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?