haha, i'm discounting your opinions because they're dumb opinions. the high-schooler thing was not a dig - i meant to give you an excuse.
if your problem with moby-dick and the old man and the sea was, as you say, about lack of action, then there's no way you could have enjoyed hamlet. it is a play about nothing happening. the entire play is built on prince hamlet's refusal to act. there is a death and a fight with pirates but both are deliberately off-stage, and apart from polonius' murder, there is no real action until the very last scene.
in the old man and the sea, hemingway is reacting against both the romantic and modernist sides of moby-dick. melville takes a whaling voyage and turns it into a metaphysical drama, a gigantic ridiculous conversation between himself and the reader on any number of topics. his prose is used to build ideas up, to make things seem greater and more important than they are. he infuses everything with meaning.
hemingway strips the same story down to the barest form it can take. he leaves his prose plain, in order not to add anything beyond what the events of the story will tell. he is interested in letting a story speak for itself, and he thinks the author's job is to convey, as simply and clearly as possible, what is happening - not what it is supposed to mean. that is why the old man and the sea is so effective: it is a thrilling, suspenseful story told without any trimmings at all. moby-dick, like hamlet, delays action to build character and suspense, and to make room for musings on the author's part. the old man and the sea is the complete opposite. there is nothing except the action of the story.
i believe that you didn't enjoy them, but you might want to look at your reasons again. moby-dick in particular is very difficult to enjoy until one has developed the taste for technical excellence. that takes a long time, and requires a lot of reading and appreciation of other media. (i don't think you have this yet, because you still imagine there to be a difference between "enjoyable" and "scholastic" reading, and that the mark of a good story is that it has a "second level".) sorry if you thought i was laughing at your age, i'm not; i find it very impressive that anyone in high school is reading things like moby-dick and hamlet, especially on their own. but it's probably wise to admit to yourself that there's a vast amount of literature that you are not yet familiar with, and that biologically your brain has not yet finished developing. (i have to admit this too, whenever i get on my personal soapbox.) moby-dick is consistently cited as one of the greatest novels of all time, by people who have studied in the field for decades. if it's not speaking to you right now, it's not melville's fault. come back to it in a couple of years, and see how you feel.
I guess I will answer your post in the order in which you wrote it. First of all, the problem with Moby Dick is not a lack of action so much as a lack of focus on the plot, and as a
result, the lack of "action". By action, I am not referring to sword fights or daring escapades, but rather to what ACTUALLY HAPPENS in the story. "Action", then, is not necessarily physical action, but the buildup to and continuous threat of that action. In
Hamlet, there is a danger in nearly every scene that he will suddenly go crazy and start killing people(as does happen at times even before the end, such as when he kills Polonius, which you mentioned). Apart from that, there is the wit and general level of speech that builds up the tension, builds up the
possibility of action. Every single scene leads the reader closer and closer to the final conflict, and NOTHING happens that does not aid in this endeavor.
Now, I am not denying that Moby Dick has its passages of wit, humor, as well as "action" as I have defined it. HOWEVER, like I said, that one-half of tremendous book is bogged down by the other half consisting of various intricacies of the whaling industry that have little or no bearing on the story, and so lack "action". They neither build tension nor seem to lead to any sort of development. They are just THERE, and while I cannot deny that
Moby Dick is half-enjoyable, most would argue that "half-enjoyable" is not a desirable characteristic in such a hulking novel.
As for
The Old Man and the Sea, how can you honestly claim it lacks "trimmings"? The ONLY decent argument I have ever heard as to why to read it is because Hemingway adds a "second level" of meaning to it. You are incorrect in me stating that having a "second level" makes a story interesting or enjoyable--what it makes a story is COMPLEX and THOUGHT-PROVOKING. Hemingway adds a remarkable amount of description to
The Old Man and the Sea, however, the reason I do not find it complex or worthy of thought is because I honestly do not believe there is any rhyme or reason to it, it's just THERE, which makes the "second level" of The Old Man and the Sea detrimental, not beneficial as you claim I said.
As for "enjoyable" and "scholastic" reading, I think it is quite clear there is a marked difference between them. Scholastic reading is reading wherein the goal of the reader is to deepen his or her understanding of the world around him or her, or to otherwise better oneself through reading. This is why people read books like the Bible-they honestly believe it will enrich their lives somehow. "Enjoyable" reading is reading done for pleasure, plain and simple. Few people would argue that
Harry Potter is a life-changing series of books(at least, I hope it wasn't for many people). Yet, so many read it. Why? Because they
had fun reading the series. It seems as clear as day to me that there is a difference between scholastic and enjoyment reading. As for
Moby Dick being a critically aclaimed novel...in the current day, it is. However, in the fifty years following it's publication,
Moby Dick was largely panned and ignored by critics, and Melville died in poverty. It was not always loved by "the critics"(I only just realized what a broad generalization this is, and I apologize for using it, but by it I intend to mean "the vast majority of critics"), so why is it loved now? Are the critics now more sophisticated or better educated or more insightful than their 19th century counterparts? I doubt it. In short, how a book is received by the public only goes a little ways in determining how it will affect any given individual.
Now then, I would like to end this rant(and sadly, I will admit this was a bit of a rant, I can't seem to help myself sometimes and apologize if my points seem disorganized or jumbled) by pointing out that ultimately, the "scholastic" merits of a book hold little water in the context of this thread. My understanding is that what people are looking for here are "enjoyable" books, as I have defined them, and not life-changing ones. Also, argue as we may, no matter how thoroughly one or the other of us proves a book is "good", it comes down to the reader to either enjoy it OR be touched by it. As such, I see no reason to continue to argue over this...I, for one, know I am changed for the worse while in an argument, particularly online, and so my continuing to argue only harms myself and, possibly, you(I have no way of knowing how you respond to arguments either physically or mentally). Of course, it would be unfair of me to just say "alright, argument over" after I have posted a substantial "last word" of sorts, so I fully expect you to attempt(and quite possibly successfully attempt in the minds of many readers) to refute my arguments. I merely wish to say that I hope I have not offended anyone or earned any lasting enemies, my goal was simply to explain my point in a thorough manner and then move on. As for my age(it is the one thing I have been avoiding up until this point), I fully expect to change my views on many topics over the years, but that does not make any of my points, here in the present, any less valid. Alright, sorry for what I am certain must have been abundant grammatical mistakes, disorganization, and generally confusedness, but I am too tired to proof-read this whole post again. Friends, Dr. Heartbreak(and everyone else, for that matter)?
