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[Quinn]

I finished the novel just a few days ago. I must say, while certain parts of it dragged, as most novels are apt to do, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and even more so the ideas examined. I have a thing for the romantics; the dark romantics perhaps a bit more so; this story and the struggles with faith and fate that it delves into quite appealed to me. I became rather attached to Ahab's first mate Starbuck...a highly admirable character, and Stubb made me laugh even as the Pequod dragged him from life. Melville was wrestling with ideas of fate and such when he wrote this and these kinds of struggles are still pertinent today...I like books when their message, written a hundred years ago, remains alive.