Moby Dick / Tess of D'Urbervilles

Sorry if i spelled the second wrong, i just call it Tess.

Our summer reading includes those two books for my english class, i was wondering if any of you all have read either.

Personally even though i know moby dick is a classic, it has got to be one of the most disorganized, and blatantly boring books i have ever read. No one else seems to realize that melville totally stole his writing style from his mentors, and jumbled it up into a big fat mess called "Moby Dick." The book makes me want to cry in exasperation about how uninteresting and out right sickening it is. Why is it a classic? In my opinion its classic status is simply because of its cetology and simply how ****ing weird it is.

As for Tess, i am yet to read it, but its Thomas Hardy, so im sure itll be pretty boring as well.

And yes i do appreciate good literature, but i prefer not to read books because they are a mastery of the english language, but because they are fun to read or i will learn something very practical and be able to use what i have learned for something i want to do. But then again i generally don't find those types of books that boring.

what do you all think?

Damn, that is some opinion. Having read Moby Dick as a child I remember liking it. But that was so long ago. Write a book about sea captains from hell, sailors and a giant wale and I guess a child will be happy. Maybe it's the battle of compulsive behavior and man's inability to recognize it's evil that make is a classic? Perhaps the term classic needs an update? I have read some other books thought to be boring and poorly written but they were hacked out on a typwriter during uncertain times in a history devoid of modern medicine and electricty. So I cut them some slack. :) Sea Wolf was better.

damn if you read moby dick as a child and understood it you must have been one of those famous child genious's... were you ever on tv?

I liked Moby Dick. I read it in college (on my own) and liked it a lot.

RoadClosed: Sea Wolf was by Jack London correct? (I bought it a while ago but have not read it)

Sea Wolf - Yes, it's a good book. I have a lot of classic because they are always in those bargin bins. :D

I am not a genius, only close. :p <--- joke. My favorite game before kindergarten was those word find things. My punishment was having them taken away and I would sneak them off the refrigerator. You think I would be a better speller? My other punishment was not being allowd to watch star trek. My parents were bastards! And my live was a constant battle with trouble, I never listened very well. When I was in kindergarten I built a model of the Klingon Bird of Prey for show and tell. My dad took that away too. lol.

Why didnt your parents let you watch Star Trek? My dad was a fan of the original and somewhat of a fan for the next generation. So I watched it all the time with him as a kid. (Every night at 6pm)

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blatantly boring books i have ever read.

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This is called "Art" :P

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Why didnt your parents let you watch Star Trek? My dad was a fan of the original and somewhat of a fan for the next generation. So I watched it all the time with him as a kid. (Every night at 6pm)

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Man, you are a child. I use to watch original one AS A KID and when TNG came i saw it as a grow up man. (almost)

I thinking about retirement now :(

Moby Dick is too boring even with Jean Luc Picard (err.. Patrick Stewart)


College = Hell

but it will worth (special when you finished it) :)

Lol they let me watch it. Instead of grounding me or something like a spanking they took Star Trek away. They knew how to get me. They were vicious. JK, lova em.

and here i thought moby dick was a STD and tess was a carrier!

I love Tess! Even though it starts out depressing, and gets more so throughout the book. Its a charming story.

I agree moby dick is very boring, but a worthwhile read.

You guys should read stuff by Sir Walter Scott and Conrad...................give you a baseline to work from :D

For Thomas Hardy, try "Catcher in the rye"..............then you will find Tess quite acceptable.

Anyways, you are not supposed to enjoy it...........you are supposed to study it, "warts and all" (Oliver Cromwell)

Yes I have read both books :cool:

I read Great Expectations in school this year, and frankly, I didn't find it to be that great. Story and plot were great, but I did not like the presentation. It was very easy to tell it was released in magazines, and the 2nd ending that was in the book I had didn't follow the plot at all. The best "classic" I have read is Animal Farm, if you consider that a classic. Grapes of Wrath is also good. THE best book I have EVER read is LotR. I was so addicted to that... I read The Hobbit through RotK 5 times in 3 years... This was all BEFORE the movie came out and people became interested.

TheGrunt,

Yes, "Great Expectations" is a tad tedious................I had to read it for English Lit. at one stage. For Charles Dickens might I suggest "A Tale of Two Cities"

George Orwell............yes, if you liked "Animal Farm" then "1984" is a must for you ;)

After that (1984), please read Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" and make a critical comparison.

"Grapes of Wrath" huh?...........a short story by Steinbeck is "The Pearl"...........makes you think and won't take long to read (Tortilla Flats is worth a look as well). Then read Earnest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"...........whilst we are on Hemingway........."For Whom the Bell Tolls"..................

It is heavy going with the old fashioned English, but you might like to try Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman".

On a lighter note I would suggest Rafael Sabatini: "Scaramouche"

Another American immigrant: R.M. Ballantyne, "The Dog Crusoe and his Master"..........I actually have a first edition of that.......1873, the year the Winchester '73 came out :D

Happy reading

I have been meaning to get ahold of a copy of 1984, and I have heard lots of good things about it, but I haven't had a chance to hit the library and I don't know anyone who has a copy... I loved A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol, and that is why I was so disapointed with Great Expectations. I have been meaning to read Tortilla Flats for a while as well... Sounds to be a very good book... We read Of Mice and Men in English this year... I loved that book. That is what got me to read Grapes of Wrath. Both books are very sad...

