NavList:

I feel liberated after reading these Moby Dick posts on the Nav List. I can finally come out of the closet. I am not alone!

I read the book; nay, I fought, struggled, clawed my way through it in the 1990s and after several months, finished it with the same level of mental and physical exhaustion as I would had I been forced to crawl one mile through rose bushes and broken glass.

Why did I not give up when it became apparent that it was not to my liking? Because it is considered a “must-read” classic and I felt ignorant and backwards that I had not read it.  A buddy of mine warned me that it was painful, but I took it on, nonetheless, because my friend was a bit of a sour puss and generally gave negative reviews of most things.  But he was right about Moby Dick. Awful, painful, tedious book.  Russian novelists have nothing on Melville where tedium is concerned; or at least his Moby Dick work.

Taxes,  Death and Moby Dick.