Can we talk about that one guy at the library who argued 'Moby Dick' is a comedy?

Last Tuesday at a book club meetup in Denver, this older dude spent 20 minutes insisting Ahab's chase was a joke about obsession and laughed every time someone mentioned the whale. Has anyone else run into someone who totally misreads a classic and won't budge?

2 comments

2 Comments

brookerobinson2d ago

Did I accidentally write the comedy version of Moby Dick in my book report sophomore year?

robin4892d ago

Oh man, that's amazing. I did something similar with The Great Gatsby in junior year and turned it into a slapstick comedy about a guy who just couldn't stop throwing parties and chasing a green light that was really just a broken streetlamp. My teacher wrote "Is this satire?" in the margin and I had no idea what that word meant so I just wrote back "No, it's a book report." The whole thing was a mess. What did your version focus on? Was it the whale stuff or Ahab's crazy obsession?