Those who liked 1984 should read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." Also, "In Dubious Battle" is another good Steinbeck novel.

Farenheit 451 would make a good remake from the classic movie. Interesting enough Nihil, that book IMHO will more closely resemble society as it digresses than 1984 or Animal Farm.. At least to the extent of a size of a population and it's effects on society and control mechanisms. For instance, the masses were controlled via a media outlet and its extreme bias toward the state, in fact it was television. The people became more and more reliant on their daily dose of "reality".

They were free in an extent that the state didn't have two way communication devices implanted in the homes of 1984 London. Then what got me as a child was the ability of citizens to feel the need to "rat" out their brothers and take ALL matters to the state, or in our own society a court of law over every little issue. In fact one may think items like alerting systems where all citizens are notified of a crime like our "Amber Alert" are a precursor? An accuser in the hands of the state can now even be sheltered as an accuser/ victim, when the constitution states we as citizens have the right to “know” and CHALLENGE an accuser.

I can see the good but I also see future generation turning to their TVs seeing an enemy alert of the state being announced then going on their lawns hoping to find them thus marking their own status within a socialist controlled society with little room for advancement. In this case someone elevated and reward by the puppet masters who remains elusive, except through an electron tube shining brightly in our lives.

While you check it out Grunt, memorize every word of the book. Just in case :)

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After that (1984), please read Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" and make a critical comparison.

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If you start to read Ray Bradbury, just read ALL books. Its amazing. Its a collection of "human" stories encapsulated on a "sci-fi" shell. If you really pay attention on stories, you will see that has nothing with sci-fi (besides i like sci-fi)

Very good reading.

Try Lord of the Flies if you want unadulterated crap..... Everything else becomes readable.... ;)

I actually enjoyed Lord of the Flies a lot... *shrug*
I also love The Three Musketeers by Dumas, Kafka's Der Process,... there's just too much to read :)

I liked moby dick. As has been said above books become classics not only based on how the lanuage is used but also on how it deals with the human condition. Another important point is a book is written for the public at the time of going to print and as such as lanuage evolves it may lose its impact.
If you want to talk about hard books to read try James Joyce but start with "a portrait of an artist" rather than Ulysses. When we were children some of the first books we read were moby dick, Ivanhoe, 20000 leauges under the sea, Around the world in 80 days, The lord of the rings etc mainly because as road closed said they were, as classics, the cheapest books to buy.
I havent read ray bradburys Farenheit 451 yet as I had a deal with my girlfriend that I would buy her 1984 and she would buy it for me. My favorite author at the moment would have to be Ian M banks.

The Grunt I too read Hobbit & LOTR (in english while it's not my first lang.) before the movies ;)

CXGJarrod Brave New World is still somwhere in the top of my list of best books ever..
The book while written a long time ago still has a warning function and it's allmost like Huxley was psychic in some stuff..

LOTR and The Hobbit are among my very favourite books. I too read them before the movie came out. Have any of you ever read any Terry Pratchet? He is one of the funniest authors ever! The same goes for P.G. Wodehouse. Very funny!

Cheers,
cgkanchi

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Have any of you ever read any Terry Pratchet?

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Now you talking............. read every thing he has ever printed. even re-reading the books is worthwhile, as I always spot something that I missed the first time round.

In the 'classic' mode, I prefer Dickens (although I've never been to one..... :eek: ) as his style, even allowing for:

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a book is written for the public at the time of going to print and as such as lanuage evolves it may lose its impact.

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I found his words to be powerful, even now.

As for reading in general; I read ANYTHING that catches my fancy. I also read up to a dozen books at the same time. (not all open on the table, that WOULD be silly) but a chapter here of one book, followed by a couple of pages from another, and so on........

Authors who have caught the imagination:

Mark Twain: When I was little I wanted to be Huck Finn :cool:
Charles Dickens:
George Orwell:
Jules Verne:
Graham Green: Brighton Rock chilled me.

The list goes on and on ...............................

As for the Bard / Shakespeare, I'm afraid that until Kenneth Branagh started to direct films using the original words, that he just left me cold........ I also really liked the Romeo and Juliet with DeCapprio in it. It brought the whole thing to life.

And that as they say is the crux to this whole thread:

It isn't what you read.

It's what you get out of it.

time to leave, before I ramble off aka cosmos style.

I have been following this post with interest for some days now, it's interesting to see that it is not just me, that had to endure some of the reading being discussed here :D ........................Anyone seen Black Adder, Back And Forth?

The scene where Black Adder goes back in time and bumps into Shakespere Is priceless. For anyone who has not seen it. He punches Shakespere in the face and says, "thats for all school kids for the next two hundred years" or something like that.

I hated reading as a kid and i would do anything to get out of it. It was only when i discovered that i had a real interest in Aeroplanes and aviation, at about the age of fifteen, that i found some books that held my attention. Reach for the Sky by Douglas Bader was the first book i actualy read without some form of coersion. Then Pierre Clostermans book, then i started reading other stuff and it snowballed to the point that at one time in my life i belonged to five book clubs.

Anyway of the books that i have enjoyed:

Great Expectations.
Tale of Two Cities.
Animal Farm.
The Three Musketeers.
The Count Of Montychristoe.
Anna Franks Diary.
Lord Of The Flies.
The Forty Nine Steps(or is it Fifty Nine) it's been awhile.
7 Pillars of Wisdom.

To name but a few.