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I'm reading Moby-Dick. The last time I read it I was about ten and tackled the book because (a) it was big, and (b) my dad said he'd pay me twenty bucks (which he did). At the time, twenty bucks had seemed like it would buy very nearly anything a person could want--now I can only think of all the things twenty bucks wouldn't buy me: groceries for a week, a tank of gas, a visit to the doctor. Those are also things that, at ten, I would have had little interest in purchasing.

Moby-Dick, though. I'm not far in. I'm reading it slowly, which I suspect is the only way to read it. I remember very little of it (Queequeg is the sum total of what I remembered that isn't included in the category of 'general knowledge about Moby-Dick most people have').

I'm surprised by how much I like it. Everyone knows "Call me Ishmael" (don't they?) but I like what follows:

"Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand on me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

No wonder I don't remember Moby-Dick. I didn't get half of it. It reminds me of that Conan bit where he writes blues with children, and it makes me wonder about the books we relate to and the ones we don't, because I think the ones we relate to are the ones we remember. Oh, to be sure, I've never set foot on a whaler (unless you count Boston Whalers). I'm not even a person prone to strong bouts of depression. But I know a thing or two about moving around, and I've had a few drizzly Novembers of the soul. At ten? Well. I wanted twenty bucks to buy candy and stuffed animals. So, you know where this is going. Books don't change, but we do.