My high school English teacher told me Moby Dick was a masterpiece. I quit on page 87.

I mean, I gave it a real shot. I carried that heavy paperback everywhere for two weeks. Every chapter felt like a lecture on whale anatomy or some random tangent about rope. She kept saying it's 'layered' and 'deep' but I was just bored out of my mind. By page 87 I realized I didn't care about the white whale or Ishmael or any of it. I traded it for a dog-eared copy of The Martian at a used bookstore in Austin last summer. That one I finished in two days. So maybe classics aren't for everyone. Has anyone else been told a book is life-changing only to drop it fast?

3 comments

3 Comments

colemiller10d ago

Wait, did you really make it all the way to page 87? I woulda bailed around page 20 when he started talking about whale blubber.

leog6810d ago

Honestly I think I blacked out around page 40 and just woke up at 87. Pretty sure my brain was trying to protect itself from all that whale trivia.

mitchell.wade10d ago

@leog68 you made it 40 pages further than I did so I gotta ask - what exactly made you snap out of it at 87 and not sooner? Was there one particular line about harpoons or whale oil that finally broke you? I'm just curious if it was a slow burn or a sudden "nope I'm done" moment.

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