I’m getting frustrated with the foot notes or rather the ridiculous number of references. Sometimes they’re helpful with the language and some of the technical terms but a lot of the time there are these scholarly references that I don’t really understand. I was never incredibly good at history or mythology and it seems like that’s what the majority of them are about. With this being said, I also don’t find them all that effective. A lot of them are used to describe a situation or a person and because I’m unfamiliar with it I will look at the foot notes but even then I sometimes don’t understand what Melville is talking about.

I also find a lot of the details describing other people and voyages in the past were relatively useless. I feel as if it takes away from Ishmael’s voyage. It takes away from his experiences and sometimes makes it very unclear if these are his thoughts and meditations or if they are after thoughts when he is writing his narrative. I was used to reading and just floating through Ishmael’s thoughts but I’m getting impatient I think and I want more of the story line or even more about the whales. A lot of the time these references, which are supposed to enhance your understanding, don’t stick with me. It might just be because I don’t like the subjects Melville references but a lot of the time it takes away from the flow of the novel. There are many instances that a description or explanation in plain English would be much more productive. I almost find these references and sometimes instances of plagiarism (sometimes the footnotes say that the sentences are rewordings of the bible) to be pretentious. As if Melville is trying to prove his level of intellect and how much he researched by just throwing it all into one novel. I also see this plagiarism as counterproductive. Wasn’t Melville attempting to write a sacred text like the bible? Why would he use so many passages or variations of passages from the actual bible? It makes his writing seem inferior since he feels like he needs to paraphrase other writings. It takes away from his writing abilities which have been exemplified by his ability to describe physical things in such vivid detail.