Moby Dick - What a Tale!

Have you ever picked up a book you once read long ago, and found it was like reading a completely different novel? While finishing up a couple of my own projects (which should have been finished a l-o-o-o-n-g time ago, but that's a whole different story) I happened to pick up Moby Dick, the classic by Herman Melville. I slogged through that book as an adolescent, primarily to be able to brag that I had actually read what many claimed to be the Great American Novel. I did find it boring and hard to finish, but I achieved my goal.

This time around--WHOA!

Okay, I'm only twenty-three chapters in, and the Pequod has just set out to sea, but no one told me that the first part of the book could be billed as a comedy! Herman Melville has such a wry, sarcastic humor, and he paints such a comic, vivid image of the colorful characters and setting in the beginning, that I have been cracking up out loud all the way! I guess I have broad enough background now to get tongue-in-cheek allusions, nor am I so intimidated that I believe everything an author says must be deadly serious. 

Yes, I know that the story is about to turn much darker, but so far I've been having a lot of fun with Ishmael and Queequeg. By the way, I even understood what "sons of bachelors" means now! :)