A spoiler or two follows, but kids: The book is 170 years old. It's not my fault if you get spoiled.
There are some works of art that I am slow to getting to because the weight of their reputation makes them seem -- forgive me, teachers -- like homework. I didn't watch "The Godfather" for years for precisely that reason: It just seemed like too much. Then I watched it and fell in an obsessive kind of love.
Things about "Moby Dick" that I didn't expect:
* That it would be so gay.
* That it would be so funny.
* That it would be so much fun to occasionally read out loud to my wife and son. Some of Ahab's speeches are batshit!
* That it would steal so much dialogue from "Star Trek II."
* (That's a joke. But it's true that I walked into a video store once that had Gregory Peck's version of the "Moby Dick" movie playing on TV, right when he was giving the "round perdition's flame" speech and cracked wise: "They stole that from 'Star Trek II.'" And the clerk said: 'Really?")
* That the tedious cetology parts of the book would be soooooo tedious.
* That I would realize it's OK to skim through those parts.
* That (spoilers) the whale doesn't actually show up until the last three chapters or so.
* But that's ok -- it really is the journey that matter, kids!
* That this book would be so similar to "Heart of Darkness."
* That I would be so glad to have read it. And to have finished it.
It's worth tackling "homework" art, I find again and again. It's not art's fault that it gets turned into homework -- it's often the result of being so good that it's worth handing along to new generations and new readers and viewers. "Moby Dick" reminded me of that.
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