That aside, I remember a few posts back @Time you asked about rope metaphors and I finally got around to reading some. Autumn was right in what she said (ofc do keep in mind she studied the book while I'm just reading it for fun lol) but from the way I understand it and definitely my favorite part of the metaphors is that people's fates are linked to other people/events they have no control over. No matter how well you manage your own part, there are things that can pull you our of your desired path and stuff. This is brought up because of an event with cutting a whale or something in which Ishmael and Queequeg were tied together at the waist with a rope, the former standing on the ship and the latter hanging overboard to take care of the whale. Anything going wrong would send them both into the sea, but Ishmael notes that no matter how hard he tried to keep his solid standing ground to make his friend's work easier, the other moved around in reaction to things that were going on overboard (sharks and water movements and slippery whale skin and stuff) and it seemed that at times both of them were going to be lost in the waves. I personally really liked the thoughts that the author writes through the main character there, so I'd say that the metaphor really stuck out to me in this part.
I'm constantly looking out for any even slightly romantic implications between the characters lol I know it's not the main point of the book but it's a little bit of a meme between me and my friend now because when I mentioned that I was reading Moby Dick, the immediate reaction was to ask if I knew that it has queer implications and send a video something something "Reading Moby Dick until something gay happens" and I think our whole exchange was actually hilarious.
That said, I'm greatly enjoying the book! Maybe more than I should, lol, cause I've noticed I'm getting a littttle obsessive over it, and I already know what happens to my mind when I start to get like that. I haven't finished but I'm drawing close to what seems to be the final stretch (if we count in remaining pages) and I can't wait to see what happens next now. I feel like I could write essays on the story and the metaphors and stuff, and I kind of wish I could but also I'm super lazy so no. What I want to do when I'm finished is to look up some analyses and then look up some references from the story that I didn't catch. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to stay calm about it haha, uhhh organize my thoughts and stuff so I don't just post the nonsense that goes on in the thing I call a brain. 
It's interesting that it's taking me so long to read, bc normally I just straight up eat books. I wouldn't say the narration is dense, but there is a lot to unpack and I've found myself rereading paragraphs to make sure I understand the content correctly. It's requiring me to use my memory about historical, biblical, and mythological references too just to understand similes and stuff like that tbh.  
 
Also @Autumn if you read this please tell me your interpretation of what happened to Pip ))): I dunno if I should take the narration at face value or if it's hinting at something else (like at least one third of the narration is implied to be foreshadowing and I'm still not sure what to think about that)

Yeah I think Limbus could help with looking to read a lot of more classics. There are of course the 13 classics that are apart of the main group, but I think there are a few other characters that reference other books as well.

As to Don Quixote, I did read it years back when I was probably 9 or 10, but that was probably a decently shortened version and I probably couldn't fully appreciate it since I was an actual fetus. So I'm thinking of reading again it sometime soon for extra context and references for Don's chapter. For example:

SpecterTheGreat wrote:

which Ishmael and Queequeg were tied together at the waist with a rope,

No shot, this actually happened in the story 💀💀💀. See what I mean by references?

SpecterTheGreat wrote:

It's interesting that it's taking me so long to read, bc normally I just straight up eat books. I wouldn't say the narration is dense, but there is a lot to unpack and I've found myself rereading paragraphs to make sure I understand the content correctly. It's requiring me to use my memory about historical, biblical, and mythological references too just to understand similes and stuff like that tbh.  

Actually, when did you start this book? Because it makes me wonder and want to compare like, reading speeds.

Also thats cool, I love a book that tests your knowledge on like historical, biblical, and mythological stuff. It's a challenge for sure, but it can expose you to more stuff to look into later.

