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My initial reactions were a bit muddled seeing as my initial reaction was to the middle of the book, not the beginning. We were immediately thrown into a complex story of a girl who's about to leave behind all elements of her own life to don a new persona and go on a ship. I immediately liked Una because I (as lame as this is about to sound) saw a bit of myself in her, her desire to just take off. It was also a relief to read a novel from that time period in which the main female character isn't swept off her feet by the romantic notions of love, she treats marriage very pragmatically. 

I personally identify with Una. Yet my relation to the book is not as clear. After having read snippets of Moby  Dick and seeing part of the movie, I was trying to recall Ahab's wife and confused when I couldn't remember her whatsoever. I think the book in itself is a good idea, and I like the ideas which have been applied to it (the feminist main character) simply because it is not what I would have anticipated. I would have thought Ahab's wife to be a meek little creature in the shadow of her fierce husband.

This novel is the indulgence, or the choice of the author to create a totally new story out of what she saw there. It is the execution of all of the choice we discussed, and therefore i think it is an appropriate end for our course.