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Moby Dick
Herman Melville
"How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan?
Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard
capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius'
crater for an inkstand! Friends hold my arms! For in
the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan,
they weary me, and make me faint with their
outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to
include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the
generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past,
present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas
of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe,
not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is
the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to
its bulk. 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."
So states Melville, and a mighty book he has produced
indeed.
Despite its relatively small length, the book took me
nearly a year to complete (about as long as it took
Melville to write it). I attribute this to the
awe-inducing language Melville throws out with abandon.
The above quote is the latter half of one paragraph,
and the entire book is written with this level of
English vernacular. Reading this book truly evokes the
enormity of the Whale. The narrative careens between
viewpoints and topics in quick succession barely
allowing the reader to draw breath. It's an exhausting
book to read; with so many blubbery layers to peel back
and chew on, it's no wonder that this book has been the
focus of intensive scholarly research. It is
undoubtedly one of the best books I have ever read;
however, I don't anticipate coming back to it anytime
soon. The level of focus needed to fully appreciate the
brilliance of Melville's word is not something I can
easily muster while I'm actively living in this
exhausting world. Final run of ~20 chapters were
*chef's kiss* fantastic.