 

I started the book on January 15 andddd I finished it today. Haven't been reading daily though, like last weekend I wasn't able to read anything. For comparison, the copy I have is roughly the same size as my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, and that one took me more or less a week to read through.
I think I'm going to try to hold my thoughts for a bit (until tomorrow probably) and then see if I can organize anything, because there's some things that were very interesting to me. Feel like I need a reread of it with like my phone at my side to look up specific stuff and vocab, and stuff like that yk, but it'd take too long so I'm just going to check back on specific parts to make sure my memory is following along. Very good read but I am left feeling like I don't know what to do now after finishing. For context: I was completely unspoiled for everything, including the ending and well lol.

Brain is not braining this week. Saying I am SO tired to do anything feels like understating it but at the same time I'm not doing much except housework so... what the heck lol.

But yeah, I'll write about my reading thoughts. It's not going to be anything facy or stuff like that though, probably more over the place than expected. I want to pick up another one of my books already but my mind won't let me be at peace until I write down something at least, so I can't read anything else yet. 
I think that the hardest part is that there is just so much to take in. Like reading an encyclopedia if it had a plot. It's a lot of fun (I've learned more about whaling and ships than I ever did in my entire life) cause I love learning but also it's laced with the similes and stuff so it becomes a little bit harder to understand than if you were just reading a regular storytelling novel.
Just my opinion, but I think that what eats up a lot of the reading time is trying to understand the new knowledge. You can't speed through it with full comprehension unlike a dialogue or something. Or something. Idk honestly, maybe for some people it'd be an easier read, and for some it'd be unbearably dense, but take my thoughts with a grain of salt as I'm someone who thoroughly enjoyed reading the dictionary when I was a kid.
I can't stop thinking about Captain Ahab ngl.

for context I clicked onto the main page when stuff was still black and blue so it looked really weird

It's extremely enticing I can tell you that. The information parts actually go well with explaining the story events and they're told through Ishmael's pov which I find interesting because he adds his own comments here and there. His opinion is everywhere.
I'm also having brainrot over the story and it needs to stop
but today for the first time I listened to the audiobook version from an audio series I love ("Mi Novela Favorita", classic novel audiobook summaries I HIGHLY recommend if you know Spanish) and it was so much fun to hear the characters voice-acted and with the sound effects and all. Ofc it basically skipped over the encyclopedia-ishmael parts in favor of telling the story but I feel it kept the esscence very well (it completely excluded Pip though and I am extremely sad about that though) and with headphones it was like I was in 3rd person pov there hearing everything unfold and it was really great. 

Thank you it really helped (it didn't 😭 )

I was thinking on how it seems everyone here is getting sick and today I woke up feeling like I'm about to come down with something 💀 internet virus moment??

Why is it so easy to sit down and write blocks of chat text but when I want to sit down and write stuff on my word document my inspiration immediately disintegrates
(I am begging my motivation to let me finish my text on thoughts on Moby Dick)

Little inactivity notice, hopefully be back next weekend or next week!

Anddd it's been QUITE a while but I think the off days are finally over. It's been such a great time really but now I just want to glue myself to my bed and just never stand up again.
Classes started this week so we'll see how it goes. I also got an idea for a tiny personal project which might actually make it off the ground for once so lol. And uhhh yeah that's it I really want to get my hands on paper and draw but I'm so tired rn

https://youtu.be/dNBhtm4AlYo?si=U1qBpGj22rp4aoyE
His sacrifice will not be forgotten 😔

Trying to clean my keyboard with a lil brush and I'm finding so much cat hair that I'm actually concerned.
On another note I don't like being judged by evil Saga whenever I send a post.

SpecterTheGreat wrote:

Just thinking about how the Ba Sing Se arc shows that no matter how plucky your young protagonists are, they cannot win against bureaucracy.
And (that aside) the whole thing had very 1984 vibes. Yeesh, creepy.

This reminded me that my DND party has a running joke of hating buraucracy ha.

Just sitting there and filling out contracts for our jobs. Doing paperwork when we go into a new territory. Determining that the worst insult we could ever give someone is calling them bureaucrats. It's funny.

💯