Thursday, September 1, 2011

Moby-Dick :: PreReading, Explanations & Reasons Why

It may have been Hurricane Irene that blew through the east coast of Virginia last weekend, or it may be something that by adding another year to my age has changed a foundational pier in me, or it may be that it is just time - finally - to read this tome.  Moby-Dick  has been calling to me over this past week ... read me ... REEEAD MEee...  And you should know, Moby-Dick  has never called to me before, in fact more of the opposite is true, I have shunned every opportunity prior, until now, to read this book.

So here I am - starting this year's the "one thing I will do every day for an entire year" - a practice I started in 2003. (I have done a different activity each year - never the same activity two years in a row.) This, however, will be the first time I will make the string of experiences and my personal musings available on the web through this Moby Dick in 365 days blog.

These are my reasons for writing this blog:
  • read Moby-Dick  (I know, a bit of a duh)
  • the 365 day thing
  • learn how to create and maintain a blog
  • improve my writing with a mandatory writing assignment
  • and hopefully, connect with others through this literary classic

Well, that is way too much about me, and not enough about this classic, Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

There are 135 chapters in Moby-Dick. And thankfully very short chapters they are. Reading Moby-Dick  in one year averages about one chapter every three days. This is completely doable.

The volume I am reading is from the Barnes & Noble Classics collection - a rather large perfect bound book; I hope it can withstand 365 days of being handled. I was hoping for a smaller volume like the Everyman's Library collection published by Knopf, something pocket sized and hardback, to add to my own small book collection, but when I went to the B&N bookstore this edition was the only one. In fact, it took myself and the sales clerk over twenty minutes to locate even one copy of Moby Dick  in the store. We each looked in several sections (including the back room - twice). But this intense searching and not easily finding made the trip much more memorable, as I suppose the classic beginning of any worthwhile hero's journey, or heroine's journey, should be! Yes - I am taking this as an omen of the year ahead and an indicator of what may come.

So I will start, in my next post, Moby-Dick in 365 days. Maybe you will choose to read along with me. As I said before, it is a good thing these chapters are short, most under ten pages, completely doable.

Trust Your Journey (tm)
 ~ ijil Rainbow Hawk Giver

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