Thar She blows!!!!

Simone de Beauvoir is officially depressing me now. Whatever happened to the intellectually curious and sociable young woman of her younger books? The attitude that prevails in the last quarter of Force of Circumstance is that of a jaded appetite for life and a constant bewailing of the descent into the tomb. And she's only in her fifties.....not significantly older than myself. I guess she must have burned herself out. I am forcing myself to complete it, but am finding her gloomy introspection having a negative effect on me and can't wait to get it over and done with. I might have to go and reread some of her earlier stuff, when she was at the Sorbonne and started to knock around with J-PS in the Flore cafe to jolly myself up! Having said all that, her reflections on life often hit the mark: perhaps that's why I'm finding it such hard going - she's relating the unpalatable truth about ageing and loss of vitality. I sha'n't lend it to my mother, who dwells quite a lot on the implications of loss, old age and death.
It occurred to me that I am woefully under-read when it comes to classic novels, so in a futile and belated attempt to remedy this shortcoming I've bought Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Shallowly enough, I was prompted to do this by the recent rescreening of an episode of my favourite cartoon series Futurama, The Day the Earth Stood Stupid, where the earth is invaded by giant disembodied brains which attempt to wipe out all thought processes in the universe. It's too complicated to relate in detail, but a battle ensues where the plots of classic novels are employed to trap, in turn, the Chief Giant Brain and the unfortunate Fry and Leela. The Chief Giant Brain utilises the plot of Moby Dick, crowing triumphantly 'You shall remain trapped forever in this dense symbolist tome!' They don't, because Captain Ahab (who identifies the chief GB as 'the great grey thinky whale') and Queeqeg and (don't ask) Tom Sawyer help them to escape into the plot of Pride and Prejudice (again, don't ask!). Soon after, in desperation Fry writes his own appallingly spelt novel whose lack of logic causes the Chief GB to have a mental breakdown and 'leave earth for no good raisin'. Hilarious stuff.
Anyway, I invested in a 'Wordsworth Classic' version whose merits I have sung before (cheap, and with an excellent introduction and notes). Complementary to this, I also picked up Leviathan, or The Whale by Philip Hoare which is shortlisted for the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. This should add vital background.

I was a young but ardent whale conservationist in the seventies, for many years sporting the ubiquitous 'Save the Whale' badge on a succession of shoulder bags (it didn't get any less theoretical than that, I'm afraid), and I was quite transfixed by a recent visit to the whale exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London. So I shall enjoy a voyage of the imagination onto the high seas: and doesn't it have one of the most thrilling opening lines of any novel? I don't know quite why, but 'Call me Ishmael...' sends a thrill of anticipation and excitement down my spine.....