Finished: Moby-Dick (Melville). That was the most laborious book to date! I don't know quite what to say about Moby-Dick. Actually, I have alot to say, so if anyone is reading this who doesn't want to know how it ends, then it's best not to read this. :-)

First of all...the book I read was 655 pages. Moby-Dick wasn't sited by Captain Ahab until page 625. The entire book before that was soooooooooooooooo long! There were so many unnecessary chapters that took the longest tangents. Sure, the book started with the infamous line "Call me Ishmael." Ishmael was the narrator of the book, and a participant in Ahab's quest to kill Moby-Dick. And, the only survivor of the quest...other than Moby-Dick, himself.

The first few chapters weren't so bad. Ishmael met his future boat mate, the harpooner, who was also a cannibal, Queequeg. I think my favorite line of the book actually happens when they first meet and have to share a bed together for lack of room at the inn. Ishmael says to himself, "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." That just tickled me. But, between those first few chapters and the actual confrontation between Ahab and Moby, I had two major disappointments.

First, as I mentioned, the very long, unnecessary chapters. There was an entire chapter on Cetology, where every whale known to man at that time was described...all so we could know that Moby-Dick was a sperm whale. There were several chapters explaining why whale-hunting was necessary, and even examples of past biblical, royal, mythical, etc. famous whale-hunters. There were chapters on the difference between a sperm whale's head and a right whale's head...whole chapters! There were chapters on ropes, harpoons, and crow's nests. There was a chapter dedicated to each whaling boat they happened to pass along out in the ocean, each with their own long story about some captain, or spurned lover, or lost whaler, or some such. Easily....the book would have been far more page-turning if it had been about 200 pages long instead of 655!

Second. My second problem with all those extra chapters is that I had to read through the horrifying descriptions of five different whale slaughterings before they actually got to Moby-Dick. Of course, they were a whaling ship and their supposed goal was to bring back barrels and barrels of whale oil and such. That, however, was not Ahab's ultimate goal. Anyway, I don't know what I was thinking the story was about...but I didn't reckon on reading in such detail about the massacre of the whales, and the woeful noise they make when they've been finally brought down, and how they pitifully roll over on their backs. :-(  I understand that back in that day, whale blubber was the main source for lamp oil, etc. (There was even a chapter describing how the oil was made right there on the ship!) And, I'm a meat-eater, so I'm not trying to be a hypocrite...however, I just could barely stand to read about the suffering of the whales.

So, we finally get near the big confrontation between Moby-Dick, the huge white whale, and Captain Ahab, the insane captain who had tangled with Moby before and had his leg bitten off. For two days the crews took their smaller boats out from the main ship and chased him and harpooned him and speared him...and for two days he smacked them with his huge tail and sunk all but one of their little boats. On the third day, Moby got really ticked. He decided to heck with the small boats, and turned himself towards the waiting whaling ship. He rammed it with his huge head and it sunk within minutes! Meanwhile, Ahab is exclaiming, "my ship, my ship", and doesn't realize that one of the ropes connected to the whale via harpoon has wrapped around his neck. He's whipped into the ocean and that's the last we see of Ahab. Everyone else is dragged down with the sinking ship and dies....except Ishmael. Ishmael had been tossed out of one of the small boats during one of the fluke-thumpings, completely missing being sucked down to the depths by the sinking ship. He clung to floating wood until another passing whaler picked him up two days later.

I must say....by the end, I was SO rooting for Moby! Ahab had so many chances to call it a day and quit chasing Moby. I'd never heard about the ending of the book, so I didn't know if Ahab finally got his fish. I'm so glad he didn't. Oh, also, the first mate's name...and one of the few with any sense, who tried to talk the captain out of his suicide journey, was named Starbuck. Is that where the coffee place gets its name? Now what can I read to get those poor whales out of my mind??