Saturday, October 11, 2008

Moby Dick- Extra Chapters

I thought, just for fun, we could make a list of all the chapters of Moby Dick that could be easily deleted from the book without harm to the main storyline. For example, Etymology and Extracts, while interesting, add little value to the main storyline of Ahab, Ishmael, and Moby Dick.

12 comments:

PWM said...

Let me get the ball rolling, I've already listed Etymology and Extracts. I think Chapter 1 is necessary for introducing Ishmael, but I think Chapter II "The Carpet-Bag" could just as easily be cut.

HollenBackGirl said...

Here's my list to date of chapters that could *easily* be eliminated:

8 - The Pulpit
23 - The Lee Shore (reunite us with Bulkington and then casually mention he will die, but not tell us any more about him.. ever? GAH!)
32 - Cetology
40 - Forecastle-Midnight (Yes, it shows the life of the sailor, but doesn't offer us anything else to advance the plot. It does introduce Pip, but alas, here I am THIRTY-FOUR chapters later and have yet to hear Pip's name mentioned again!)
42 - The Whiteness of the Whale (Previously discussed in the Quotations post)
54 - The Town Ho's Story (Herein lie my so disliked characters, Steelkit and Radney)
55 - Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
56 - Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes
57 - Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars (No, I am NOT kidding, it really is the title of the chapter! Pages 221 to 244 of my book could be ripped out without damaging the story line at all.)

HollenBackGirl said...

More chapters that can be tossed aside like a yellow snowball:

74 - The Sperm Whale's Head - Contrasted View
75 - The Right Whale's Head - Contrasted View
76 - The Battering Ram
79 - The Prairie
80 - The Nut
82 - The Honor and Glory of Whaling
83 - Jonah Historically Regarded
85 - The Fountain
86 - The Tail

and thus, hopefully, concludes the whale anatomy lesson...

PWM said...

I might be a bit harsher than you, but I would also discard
Chapter VI "The Street"
Chapter VII "The Chapel"
I agree, Chapter VIII "The Pulpit" seems a waste of paper.
Chapter XIV "Nantucket"

PWM said...

I concur with XXIII "The Lee Shore", XXXII "Cetology", XL "Midnight, Forecastle", and XLII "Whiteness of the Whale".
But I also think that XXIV "The Advocate" could be dropped, as well as,
XXV "Postscript"
XXXIII "The Specksynder"
XXXV "The Mast-Head"
XXXVII "Sunset"
XXXVIII "Dusk"
XXXIX "First Night-Watch"

HollenBackGirl said...

I think that you will, indeed, be much more harsh with your red editor's pen than I. If a chapter has even 1 or 2 redeeming and plot forwarding lines, I'll leave it..

That being said, here's another list:
90 - Heads or Tails
95 - The Cassock
96 - The Tryworks
97 - The Lamp
98 - Stowing Down and Cleaning Up
101 - The Decanter
102 - A Bower in the Arsacides
103 - Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton
104 - The Fossil Whale
105 - Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?

I'm thinking an easier and shorter list would be "Chapters worth reading" =)

PWM said...

I agree, chapters worth reading would have been a shorter list, but then how would we have known that back then? I would like to add (for easily deleted):
XLV "The Affadavit"
LIV "The Town-ho story" (I agree, Steelkit and Radney have no bearing on the main story!)
LV, LVI, LVII "Whales in Art" chapters. (I agree; I really couldn't care less about representations of whales in art)
LVIII "Brit" (we're hunting sperm whales, not right whales)
LX "The Line"
LXII "The Dart"
LXIII "The Crotch"(Each interesting in their whale hunting relevence but unnecessary for this story- at least so far).

HollenBackGirl said...

These can easily be skipped/deleted:
106 - Ahab's Leg
107 - The Carpenter
108 - Ahab and the Carpenter
111 - The Pacific
112 - The Blacksmith
114 - The Gilder
115 - The Pequod Meets the Bachelor
116 - The Dying Whale
122 - Midnight Aloft -- Thunder and Lightning [The chapter's title is nearly as long as the chapter itself..]
127 - The Deck

However, at the same time there are some CRUCIAL chapters mixed in:
109 - Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin
110 - Queequeg in his Coffin
113 - The Forge
117 - The Whale Watch
118 - The Quadrant
123 - The Musket
124 - The Needle
126 - The Life Buoy

PWM said...

More chapters to go (only those you haven't already listed since you are a kinder editor):
LXV "The Whale As A Dish"
LXVII "Cutting In" (because I really don't care to know how to butcher a whale"
LXVIII "The Blanket"
LXIX "The Funeral"
LXXVII "The Great Heidelburgh Tun"
LXXXIV "Pitchpoling"

PWM said...

And two more that you didn't mention:
XCII: Ambergris
XCIV: A Squeeze of the Hand (although the quote you chose out of this chapter was great, overall the chapter does not contribute anything to the plot)

PWM said...

For the most part, I agree with your list of chapters to cut. However, I thought that Chapter CVI "Ahab's Leg" was an important chapter for giving further insight into Ahab's personality and his feelings about his lost leg.

PWM said...

And that concludes our list of chapters that could easily have been left out of the book without otherwise harming the plot.