Moby Dick Read-A-Long: Introductions

The long-awaited readalong begins!  Hanna (who somehow gets me through these ridiculously hard readalongs) is our gracious host, and I'm so thankful to have such a good friend and cheerleader!  I survived reading Tolstoy's War & Peace, so this one should be easy-peasy... of course.

... Right?!

1) What are you expecting from the novel? Do you have any preconceptions?

I am expecting lengthy exposition and tons and tons of descriptions.  I mean, how else are you going to fill 568 pages with a story about a captain, his boat, a bunch of water and a really big whale?

2) What do you already know about the plot or character?

This is what I stole off the Amazon website when I finally went to go order book: "...the style and philosophical content of Melville's 1851 epic was generations ahead of its time. Today the chronicle of a vengeful captain's obsessive, self-destructive search for a white whale ranks among the great American novels..."

So no, I didn't do my research.  I just know that it's a very looooooong book... and that I'm gonna get through it!

3) This book, unlike War & Peace, isn't a translation? Do you think that will make a difference?

Yes, I think it would make a huge difference.  I wish I had known Russian when I read War & Peace (clarification: I STILL don't know Russian) because I felt that some of the dialogue was awkward and I had missed out on key nuances lost in translation.  Also, I was annoyed by how some of the translated versions changed the names of certain characters.

4) Have you read Moby Dick before? What prompted you to read it now?

 I have never read Moby Dick.  Peer pressure encouragement prompted me to go ahead and read the book.  Go us!

5) Show us a photo of your book!
This is the image of the book on Amazon.  It weighs as much as a whale and has glossy pages and images of woodcut art!  I'll be sure to post photos of the book in my weekly check-in posts :)