/lit/ - Literature

Read and find out?

>>20176161
Its incredible. One of my favorites. Melville is a wonderful prose writer and a pretty decent poet! Check out Clarel.

never heard anyone but amerimutts talk about it so it's probably shit

>>20176161
Sometimes the whaling chapters get overly technical and bore people, but it's otherwise a flawless book, though I might be biased because it's my favorite

>>20176161
>why does 4chan simp for Moby Dick so much?
Partially because this board is an english-language board, which means that everyone here has some fluency in english by default whether it's not their first language or if it's their only language, so everyone here who isn't very very ESL can read it, and importantly in the original, no translation required. More than half the top ten for a given year (see pic rel) is not originally english language, and half that are english language in this example (Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow) are extremely dense (though moby-dick is too) and fairly confusing the first time through (Ulysses is particularly famous for requiring a decent guide to get a good grasp on because of the familiarity with various topics required to begin understanding it).
It's a prose epic so its long enough to be deeply absorbing but not so long as to be a true task to read for someone with a decent reading speed, and as prose it's easier to read quickly than verse is (though some particularly poetic passages require more attention).
The themes reach deep and universally into the nature of being and how we relate to the universe as a whole and God (or gods), along with the more social aspects of the human experience; the themes reach to more fundamental places than most other books, lolita may have more expert prose than Moby-Dick but its subject matter is not as rousing to the soul, unless being a pedophile is your entire personality i guess.
>To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.
Moby-Dick is still quite an entertaining book though, there is a lot of wit and comedy, both dry "i dost" and more direct like the chef talking to the sharks; and is often quite exciting, even the language utilised is very fun to read.
Most importantly it is one of the greatest works written in the english language, for an english language literature discussion it easily deserves to be in the top ten, but it's relative accessibility makes it more widely approachable than something like ulysses while remaining very rewarding to read and study.

>>20176161
probably the best book i've ever read

>>20176215
it's beloved in Britain too, but we generally like sea stories

its good, but overrated by Americans who feel their country needs a masterwork, or by Americans who are underread and just assume moby dick is the high watermark. its good, but not in contender for one of the great works of literature.

>>20176606
What english (ENGLISH langage) works do you think are greater, and why? What does it lack that other great works have?
The reason that it's so highly regarded here is because a lot of people here read only in english, but there is truly not very much in English better than Moby-Dick, certainly not in terms of prose works, there's Ulysses (and Finnegan's Wake if you are a language scholar or a pretentious dickhead, and that is all, other "great" 20th century literature written in english rarely reaches Melville or Joyce.

>>20176658
i personally feel like most of the English classics are better. Even though he's less epic, I unironically think Dickens has far superior and well written prose than Melville, whose prose I find interesting but very murky. LOTR is better as an epic, even though the prose is worse in some ways and the themes are meant for children. Ulysses is far superior to MB as an encyclopedic epic and its not close, the prose is worlds better and clearer, and i like the humor more. FW means nothing to me outside of the puns which are funny. In terms of poetry, the faerie queen, paradise lost, any of shakes's late era masterpieces, the prelude are better, in terms of both aesthetics, imagery, and IMO themes.

>>20176658
so I do admit Moby dick is overall one of the better prose works, but its a pretty distinct tier below my favorites

>>20176161
How many times is this thread going to be created?

>>20176658
basically, my main issue is that its murky seems to be much less self assured and themtically resonant and coherent in every single line, like the best of joyce or shakespeare is.

>>20176719
I think that the lack of self assurance is thematically important, the reading of the book i see most often (or at least the one i inferred when i first read it and have felt confirmed in subsequent reads) is something akin to "man is unable to fully understand the true nature of God/the universe" not just from greater complexity than man can comprehend (as seen in particular when Pip is driven mad by seeing the truth of the universe's function) but also in that the universe is open to many interpretations, and that some of those interpretations contradict, that there may be no meaning at all. Melville's writing is uncertain to the extent that he is writing about uncertainty, an early awareness of nihilism, which is expanded upon in Melville's later work "Clarel" which is more explicitly about loss of christian faith in the modernising world even as he pilgrimages to the holy land. I think Melville is particularly popular now because his themes are quite specifically relevant to the modern world.

