It gets a bad rep for being hard to read (which it is because of the sea-faring and archaic vocabulary) but it’s surprisingly entertaining with even a casual/jovial tone at times. I haven’t finished it, but so far like 30% of the book is irrelevant to the plot and is just the authors random musings and philosophies on life. He dedicates entire pages to debating what the most comfortable room temperature and position to sleep in is, or his opinions on random countries like Japan or “Affghanistan”. It almost reads like blogposts or diary entries.

He also has surprisingly modern humor and opinions. He makes borderline gay jokes when he has to sleep in bed with an African man “Queequog”, and then describes how he respects him, saying “the man’s a human being just as I am; he has just as much reason to fear me…better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” and that “It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin”. The two develop this wholesome Rush Hour style partnership that’s pretty funny.

There’s also one part where he states that even though he’s Christian, he respects anyone’s beliefs as long as they hurt noone.

I also really liked how it occasionally shifts to the 1st person perspective of Captain Ahab or Starbuck for a chapter which adds good variety.

  • HappierShibe@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    (the opening line is just “Call me ishamel”)

    To be fair, that’s a pretty heavy line when it’s taken in context.
    It tells you a fuckload about the protagonist:

    1. He isn’t seeking notoriety or celebrity.
    2. He has effectively nothing to his name, to the point he is comfortable discarding it and starting anew.
    3. He feels he was cast out, and likely feels that his own origins up to that point have been a burden.
    4. He’s got guts, or courage, or verve, or cojones, or whatever you want to call it- even if you are destitute it takes some not insubstantial strength of character to discard your own identity.
    5. Ishmael is not his original name.
    6. He is at least moderately educated, literate, and familiar with biblical text in some detail.
    7. He has decided he or his descendants may still have some grand future ahead of them, he hasn’t given up on the idea that he may be destined for some greater purpose or adventure.
    8. He’s no idiot, The context of Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar, isn’t obscure or specialized knowledge, but its application as a sobriquet is subtle and clever.