A Book Report using Cliff's Notes (a non-scholarly review)

A Book Report using Cliff's Notes  ( a non-scholarly review)

 

The Whale filled several hundred pages

the one-legged captain

harpooned his dream

and in the end

went overboard

with his quest

 

and then in jest

Ishmael told the others

to call him

finding later on

that to be the first line of the novel

he never figured out the folly

 

involved in trying to end

the great white annoyance

that took so many pages

to explain---

we read it in high school

pretty Moby to say the least

 

Book reports drowned our free time

waves of motion sickness

froze vacation days

as the ship rocked

and our eyes blurred from the spray

the whale upended all of us

 

at one time or another

some say a classic

others just want to leave the vessel

and read a good horror novel

 

rather than suffer the horror

that occurs once

we have gotten past 

the introductions with Ishmael.

 

 

erin-cilberto

9/30/25

Reviews

[redzone]

Moby Dick, probably the most well-known revenge story outside the Bible. "I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee." Curious, isn't it. Where does this "hate" come from? From the white whale? From the deaths the whale caused? Or perhaps because Ahab couldn't over come it, or kill it? The indocrination doesn't start at home, but in our schools, continues forward when our young are trained as mass murderers in the army, as they see "buddies" die, and then come home to become the police who shoot down people in the streets without a trial. Or the drive-bys, too many of our youth are caught up in. REVENGE!!! "It's a dish best served cold! And it's personalized - "I am Ishmel".

I for one not only "want to leave the vessel", I want a whole new society where "right doesn't make right", where it is not based on "the last shall be first and the first last", but where we all pull together to end all oppression's chains and build a new society based on cooperation to solve the problems we face. And we will write the "Cliff Notes" for that 'classic'.

Are you up for reading some Stephen King, Jacob??
-Curt

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I just read his new series with the character Holly...

Both books were really good.read moreI just read his new series with the character Holly...

Both books were really good.

Thanks for your thoughts on the Moby poem.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I have read just about everything King has written and I have read everything Koontz has written.read moreI have read just about everything King has written and I have read everything Koontz has written.
Both are favorites.

[Green]

I never had to read Moby Dick for school and that’s good because I don’t think the majority of the class would have. I had since read it for myself and I much prefer your version. I always read the books in school but sometimes I fully support the cliff notes version.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your understanding review. We had to read so many dry books because they were considered "classics."
Appreciate your visit, Green.
j.