These chapters were the beginning of the action in the book.  It really was able to keep me reading without wondering off in random verse.  One of the parts in which ifound interesting had to be when they beleive they have spotted Moby Dick and everyone is freaking out and running to their stations to prepare to disembark and harpoon her.  I do get quite dissapointed when they lose her and Ahab i bet is pissed and is just trying to hide his emotions for the most part.  One thing that i admire about Ahab that Melvile didn’t really get to until now, was how precise Ahab was.  Being precise is like, what i like to do when im in charge.  I organize a whole lot of shows and benefits and when you’re the “captain” you have to be very preise and think things over very well before taking action, and i admire that about Ahab.  Its a great attribute and will be very beneficial towards the crew.  Its almost like having a small amount of OCD.

One other part that reallyinterested me had to be when Melville tries to explain what a gam is…. or  a meeting of tow or more whale ships… and completely and most possibly just made up that word on the spot just to mess woth our heads.  I kind of love it whenhe does that because it just keeps you on your toes for what is to come, and to read a little closer.

I liked these chapters a lot for the most part.  I was really interested in how there were a bunch of men hiding in th depths of the boat for the whole time and just popped out of nowhere at this point int the book.  It was also really interesting in chapter 43 how  Cabaco and his mate heard the men, and Cabaco’s mate was just like… “It was nothin.”  It gives some flair for the upcoming scene where the men just pop out and are finally part of the book.  I find it interesting how they’re all mostly from the Philippines, so maybe that means something??? They seem to be sailing mighty closeby according to the map of their travels…

I also enjoyed how Melville talks about Ahab in these chapters.  We the readers get a closer look into his past with Moby Dck and are able to see why he would have such a huge grudge on the leviathan. 

“He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his bloody nails in his palms.” pg 174

This kind of quote just completely displays how much Ahab wants to get back at Moby Dick, and basically shows that he will shed blood to do so.  But some questions that could be asked are, How far would he take his men to acheive what he wanted? Would he sink his ship over killing Moby Dick?  Its very interesting to see whats going to happen next.

One other part which i perticularly liked was when Melville goes on to talk about other whaling accidents and the accounts with the Essex where he vividly decribes what happened to the ship.  It really was intriegueing to find out, and also kind of foreshadowed what might happen to Ahabs crew if they persist in their search for the infamous Moby Dick.

These chapters really were not as great as I expected them to be.  Melville did his really annoying rant about Moby Dick and it really gets on my nerves when he starts to do that.  His writing when he does that is really great, and really is able to capture the moment really well and makes it feel as if you were right next to the leviathan yourself but then after a while you just start skipping lines… then paragraphs…. then pages cause you just can’t take it after the first couple of pages.

What was inetersting though, had to be when Melville goes into how much of a grudge Ahab has against Moby Dick.  Just the way Melville talks about Ahab and Moby is just awesome… One of the key lines of these two chapters… and the whole voyage at that was:

 ”Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one all-engrossing object of hunting the white whale.” pg. 162

Its just so straight forward… he could’ve just said that and finished the chapter taka taka, but no… Melville did what he did best and went into the story and over explained the situation once more and just overkillled what he was trying to say.  I beleive that there should be a term for over expanding your ideas.  It deftinitely should be: to melville- a thought or idea that has been pushed to its expanding extremes.  It would completely work too in a real life situation.

The Whiteness of the Whale was quite a confusing chapter with a lot going on, and Melville melvilled it and went on a humongous rant once more.  I would really like to get to the meat of the book, and not just hear him ranting forever… When will there be action???  When will they show the crew preparing to catch a whale?

These chapters were quite interesting since we were finally able to meet the relentless captain Ahab, who i think was not as intimidating as i thought he would be.  I though he would be like, the definition of pure evil, but was deftinitely more like a scary old guy… with a whale peg leg…. i guess its kind of scary, but i think that Melville built up on Ahab soo much that he made the entrance of Ahab a lot less intense than it should have been.  I guess Melville has a tendency to do that, like when he was commenting about the “great book” he was writing.  Everything is just way over done, and makes the reader impatient. 

Another part of the reading I enjoyed was basically meeting everyone aboard the ship.  Its just very interesting because you’re meeting a whole bunch of crazy sailors bent on killing whales.  Obviously theres something really interesting about every one of them.  One thing that just popped into my head was Elijah… I really don’t like him fortelling their fate, its just really annoying, and i would rather see him suffer his fate without having known about it beforehand.  It just ruins the climax of the book because you just analyze what hes trying to say, and you’re like “oh… crap hes gonna die towards the end of this book, thanks for telling me the end of you’re book Melville?” Its like predicting the end of a movie, and you know exactly what is going to happen.

This section of the book was interesting and really was able to flesh out what you actually do when you are whaling.  I can see now how you could actually go whaling after reading this book.  It really was able to describe whaling pretty well in a short and sweet version during this section.  I guess you would be able to know a whole lot more after reading the rest of Moby Dick, but how would you be able to tell wether Melville is telling the truth?  He just messes with my head now… Im not sure what to beleive or what not to.  Im not even sure if i can trust this section of the book about whaling.  I can see why people didn’t really enjoy his book when it first came out, and were just really annoyed about his ways of playing with the human mind.

Another interesting part of this section was that it provided some nice and detailed pictures which were all labeled and was able to show all parts of the ship, and what was used when and on what.  I always like pictures, so this part was quite enjoyable for me and drove me to keep on reading to just get to the next picture and more or less just look at the pictures and just skim through the pages.  I guess i was able to get a pretty good read on it just by looking at some of the pictures.  I just thought it was great, and will be able to guide us through the book, so when they mention some crazy part of the ship, we’ll just look back at the whalecraft section and be like… “ohh…. that… right…”

These chapters really were very interesting and left me wondering what to expect next.  I am really bent on eventually meeting captain Ahab, who is apparently sick but getting better.  I find it really bizzare that he had his leg torn off by a whale… who was chomping on it.  Not so pleasant and doesn’t seem so plausible.  The other captains, other than the non-appearing Ahab, seem to not be so normal at all and have a big disliking for most cannibals like our friend Queepueg.  They also question him about his religion, but Queepueg never answers himself, its always Ishmael who answers for him.  Throughout the novel so far, we have only heard Queepueg speak twice, which is odd because he is a big part of the novel.  When they are discussing the shares with Queepueg, i found it awesome that Queepueg would get a 19th of everything which is quite a lot of money.  It really isn’t great about Ishmael though, who will only be receiving a 300th.

Another part of this reading which really caught my interest was when Ishmael was trying to get into the room because he thought something may have happened to Queepueg.  Well, when he got into the room and saw Queepueg in that uncomfortable position, it just amazed me how dilligent and committed Queepueg actually was to his religion.  He was able to stay in that same position till sunrise, which is quite a feat.  I also found it nice of Ishmael to give Queepueg a jacket while he was squatting there in his awkward position over night as well.  One question that came to mind, was why he might have had his god figure on top of his head the whole time?  

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