After reading What ‘Moby Dick’ Means to Me, written by Philip Hoare, I discovered a lot of interesting points that needed to be addressed in this blog. The first point I want to make is how the writer mentioned Moby-Dick is not just a book, but rather how one interprets the text. Hoare wrote: “I didn’t know then what I do now: that “Moby-Dick” can be whatever you want it to be. It took me thirty years to discover what the book was—or what it was not.”. When I read this particular quote, it makes me ponder the possibilities of the book being more than just texts, and you have to pay really close attention to how these phrases create meanings. And when I first read this quote, I thought to myself: “Thirty years is probably a little bit of exaggeration”, but then it hit me, with a book being that size, thirty years is needed to be able to explore the possibilities of the meanings inside this book. The careful consideration and dedication were probably put into dissecting the true meaning of these texts. Another interesting question that caught my attention is when Hoare asks: “Could Melville have ever imagined that his book would travel so far, and find such unlikely readers?”. My answer to this question is probably not. The reason why I think of it this way is because I have learned that Melville was quite depressed during his time of writing because Moby-Dick was not the reader’s favorite as he thought it would be, and that hit him hard. My guess is that Meville accepts the idea of a book not being famous, but it is still one of his signature marks that he left behind for future generations. He accomplished finishing a book, and I believe he went out knowing that his work is still there even if he is gone for a long time. It will find its way to the readers, and even if it is not, then at least he wrote something that he himself believes he could write. I haven’t read the book yet, but after reading these articles for the past couple of weeks, I have to say that I am eager to read Moby Dick, and I am very excited to listen to our discussions about the book.