Caleb Crain has a lovely post on re-reading Moby Dick for the umpteenth time, but in his 50s. He writes: What’s it like to read Moby-Dick when you’re Ahab’s age? There are probably a number of things I no longer see as acutely as when I had young eyes, but some elements are now in sharper focus. When young, I had only the vaguest sense, in any given chapter, where Ishmael was, geographically speaking. For me then, the important seas to be swimming through were of metaphor and feeling. Now I see that Melville is actually pretty careful to map the Pequod’s journey; in late middle age, my internal GPS module keeps better track of where I as a reader […]