Quick Chat: 'Be Good to Yourself,' MOBY DICK #2

After speaking with an elder in my life, whom I respect, I finally decided to fucking give up on Moby Dick. I can't do it anymore. It was killing me. I've been reading it for almost two weeks and have only read 200 out of the 500 pages of the book. I never felt a desire to pick up the book, only an obligation to finish it because a lot of other people think it's a 'masterpiece.' 

I hate not finishing books. I usually hold out to see if the ending will put things into perspective - which is what happened with Lolita - or I'm at least interested enough in wanting to see how the story ends - which is what happened with The Shipping News, a book I enjoyed, but mostly continued to read because I wanted to see how things resolved. So I struggled with giving up on Moby Dick, but here I am. Maybe this is not the right time in my life, and maybe I will pick it up again and I will love it, but for now, I don't like it, and I think the structure and writing is kind of shit. I will still recap some thoughts I had while struuuuggling through the first 200 pages. Also, if I can't get into a book in 200 pages, it's time to give up. 'Be good to yourself,' is the advice I got, and I'm going to take it. There is no righteous mandate that I read this book, or any book. I'm going to be good to myself, and read what excites me and challenges me in ways that enhance my intellectual life, rather than feel like it is slowly bleeding out.

A Few Things About Moby Dick:

• The writing felt so inert. There are some seriously beautiful sentences, but the whole story and plot felt like they were going nowhere.
• I liked the beginning with the homoerotic comedy of manners with Ishmael, our narrator, and Queequeg, the cannibal Ishmael befriends. Honestly, I want the novel of them falling in love, going on dumb whaling adventures together, not the slog of the life on the ship they end up on, the Pequod. 
• The legendary Captain Ahab is a straight up idiot. The whole narrative of man-thinking-he-can-overcome-nature is an interesting one, but not compelling through the lens of Ahab's character. 
• Here's a new recurring segment I will call Interesting or Stupid? In this segment I will try and determine if a stylistic/structural/narrative/etc. choice is actually interesting and meaningful, or if it's stupid. 
• In the case of Moby Dick, there is a portion of the novel, from pages 141-158, where the narration switches from Ishmael to a few other characters, and the way Melville indicates this is through basically what are stage directions. For example, beneath Chapter 37's title 'Sunset,' are the directions 'The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out' (148). At first, I thought to myself, 'Hm, that's interesting. Maybe Melville will embrace the ridiculousness of this whole vengeance on this whale by including aspects of plays or something.' Like, why have a first-person narrator (Ishmael) if you're going to switch between first-person narrators in an awkward way?! Why not use fucking free-indirect speech as employed fucking beautifully by Jane Austen?! And the entirety of Chapter 40 is a scene of the different sailors on the ship, but their dialogue is set up as in a play. And then all of this just never happens again. Maybe it's all interesting, but I'm leaning more towards stupid just because it completely did not fit with the other chapters.
• And another recurring segment: Meta Moment, in which I will discuss a meta moment - *wink wink* - in a book, because usually I think those are cool.
• In the case of Moby Dick, on page 184, Ishmael says, 'So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.' Really, Melville? Is this your justification to the slog I have trudged through for the past two weeks?!

And that concludes my thoughts on Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Maybe I will read you again one day, maybe not. Either way, I'm moving on.

Quick Chat: MOBY DICK #1

I am now inaugurating Quick Chat, a segment of this blog where I will check-in periodically with a book I am reading. So rather than writing just one post after I've finished a book, I will write several posts - there is no set number - as I am reading a book. Hopefully this will create a richer reading experience for me, and foster some conversation on here, which has not happened so far. If you're reading, and feel so inclined, leave a comment!

In case you're wondering: yes, the backdrop
of this picture are my childhood Barbie sheets.

