-
All books
-
-
-
- Buddhism (1)
- By Clive Erricker
-
Reading since 2010
-
-
-
-
- Un mese con Montalbano (6506)
- By Andrea Camilleri
-
Finished in Dec 2011
-
-
-
-
- Moby-Dick (1359)
- (Penguin Classics)
- By Herman Melville
-
Finished on Nov 22, 2011
-
-
-
-
- Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira (129)
- By José Saramago
-
Finished in Jan 2011
-
-
-
Una lettura magnifica!
- — Jan 20, 2011 | Add your feedback
-
-
-
-
- Adolescents homosexuels (1)
- Des préjugés à l'acceptation
- By Élisabeth Thorens-Gaud
-
Finished in 2010
-
-
-
-
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (1704)
- By Stieg Larsson
-
Finished in 2010
-
-
-
-
- Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (13986)
- By Italo Calvino
-
Finished in 2010
-
-
-
La Sicile islami-
que -
- La Sicile islamique (2)
- By Ahmad Aziz
-
Finished in 2010
-
-
-
Troppo rari sono i libri che trattano del periodo islamico della Sicilia. Non certo scritto con criterio letterario e non particolarmente avvincente o piacevola da leggere, "La Sicile islamique" (traduzione dall'originale inglese) di Aziz Ahmad ci offre, nonostante i suoi difetti, uno scorcio prezio ... (continue)
- — Jan 21, 2010 | Add your feedback
-
La Sicile islami-
-
-
-
- Middlesex (1016)
- By Jeffrey Eugenides
-
Finished in 2010
-
-
-
Hermaphroditism is a very rare topic in leisure literature. Eugenides succeeds in telling the amazing and fascinating story of Calliope, a Greek-American brought up as a girl, who finds herself being a genetic male when she/he reaches puberty. Deeply psychological, this touching novel is also import ... (continue)
- — Mar 1, 2010 | Add your feedback
-
-
-
-
- A descoberta da America pelos turcos (8)
- Romancinho
- By Jorge Amado
-
Finished in 2010
-
-
-
-
- La desinenza in A (134)
- By Carlo Dossi
-
Finished in 2009
-
-
-
-
- Fuori da un evidente destino (8171)
- By Giorgio Faletti
-
Finished in 2009
-
-
-
-
- Una sera dell'anno Mille (35)
- Scene di Medioevo
- By Glauco M. Cantarella
-
Finished in 2009
-
-
-
-
- Gli indifferenti (8324)
- By Alberto Moravia
-
Finished in 2009
-
RSS feeds: subscribe to Alessandro Persia's shelf
Moby-Dick
Oh my Holy Goodness Gracious! When has it last occurred to me to need five months! - not three, not four: five! - to read a book? It almost felt like I was traveling myself on the Pequod along with Ishmael, Queequeg, Ahab and the rest of the crew: a harsh, long protracted journey by the slow rhythm ... (continue)
Oh my Holy Goodness Gracious! When has it last occurred to me to need five months! - not three, not four: five! - to read a book? It almost felt like I was traveling myself on the Pequod along with Ishmael, Queequeg, Ahab and the rest of the crew: a harsh, long protracted journey by the slow rhythm of a Nineteenth Century sailboat. And as difficult and lengthy and tortuous as it may have been, I enjoyed it. How's that possible? Well, just as some people enjoy to spend a night in a cold, humid tent among mosquitoes and other bugs yet without a bed and a bathroom while they could just as well spend that night in a comfortable hotel room; just as those people did I enjoy a rustic, comfortless journey reading through the "pagewaves" of this lofty, glorious "bookocean". Having understood by far not all of it's 1851-old, literary, experimental and oftentimes technical language (I should however add that I am not a native English speaker), and this having contributed to understand only fragments of it's convoluted complexity (which, of course, is not merely due to the language, but knowing English well does help), I shall nevertheless always carry with me a cherished memory of the hard reading work done between June 22nd and November 22nd 2011 (I told you it was exactly five months. And I didn't even cheat: it happened completely by chance. Bringing back the volume to the library - being aware i had renewed the loan an almost embarrassing amount of times -, I asked the librarian to remind me when I had first taken it, and she told me: 22nd of June. Maybe it's a sign of something rich and strange...).
But from now on, I shall never forget that no matter how many lungs a fish has, no matter how boiling hot his blood: arguing that because of such trivialities he cannot be a fish is simply humbug, or at least an insufficient reason. I shall never forget that no matter how many whales men will hunt, the whale is immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. There are simply too many sperm whales in the seas to be all killed by our greedy species. I shall never forget that if you take high abstracted man alone, he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. I shall never forget the heart and will I got, reading that not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out.
And as much as these few examples may give the impression I'm making fun of "Moby Dick or The Whale" (true blasphemy!), it is not the case, let me state this very clearly. Especially, in this contemporary fast pacing world of ours, we all too often rely on some so-called scientific truths, forgetting that any human truth is just one definition of an immanent objective truth. I constantly forget to remind this to myself. Perhaps, carrying this great novel of Captain Ahab chasing the giant White Whale across the world will help me keeping that in mind more often. I wish you a trying yet most worthwhile reading.
Is this helpful?