Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

Penn Jillette recommended The Mezzanine and I really enjoyed it, although it's not for everyone. When I heard him say that Moby Dick is his favorite book, I tried to read it but just couldn't get past the language barrier of reading a book written over 150 years ago. From the different idioms, unknown words, alternate meanings of common words, and references which were only understood in Melville's time, I struggled to understand what was happening in Moby Dick. Well, thanks to Margaret Guroff's edition at Power Moby Dick, one can read her annotated edition and actually understand the book. Her annotations are short but incredibly useful to get the story and the humor of Moby Dick.

And so I dove into Moby Dick and enjoyed the set-up of the novel, roughly the first quarter of the book, up through chapter 36 where Ahab announces his obsession to kill the white whale who bit off his leg. But then I only made it up to about chapter 50. I couldn't continue because the novel became too unfocused. Melville drags out endless details of the boat and the process of whaling. He also makes many metaphors about race and class, most of which I didn't get and didn't care to get because they are irrelevant in today's world. What really made me lose interest was that Melville was not trying to tell a good story. Rather, he used a simple plot which gave him an excuse to ramble on about religion, sex, money, revenge, madness, exploitation, etc.

Come to think of it, this is very similar to Penn Jillette's book Sock, which I did enjoy because his rants are relevant to today's world. Now I understand why Penn likes the book so much.