This inaugural Quick Chat, will be about Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I started this book a few days ago, and am only on like page 60-something. Now, what I want to focus on for this post is 'expectations.' Moby Dick is a very well-known book, people have claimed to have been utterly changed by it, it is a staple in the Western Canon, and its characters and story elements are a part of the cultural consciousness. I have waited a very long time to read this book, and so over time I have absorbed a lot of perceptions and ideas about what this book will be. What is most ingrained in my mind about this novel is the character of Captain Ahab going on an insane and destructive odyssey to find and kill a certain whale, so I kind of assumed the novel would be from his perspective. But on reading the first page, I find out the narrator is a man named Ishmael - which I guess should have been a clue that it was from a different perspective considering the whole famous opening line of 'Call me Ishmael' but I guess I've just conflated the two whenever I heard or read about the book. This is all to say that rarely do we begin reading books with no expectations or pre-conceived notions, and there is always an adjustment period of not only getting used to the logic of a novel, but to the perspectives, and especially, the perspective to take on as a reader. As books become 'classics' and age, there is the possibility that the experience of them becomes more and more filtered. Is that a bad or good thing? Is it useful? Does it add more or take away from a story? Is it possible to overcome those filters? We want reading a novel to be an intimate experience, specific to the reader, because then the experience is special. 

These are some questions and thoughts I have beginning this novel. And I will follow-up on them in future Quick Chat segments. Stay tuned! Have any of you read Moby Dick? Did it change your life?

How Do You Find Books? On Margaret Atwood's THE ROBBER BRIDE

I am always on the hunt for a new book. And with the beauty that is the internet, there are so many interesting ways to find new books, and to think about those new books in different ways. 

One way I find new books is through the blog: http://slaughterhouse90210.tumblr.com. This blog is genius and everyone should read it. The premise of the blog is to pair an image from a TV show with a quote from a book, which in turn represents the mixture of supposed 'low-brow' and 'high-brow' culture. Through the blog, you of course see that the two are not so different, and the pairing is actually quite genius and accessible. I often find with this blog that I can connect to either the image or the text - rarely do I know both, which is honestly really exciting because it means I can now seek out something new that is more likely going to be interesting to me, more likely going to be something I can love. 

That said, I've just finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride. It's my first Atwood, and I absolutely loved it. Without a doubt, part of that love is due to the Slaughterhouse90210 post featuring a quote from the book, along with a scene from Mad Men, one of my all-time favorite TV shows.

I read this post just as I had started to read Slaughterhouse90210, and I was floored. Immediately I loved it because the quote commented so perfectly on the themes of Mad Men, especially since the show still exploited women, despite characters like Joan (pictured), Peggy, and Betty. Also, the quote in general was JUST. SO. PERFECT. You want to talk about patriarchy? Read this quote. Because of the utter perfection that was that blog post, I decided I would need to read this book, that I must experience the novel that could contain such a perfect quote, that could then shed light on one of my favorite TV shows and characters.

The Robber Bride centers around three women - Tony, Charis, and Roz - and their toxic friendship with Zenia, a woman who has laid waste to their romantic relationships whenever she decides to enter back into their lives. As I was reading the book, and got to know the characters more, I wondered when I would finally read the quote, and which character would say it. Now, after having finished the book, the quote clarifies a lot of my thoughts and feelings about the book. In the book, Zenia has a relationship with each of the other three women's significant other, and takes them away from them. What is so affecting about all of this is Tony, Charis, and Roz's desire to get their man back, even though they all had all been with Zenia. These women's desires are fully realized, and are not weak because they want to be with the men they love, but each feel in their own way the power Zenia has to embody a specific image or ideal that is attractive to each man sleeps with. Figuring all of that out, is what is compelling about the novel, and what I think is so great about looking at the novel through the lens of the quote. 

What are some of your favorite ways to find books? Any specific success stories like mine with The Robber Bride?

Some Favorites...

So it has been QUITE some time. In terms of wanting to build this blog and a readership, I'm not doing so well since I haven't posted since the end of May. But let's leave that all behind, readers (shout out to Katie who might be the only one at this point). Yes, yes, let's leave this past month and a half behind and get to back why we're all here: BOOKS. I figured an easy way to ease into this would be to make a quick post about some of the books I've acquired in the past couple of months - this post would be way too long if I listed all the books I've bought. These that I've picked are ones I am particularly excited to read, and one that I think are just fucking beautiful.

Let me know if you've read any of these, your thoughts, and any suggestions for any books I should look into next.