Moby-Dick

I can't believe I finished this. Around page 200 or so I thought I was going to quit. But after that I got into it and it was rolling along for a while. Finished the last 60% or so in 5 days. Tough book. Lots to think about here. Didn't especially love it. But I can kinda see why it's such a masterpiece, the more factual descriptions of whaling were so well presented! Sometimes they got a bit much though, I was always glad to return to the narrative section.

I found myself thinking about my own mortality, my own smallness, a lot while reading this book. Not while reading it, but going to bed at night and such. At first I thought it was unconnected with the book, but then I realized it wasn't: this book made me feel a deep sense of existential foreboding, dread, and mortality. One that won't go away for a while. And I suppose any book that can do that is quite an achievement.

I can't believe so much of the book was about the search for Moby Dick, only a small portion at the end devoted to what happened when Ahab found him. Very different than I thought it was going to go.

Conquered the white whale!