The next two books I read in school, and really have no desire to read them again. I thought about re-reading any of the books that I've read before as part of the 1001 list, but quickly decided against it. I grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Melville lived for 13 years, and at one point used to drive by his house, Arrowhead, almost daily. Despite that, I never really enjoyed reading Melville.
Moby-Dick was my favorite of the two Melville novels, telling the story of a sailor Ishmael, aboard the ship called the Pequod which was commanded by Captain Ahab. The purpose of the voyage was to search for the great white whale, Moby-Dick, who destroyed Ahab's previous boat.
I'd love to say that being forced to read the book in school was why I didn't like that, but some of my favorite books I was first forced to read in school, so I can't really use that excuse. It's probably fair to say that Melville was just not for me.
The second book that I read in school was Billy Budd, and I honestly have little recollection of this book, except that I remember hating reading it. I'll include a link for a summary, because you would get more out of that summary than I would. I struggled through reading this book, and if it wasn't for having to read it I would have stopped reading. Maybe I'd enjoy it more today, but honestly the bad experience turned me off forever.
My ratings:
Moby-Dick - 2 stars
Billy Budd - 1 star
No comments:
Post a Comment