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.