The kids and I enjoyed this mystery-solving crew. Grandpa generously volunteers his wheels and his journalistic expertise to help his grandkids and frThe kids and I enjoyed this mystery-solving crew. Grandpa generously volunteers his wheels and his journalistic expertise to help his grandkids and friends track down the fortune of Al Capone. As they try to figure out the mystery of where Al Capone hid his fortune, they get caught up in another, related mystery about a local newspaper owner. It kept us intrigued and had a few good twists to the mystery....more
It's best if you know who the captain of your ship is and what he's truly after.
When I first aspired to be a Literary Person, I knew Moby-Dick was oneIt's best if you know who the captain of your ship is and what he's truly after.
When I first aspired to be a Literary Person, I knew Moby-Dick was one of those books I should be able to talk about at parties. But I didn't really want to read it. It sounded intimidating and I wasn't sure I had the skills to read it without a professor guiding me through and I (unknowingly) went to a college and majored in English at a time when no one bothered with the classics by old dead white mean anymore. We read shocking new books or niche reads by underrepresented authors, but no one ever made me read the famous books, the impressive books, the ones I felt I needed to read. At a certain point I gave myself permission to just read what interested me, and Moby-Dick never did. I decided I didn't need to read it to legitimize myself as a Literary Person, and probably told many people I'd never read it.
And then one of our trusted friends told me he'd finished it and his first thought was "I'm not worthy to have read this book." I already knew an author I admired considered it her favorite book. I think most of all I felt I could finally approach it not as something I should read but as something I wanted to read. I wondered how it fit in with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and The Odyssey, two stories I've come to love after making them a part of my curriculum. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to make it my summer reading challenge for 2025.
I'm so glad I did.
Herman Melville builds the momentum and intrigue to an absolute breaking point by the end of the 135 chapters. He sets the stage by introducing his main character, Ishmael, as he comes to work on the Pequod. Ishmael serves as our proxy on the ship. He's curious about everything and eager to explain it to us. Everywhere Ishmael goes, we get to learn more about whaling--coastal towns, harpooners, whale species, life at sea--and every detail adds the intrigue of the plot. Had I read this twenty years ago, I may have been annoyed by all the "side quests" for information, but I appreciate that he knows his readers wouldn't have had access to wikipedia, so they couldn't really look up "how do you get oil from whales?" or "where is Queequeg from?" at that time. He helpfully, and often humorously, puts all the pieces in place.
And then we finally meet Captain Ahab. If you come to the book now, you likely have some cultural knowledge of this one-legged, single-minded character (as I did), but I really hadn't realized how much Melville makes us wait to meet him. We're with Ishmael, already signed up for a multiple year journey on this boat before we find out that the one who gets to decide everyone's fate is definitely not to be trusted. He's on a quest for revenge, a fact he doesn't reveal until they are well out to sea.
And here is where my eyes went wide with horror and anticipation, because suddenly this ship symbolized everything about life that I've come to know. Our fate is set not only by our free choices, but by the uncertain storms of chance that surround us, and the strong cords of fate that bind us, and by the uncontrollable motives of others. Captain Ahab is both a frightening captain and a representation of a cruel and self-centered master. Before I get on a ship, I should want to know who is steering my course.
For me, learning to love a book is almost always relational. My enthusiasm branches out from someone else's excitement about a book. If I end up choosing a book that no one I know has read, I often seek out wisdom from others. An example of a book that helped me develop a love for The Odyssey would be An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic and also Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad. Both were written by people who loved and had lived with The Odyssey for many years. Their knowledge and excitement were contagious. I wasn't as intimidated by reading Moby-Dick as I might have been years before, because I know so much more about the works it is in conversation with. But I'm still hoping to find an enthusiastic companion read to help me appreciate it even more....more
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