for "reasons" can now write books. Where literacy is the highest ever. Where more books get published than ever. The incredible progress in publishing should be praised, not disinge…

> We live in a time where people who would be locked out of the publication process for "reasons" can now write books.

People could write unpublished books back then just as well, and people can be locked out of the publication process today. The difference is that "reasons" were given by a person and today you're locked out by an Algorithm that doesn't even tell you why.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#24

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

jimbler wrote: post #12

zabzonk wrote: post #2

My review: A brilliant book, possibly my favourite of all the books I have read, which is a lot, and certainly one that I have enjoyed re-reading time and again. Tragic that it wasn't more widely appreciated in Melville's lifetime. A must read.

Fun to see this on HN. What an incredibly strange, amazing and beautiful book. Ambition as wide as the ocean. I think both Ishmael and Mellville were nuts. I'm attempting to finish it right now (again). I've tried multiple times to get all the way through. I've joked that Moby Dick is actually my Moby Dick.

While some of the basically factual whaling information is fascinating, some of it is also perhaps dealt with by skinning.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#25

Post by optimalsolver » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

For the lazy, there's a free Moby Dick audiobook on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg84olIrn-kb

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#26

Post by derbOac » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #20

bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's apparently the style of the time - Les Miserables spends a decent amount of time talking about sewers iirc.

And minutiae about court cases, legal precedent of the era. Similar with Count of Monte Cristo as well, the details of the Mediterranean smuggling trade it goes into is simply amazing.

20000 Leagues Under the Sea also came to mind.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#27

Post by protomyth » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

I think there is a whole generation of college students that have a visceral hatred of this book, not because of its quality, but because of professors trying to extract more symbolic meaning than was intended.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#28

Post by allturtles » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

yuuu wrote: post #19

zabzonk wrote: post #2

My review: A brilliant book, possibly my favourite of all the books I have read, which is a lot, and certainly one that I have enjoyed re-reading time and again. Tragic that it wasn't more widely appreciated in Melville's lifetime. A must read.

I am skeptical of anyone who has read Moby Dick and not admitted how much of a slog it is.

Why? Surely you agree that different people have different tastes. I couldn't get through the first chapter of Infinite Jest, but I don't think people who say they love the book are being insincere. There are large numbers of people who would find the tech jobs that many people on this site enjoy to be incredibly tedious and boring.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#29

Post by yuuu » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #28

yuuu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am skeptical of anyone who has read Moby Dick and not admitted how much of a slog it is.

Why? Surely you agree that different people have different tastes. I couldn't get through the first chapter of Infinite Jest, but I don't think people who say they love the book are being insincere. There are large numbers of people who would find the tech jobs that many people on this site enjoy to be incredibly tedious and boring.

Because I read it and it was a slog. There are large portions of the book that are unrelated to the story and are painful to get through. But saying that makes you look dumb, whereas asserting how much you love it makes you look like a fabulously cultured and intelligent connoisseur of high literature. Whatever, though.

Re: Original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

#30

Post by jxcl » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #20

bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's apparently the style of the time - Les Miserables spends a decent amount of time talking about sewers iirc.

And minutiae about court cases, legal precedent of the era. Similar with Count of Monte Cristo as well, the details of the Mediterranean smuggling trade it goes into is simply amazing.

I don't know about the other books off the top of my head, but Count of Monte Cristo and Dumas' other works were published as serials in a newspaper, where I'm pretty sure he was paid per word. Such a system really encourages going into detail with things that are not exactly relevant to the plot :)

(I love all of Dumas' works)