And so it begins...

Hello, world.

I guess I should introduce myself to my audience of one. My name is Christine, and I'm a deprived English major.

Even though I am an avid reader, I haven't dived into any of the big classics. Among my embarassments:

• I've only read one Hemingway
• I've never read any of the Great Russian Novels. I put this in caps because, y'know, they're kind of a big deal. Not a single one.
• I've never read Joyce
• Mrs. Dalloway? Didn't finish that.
• Chaucer? Nope.
• Hamlet? Nope.
• Beowulf? Not a chance.

I could keep going, but this is going to get more and more embarrassing, so I'll stop.

But I figure my education needs to begin somewhere. If the misery of high school didn't educate me, and college proved too specialized (Harlem Renaissance and Literature of Social Change, anyone? Who knew Jack London's other books aren't about frozen Arctic tundras that howl in the night?), I need to take matters into my own hands.

And I start with a book.

Moby-Dick, to be exact.

I'm going to read the behemoth, the Great American Novel, the epic with Ahab and that white sperm whale and that dude called Ishmael. All I know is that there's going to be pages upon pages of detailed minutiae about whaling. Knots. And rope. And ships, and probably harpoons. There's going to be obsession, and symbolism.

And we're going in... NON-ANNOTATED. Gasp. I know. I'm a rebel.

The Kindle's charging up, the e-pages are ready to be turned. I'm ready to dive in.
And that's about it.

There's no contest here. No prize. No time limit.

It's just me and the whale of a tale.