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That $38 annotated classic edition was a total scam for our book club
Ordered the 'definitive annotated' version of Moby Dick for our March pick. 38 bucks. The notes were just plot summaries. Nothing about the whale symbolism or the Ishmael narrative. We spent 45 minutes arguing about what the author meant and nobody could use the book to back anything up. Ended up using a free PDF from the library. Has anyone else gotten burned by those fancy annotated editions? Which publisher actually delivers?
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the_joel1mo ago
Hold on, I gotta push back a little on this one. Those annotated editions are meant to be a starting point, not the final word on every symbol in the book. You can't expect the notes to settle a 45 minute argument about the white whale, that's kind of the whole point of reading it together. Plot summaries are annoying for sure, but the real deal is that Moby Dick has been argued about for over a hundred years, no single book is gonna give you the answer. The free library PDF is probably gonna give you the same exact text, just without the extra pages of notes. So the real scam might be expecting a book to do the thinking for your group.
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