Rory on the walk to Doose's: Moby-Dick

Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) · On the walk to Doose's Market

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What it tells you

Dean walks Rory to Doose's and opens by telling her he watched her read Madame Bovary under a tree the week before. Rory answers with Moby-Dick and admits it's her first Melville. Most pilots set up the love interest with a meet-cute. This one does it with a book report.

Sources: Moby Dick, The Annotated Gilmore Girls · Gilmore Girls Reading List, Season One, Indianapolis Public Library · Rory Gilmore Reading List, What's Hot Blog

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The stack · 2 books

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1Moby-Dick

Herman Melville · 1851 · novel

Melville's 1851 whale book sold so poorly in his lifetime that he spent his later years working as a customs inspector in New York. Rory calling it really good at 16 puts her ahead of a lot of the critics of 1851.

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Cover of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

2Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert · 1856 · novel

Flaubert was put on trial for obscenity over this one in 1857 and acquitted. Dean's opening line is that he noticed her reading about a bored wife who wrecks her life on romance novels, and he meant it as a compliment.

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