If acerbic appears more than twice in any book not about lemons or lemon husbandry, I’d really sour on it too.

Sometimes when ‘I find myself getting grim about the mouth’ about work or one of life’s travails it will occur to me, at least I’m not rendering whale fat.

I too have only made it like 30% thru, at least three times but enjoyed what I read, especially the opening with the vivid description of the warmth of the inn against the howling, spitting Nantucket winter.

I feel Ahab is the protagonist, reckless as he may be in his all-consuming need to destroy the white whale, he’s the only person who has refused to yield to god/nature. Long though the odds may be he refuses to give up the fight to avenge himself against his circumstance. I find that remarkable and too rarely celebrated.

I’m also aware he’s widely construed as the rage consumed fool, I suppose I prefer those who refuse to prostrate themselves before power than those who worship it only to be annihilated anyway.