I don't think Henry is the one who decides that for Claire. I'm not really sure that anyone does (the visit list being a self-fulfilling prophecy), but she's at least complicit in it, to the extent someone for whom this has been the defining through-line of her life from a very young age can be complicit. It would be interesting to ask her if she would change it, if she could. Somehow, I don't think she would. It's so key to her identity that, however much she might hate parts of it, her world would fall apart if Henry were normal.

It is a very pre-destined Universe. It's because of that that Henry can't change anything that happened before "now" (What I call a Closed-Loop Time Travel Story, where everything resolves to the same point, rather than and Open-Loop, where you change the past to change the present. I don't want to talk about the amount of time I spend thinking about these things.). I think he said something about the feeling of being impelled to actions in the Past.

It is interesting, to me, that it takes very little tweaking to turn it into a very unhealthy relationship, which I hadn't thought about before. If you make either of them less complicit in the relationship, it gets downright creepy real fast.

So I'm about a third of the way through Moby Dick . It's very good, and gives me that jolt you get when you read/hear something which has been widely imitated. Pynchon, in particular, seems to have copped huge amounts of his digressive multi-voice style from Melville

Any Buffistas read it?

I know Hayden has. I, however, have not.

I justify this lapse by the fact that I live in and around Melville's environs, know a fair amount about the whaling business, and could probably mark out the parts where he is making stuff up.

Ironically, I have read the first chapter, aloud -- on a beach. My mother has some strange ideas about beach reading.

Never read it, passed the test on it in high school with flying colors. Our English teacher wrote each test individually based on what we talked about in class, and he filled out the test with questions about the footnotes. All I did was listen to the talks about metaphors and characterization and read all the footnotes.

I've read Moby Dick three times and I'm thinking it's about time to read it again. It's great.

I don't know that Melville made much stuff up, at least in terms of day-to-day whaling. He did work as a seaman for about four years, much of that on whaling ships.

I read it -- kinda -- for a AmLit class, but didn't pay that much attention to it. I was too busy skipping class and getting high, and I was all a BritLit snob.

I read Moby Dick a few years ago. I was amazed at how funny it was. No one had ever told me it was enjoyable and amusing, just important and long.

I read it -- kinda -- for a AmLit class, but didn't pay that much attention to it. I was too busy skipping class and getting high, and I was all a BritLit snob.

me, too Well, minus the high. Although I often skipped class to go shoe shopping.

I went to college in a teeny town in MO. Th eonly place to buy shoes was Wal-Mart.

Remaining as stoned as possible was kinda a defense mechanism.

I was amazed at how funny it was.

Suddenly flashing back to that parody someone did -- DX? Tom Scola? -- which was all about Jonathan becoming morose, following funerals in the street etc., and inevitably heading back to Sunnydale. Perfect!