What was the purpose of every 4th chapter being about cetology?

>>9569348
I notice this a lot on 4chan lately: people asking the most inept questions about great books, as if there were some deeper meaning in parts that were supposed to be funny, interesting, emotionally resonant, add layers of realism to the story, etc.

Do you want some allegorical essay brilliantly pinpointing how each of these chapters related to Melville's readings of Spinoza, Plato, and Shakespeare?

Will that make the book any more enjoyable to you? If I rationally over dissect and analyze it, if that's the only way you can care about it, what every part of it means, then hasn't the book already failed for you?

It's this trite attitude on /lit/ that the only purpose of a book is to make trite high-school tier essays about it talking about the political significance, the psychological significance, the philosophical significance, etc., of what certain parts "mean", why did the author write this part, that betrays the complete ineptitude of people on /lit/.

What was the significance of the fucking book, if you want to ask why the cetology chapters, why those descriptions? Do you think this is an equation, with a reasonable part for everything? What if you took out the cetology, took out the details about working on a ship, took out the detailed descriptions and every attempt to add realism in the book? Then you wouldn't have a book.

Did the book satisfy you? If not, then who cares? No explanation could satisfy you, the book has already failed. It's as if us two were standing next to each other as friends and I were telling you a joke or a story and were trying to recreate the scenery of the place with a few details, and you wondered why I mentioned those details. They're as much part of the story as anything else.

In short, you are a fucking idiot

The point was to show how, despite all the scientific knowledge we have on whales, there's still holes in this scientific knowledge, and still forever a philosophical inscrutability in wondering why Moby Dick did/does what he does ... despite all the attempt to rationalize everything, to be encyclopedic, there's still something subtle, elusive, and irrational in life that perpetually escapes our attempts to put it in order. The overly detailed nature of the chapters is meant to contrast against what we DON'T know about life --- why we're alive, why we do anything, the existence of God, and everything. Dumbass.

>>9569348
knowledge on whales wasn't easily accessible when Melville wrote the book, so he decided to compile encyclopedic information about whales in order to help the reader understand just what they were. since we live in an information age and most people have been to Sea World, feel free to skip these chapters

>>9569382
Thanks!

>>9569393
>skip the cetology chapters
There are two kinds of people in the world.

>>9569382
>I notice this a lot on 4chan lately: people asking the most inept questions about great books

This has always happened with /lit/. It's just easier to get a genuine response with a shitty question than with a plea for actual discussion, which arises better out of threads like these then with "serious" or "intelligent" OPs.

>>9569393
I didn't skip those chapters nor did I feel the need to, they just felt really out of place. Thankfully as >>9569382 pointed out there's definitely a lot more to them than I first thought. I'll have to give the book another read through with that in mind.

>>9569393
>feel free to skip these chapters
Some people deserve to be keelhauled

>>9569382
but why was the whale white

Most of the chapters have this self contained feeling to them which is great imo. I had the same thought when I was reading it as you did because you expect it to be some general narrative and it turns out to be so much more than that.

I'll never forget "the sermon"? I think it was called. Shit made me read the bible.

>>9569525
https://americanliterature.com/author/herman-melville/book/moby-dick-or-the-whale/chapter-42-the-whiteness-of-the-whale

>>9569382
this is a wonderful joke post that has been misunderstood by everyone else who replied

Nice work, anon

>>9569393
go fuck yourself

Reminder that Ahab is the protagonist

File: erdy.png (406KB, 601x389px) Image search: [Google]

406KB, 601x389px

>>9569382
great post desu

>>9569382
"dude just turn your brain off" the pasta

>what is the image/original problem

>>9569382
>Did the book satisfy you? If not, then who cares?

fuck off

>>9569382
You don't read books for satisfaction, you absolute mongoloid. You read them for knowledge, no matter how much they sting.

>>9569348
becaues the motherfucker got paid per word

>>9569753
I guess you don't listen to Beethoven or musicians for satisfaction, either. You listen to them for knowledge and moral ennoblement, apparently.

There's a lot of "traditionalists" on /lit/, and I don't know if they're ironic and know they're being ironic, or have been being ironic for so long they forgot they're being ironic.

There is NO point to reading Shakespeare, or Dante, or Proust. It will not make you a better person. Just like listening to Beethoven's quartets doesn't ennoble your soul. Sure, reading'll increase your (perhaps) ability to pay attention, to visualize new things, maybe even empathize with different characters and types of people ... but in the end, it doesn't matter. It's just masturbation, and potentially joyous masturbation, if you let it be.

You're a hypocrite. If you really were this puritan traditionalist you pose as, you wouldn't read novels at all. If you want knowledge and moral ennoblement, go join a monastery, or read religious/philosophical/didactic texts. Really good literature doesn't actually have anything that good for you in that respect, and you're deluding yourself if you think it does.

Has the novel Moby Dick bettered the world or made people any better?

>>9570227
>Has the novel Moby Dick bettered the world or made people any better?
Yes

>>9570236

the absolute certainty of this answer is only underscored by how much of a roaster >>9570227 is

stem fags shitposting on /lit/, who would've guessed

>>9569753
You are an idiot. Limiting reading to only "for knowledge" shows what a shallow creed you live by.

>>9570276
>go join a monastery, or read religious/philosophical/didactic texts
This board is made up of nothing but cattle.

>>9569753
Everyone point and laugh at this loser who thinks all literature can de distilled into knowledge.

>>9570284
Don't reply to me unless you can show that your IQ is higher than my 142 composite score on the WAIS-IV.

If I don't gain anything out of a book aside from "muh pleasure," it's absolutely useless to me.

>>9569348
Because Melville thought it was interesting and would give his novel extra verisimilitude

>>9570288
Be careful. You're part of this board too, little man.

>>9569753
And what the fuck is the point of it if it doesn't give you satisfaction?

>>9570303

stupid bait

>>9570288
Cattle? LMAO. I've read Nietzsche too, I was just suggesting to that poster what he might do if he really, sincerely, wants to say that literature is about knowledge, not satisfaction.

I agree with satisfaction in this thread. You can have satisfaction with the knowledge gained or also satisfaction in other areas such as the beauty of the text.

The novel's encyclopedic obsession with cetology reflects Ahab's obsession for a certain whale. But that's a single instance. There are others. The novel is utterly fantastic.

>>9569382
Good man. This has been my favorite book since I first read it and I don't understand why some people would skip the cetology chapters.

The cetology shit is boring. It weakens the narrative and all the 2 deep 4 u justifications for it are laughable.

>YOU SEE, THIS THING, MEANS, THIS OTHER THING

Give me a break. The "novel" is 5/10, all the intervening tedious whale bullshit is 0/10.

>>9569348
I like some of the other explanations, but for me I've always understood it as exposition for an era that may not have had a common-folk knowledge of whales, their anatomy, and their behavior. Same reason Melville fully illustrates the ship.

>>9572284
That's how I thought of it too. Moby Dick as a whale works so well because it was a more unknown creature in an ocean that was still mostly unexplored

>>9569348
>every 4th chapter being about cetology

More like 3/4 chapters

>>9572244
Boring and retarded bait. About as subtle as a bullet to the head. Here (You) go little boy.

>>9569418
"skip the cetology chapters" is one of my favorite pleb filters

The encyclopedic chapters are even better than the narrative though. 'The whiteness of the whale' is one of the best pieces of literature I've read in my life.