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Title: I too, wanted to like this book
Review: I was never a fan of Moby Dick but, having been an English major, I am very familiar with it. When I began reading the book, I was pretty excited to have found an interesting take on the original story. B ut then, the plot deviated, and deviated, and deviated. There are just too many plot twists and she "accidentally" meets just too many famous 19th century "luminaries." I must say the most contrived one situation was when she "happened" to me Hawthorne in the woods surrounding Walden Pond--and he was wearinga black veil no less! Naslund has him leaving a meeting of noted Transcendentalist thinkers...too bad Hawthorne was Anti-transcendentalist! I finished the bookhoping that Naslund might salvage it but, once again she went too far. Una and Ishmael, the man named afterthe Biblical liar? I am beginning to think Naslund needs to change her nom de plume to Ishmael. It'd make her book easier to swallow.
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