>>20176658
faulkner is great and shakespeare ofc

>>20177018
interesting theory, ive heard some say melville predates postmodern ways of thinking. certainly a great book with lots to chew on, I guess i dont resonate with the way that concept is portrayed as much as some others.

>>20176686
Yes, all those assorted works have individual elements that are better than Moby-Dick. but Moby-Dick is one of the only works that manages to pull off so many things that well

>>20176708
as many times as people want to talk about MB. problem?

>>20177129
Shakespeare is a given, but it’s hard to discuss him here because oxfordian conspiracy theorists refuse to discuss his works rather than claim they were written by a man who died halfway through Shakespeare’s career; and even if that doesn’t happen, autistic spics might shit up threads because they incorporated the seething of some delusional Spanish academics into their personality.
I haven’t gotten around to reading Faulkner yet, where should I start?

I like whales

>>20177232
I think it’s almost proto-postmodern, Melville was starting to address something akin to nihilism at a time when Nietzsche was still a child. But I don’t think Melville was saying that any interpretation is valid more that a myriad are, and particularly that singular systems that try to claim they have the one truth (whether it’s science, Platonism, Christianity, spinozism etc) that is universally true that have the most problems, which I’m not even sure I agree with fully but certainly reality is sufficiently complex and human experience sufficiently varied that a universal theory is a very long way off

>>20177374
>t.Herman Melville

>>20177376
To add/conclude, I think that given richness and depth it does the book a disservice to say it can’t be listed among the great works in english, though it would certainly be hyperbolic to claim it as THE best, it’s /lit/‘s number one probably because it is great while being on the more accessible side, though I don’t know why the same isn’t true of Shakespeare, his language may be somewhat archaic but it’s very easy to get editions that translate it to modern language alongside the original, my complete works doesn’t but I know my school had some like that.

I don’t know quite how to express this, but basically, it is great to me because it is aesthetically unmatched. Even if you haven’t read Moby Dick, it’s likely you are familiar with what I would call the “aesthetic theme” of Moby Dick that is quite pervasive in pop culture.
The book paints a vivid picture in your mind that will never leave you. The only other author who has left such visceral images in my memory is Dostoevsky.
That’s not to say there aren’t other amazing books that are just as good as Melville or Dostoevsky, it’s just that the things that they excel at make them particularly memorable

>>20177405
my hot take is that I like Melville more than Shakespeare because the topics and themes he writes about hit home for me more personally. i've always struggled with faith and the feeling of not having something to really believe in and i feel like Melville captures this feeling so perfectly in his books.
>>20177440
> Even if you haven’t read Moby Dick, it’s likely you are familiar with what I would call the “aesthetic theme” of Moby Dick that is quite pervasive in pop culture.
i'm not sure how true this is, everyone i tried talking about MD with irl kinda just thinks its a boys adventure book since they read the abridged version when they were younger

>the chad whale vs the virgin sailor

>>20177500
>i've always struggled with faith and the feeling of not having something to really believe in and i feel like Melville captures this feeling so perfectly in his books.
Have you read clarel? It’s hard to find alone but in a complete collection of Melville’s poetry it will be included. Clarel is even moreso about the struggle with faith.
>everyone i tried talking about MD with irl kinda just thinks its a boys adventure book since they read the abridged version when they were younger
I wonder if it began that way, Melville’s early books are semi-autobiographical adventure stories with a very light touch of philosophising, so maybe he began writing The Whale akin to that and it expanded as he wrote

>>20177374
I like dicks

>>20176606
>its good, but overrated by Americans
Basically. It is needed to have a great work of American literature that isn't ridiculous in meme top ten lists.

>>20176161
>always 1. in top 100
Not really.