Book Report: Harry Potter and the Great White Whale

On the way back home from San Diego, I read the new Harry Potter book. But apparently I'm not allowed to talk about it for fear of spoilers, even though it sold a million billion copies and everyone on the internet has already read it. But it's a secret! Can't talk about it! Shh!

Luckily for you, I finished Moby Dick while I was in the San Diego airport. I'm pretty impressed with myself for finishing it so quickly. And normally I'd be embarassed about telling you about how impressed with myself I am, but I figure, hey, it's the internet, this is pretty much how things go, right? And since I only started the 650-page, legendarily-difficult book on Wednesday, that's pretty good.

What really surprises me, though, is that I enjoyed it. I wasn't even having to force myself to read it! Well, I had to force myself to find time to read, which is always an issue in the middle of a vacation when you've got an enormous brick-like books glaring at you, but once the book was open, it wasn't much effort to turn the pages. It helped that Melville writes in various voices, so that when Ahab goes into one of his weird Biblical speeches, you know it'll only be a few pages before the prose settles down.

I found that there wasn't enough Ishmael for my taste. It turns out that the book is partly written from the point of view of Ishmael, and partly by an omniscient narrator who, if you ask me, talks in a pretty highfalutin' way. Ishmael is more fun. Frankly, my favorite park of the book was the beginning, when Ishmael was just hanging out with Queequeg. Things kind of slow down once they get on board the Pequod.

Also, maybe I wasn't reading carefully enough, but I don't quite get the connection between Starbuck and coffee. First of all, it's pretty distracting having a character named "Starbuck" around; the whole time I was trying not to think about espressos and Cylons. For that matter, "Ahab" is weird too. Subconsciously, you expect the characters to realize Ahab is a monomaniacal nut. I mean, he's called "Captain Ahab" -- isn't that a bit of a giveaway? But back to Starbuck -- there is a scene where Starbuck and coffee are mentioned, but he doesn't seem that interested if you ask me.

Oh, wait -- further research (which would, in fact, be "any research at all") reveals that there's no connection between the coffee store and the character. That explains that, I guess.

My only real objection to the book is that the big climax is kind of hard to follow. I knew what was going on and I still had to read it three times to find the spot where the whale destroys the ship and Ahab goes down. I even knew what page it was on, but it was kind of buried in the onslaught of words. And then the book ends really suddenly, which I found awkward. Aside from that, though, I quite enjoyed it.

So like I say, I finished Moby Dick in the San Diego airport (650 pages, about five days) and then hit Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on the flight home (650 pages, about five hours). Frankly, I thought the Harry Potter book also ended kind of abruptly, but I'm not allowed to tell you why. There's a code of silence, you know.