The part about reading it in your truck between stops really gets me, because I think that's the real secret nobody talks about. It's not just getting older, it's having the kind of time where you're stuck somewhere with nothing else to do but sit with a book. In my 20s I was always rushing to finish things so I could say I read them, and that's the worst way to read Melville. He wrote half that book like he was just killing time on a ship, rambling about whale blubber and rope, and you have to be bored enough yourself to actually enjoy it. Your version of bored happened to come with a job and a truck, mine came from a long winter with no cable, but either way the book needs you to slow down to its speed. I bet the whale chapters you hated at 23 are the ones you liked best this time around.

Tested my bag at 15. Zipper froze shut. Never again.