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Moby-Dick

by Herman Melville, Tom Quirk (Commentary), Andrew Delbanco (Introduction)

3.31 · rating details · 203,301 ratings · 4,089 reviews

Written with wonderfully redemptive humor, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself.

Introduction by Andrew Delbanco
Explanatory Commentary by Tom Quirk

Paperback, 625 pages

Published December 31st 2002 by Penguin Classics (first published 1851)

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Sep 12, 2011

Matt rated it

Recommends it for: People I despise

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. LISA: Dad, you can't take revenge on an animal. That's the whole point of Moby Dick.
HOMER: Oh Lisa, the point of Moby Dick is 'be yourself.'
-- The Simpsons, Season 15, Episode 5, “The Fat and the Furriest”

There, there. Stop your crying. You didn’t like Herman Melville’s Moby Dick? You didn't even finish it? I’m here to tell you, that’s okay. You’re still a good person. You will still be invited to Thanksgiving dinner. You won’t be arrested, incarcerated, or exiled. You w...more

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Matt Nis wrote: "Matt wrote: "Nis wrote: "Sorry to disagree, but you reveal what the most important event in the book is - the ultimate outc...more
Jan 18, 2012 05:54pm

Eh?Eh! Nis wrote: "There is only one definition of spoiler. You can look it up. And there are lots of people, even educated ones, who, for whatever reas...more
Jan 18, 2012 06:55pm

Sep 04, 2010

Esteban del Mal rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: americana, fiction, novel, legion-of-doom

Everyone eventually comes across the White Whale in one form or another. The trick is to not keep its attention for too long.

*****

Avast! Dost thee have a five spot thou can see thyself parting ways with?

No?

Jibberjab up the wigwam! Cuisinart the poopdeck!

What’s that ye say? Thou canst not make heads nor tails of what I sayeth?

Here then. Let me take this pipe outta my mouth and stop menacing you with this harpoon. Better? Goo...more

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Nov 02, 2009

Bram rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

This is a curious and unwieldy book. At times (and too frequently) it reads like the more excruciatingly detailed scenes of Robinson Crusoe; at others the zany songs, goofy scenes, and curious characters prove Pynchon and DFW to be no pioneers in their lighthearted pursuits. The descriptive prose occasionally builds into an alliterative tornado where form, content, and raw urgency combined to leave me buzzed and page corner-bending. There’s a staggering amount of wisdom dressed up in whale-sp...more

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Jan 18, 2010

Logan rated it

Shelves: 1001-list, classics, fiction, not-owned

I have to admit to a long-standing curiosity about Moby-Dick (not least of which is why the albino whale’s name is hyphenated in the title but just plain Moby Dick in the text itself). I read and loved a Reader’s Digest condensed version (gasps of dismay echo across the Metaverse at this news) of this book around second grade and have always wondered what the arbiters of taste at Reader’s Digest decided to leave on the cutting room floor. Could it have been an illicit love scene between Ishma...moreI have to admit to a long-standing curiosity about Moby-Dick (not least of which is why the albino whale’s name is hyphenated in the title but just plain Moby Dick in the text itself). I read and loved a Reader’s Digest condensed version (gasps of dismay echo across the Metaverse at this news) of this book around second grade and have always wondered what the arbiters of taste at Reader’s Digest decided to leave on the cutting room floor. Could it have been an illicit love scene between Ishmael and his cannibal harpooner Queequeg? A scene in which the first mate, Starbuck, purchases some coffee beans from an Islamic trader, thus finally making sense of that brand’s name? Did Ahab put aside his vendetta with Moby in order to form a chorus line of ivory-appendaged amputees?

Sadly, none of those things came to pass. Instead I quickly learned that Moby-Dick is not one book, but two. The first is familiar to all of us: a sailor, let’s call him Ishmael, signs on to crew with the Pequod, a whaling ship from Nantucket (no word on whether the limerick is true) captained by the monomaniacal Captain Ahab. Want to know how I knew he was monomaniacal? Because that’s the only adjective that Melville uses through the course of the book to describe Ahab’s obsession with hunting and killing the whale that bit off his leg. I’m unsure of the timeline here, but I’m pretty positive that Melville was writing before the advent of thesauruses (thesauri?). Regardless, this half of the book is exactly what you would expect from a yarn of its sort. The sailors are a mixed bag of old sea dogs, young cabin boys enchanted by the glittering romance of the sea, and pagan harpooners living solely for the hunt. This segment of the story flies by like an albatross over the azure sea (prolonged exposure to this book has left me unable to make any non-nautical metaphors)- brisk, refreshing and nigh effortless.

Mixed in among Melville’s ruminations of sea life and epic foreshadowing is another book, far more dense and infinitely more difficult of a road. The second is more in line with the Naturalist writings of the 19th Century and is nothing less than a complete history and biology of whales, whale hunting, gutting whales, refining their blubber into oil, and the unique structural adjustments made to ships to allow the processing to take place while at sea. I have to admit, I thrilled at reading the first few of these chapters. Melville writes them well with great description of the inner workings of the sperm whale and I laughed at his chapter on how the placement of their eyes meant that whales were effectively blind- he was obviously writing before the discovery of sonar. Little-old 21st Century me liked the idea of having a piece of knowledge that Melville, for all of his in-depth research (and trust me, it's in-depth), could not possess.

The struggle came when these chapters extended for first twenty, then fifty, then finally a hundred pages. The pacing of the story fell off as I was treated to descriptions of the oxygen:water ratio in a whale's spume, descriptions of all known types of whales hunted by man, the bell tool used for scooping the valuable sperm from it's brain cavity or how the sperm whale possesses a thick and hard battering ram of a head with which it can defend against predators. I understood what Melville was doing- if he's not going to introduce the actual nemesis in this tale until the very end of the book then he's going to make damn sure that the reader knows just what this whale is capable of. It just dragged so slowly that by the time we did finally catch a glimpse of Moby, I greeted it with a sigh of "finally" rather than much excitement.

I think that, in the end, I don't regret taking the time to read this tome. There are some absolutely rapturous descriptions of the ocean, a body I never tire of hearing about, and the hunger that the crew showed for the hunt (especially the antics of Stubb, the second mate, and the harpooners) made for some exciting reading. However, the endless treatises on whale physiology just went on too long for me to be able to rate this over two stars.(less)

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Aug 03, 2008

Jamie rated it

So, Herman Melville's Moby Dick is supposed by many to be the greatest Engligh-language novel ever written, especially among those written in the Romantic tradition. Meh.

It's not that I don't get that there's a TON of complexity, subtlety, and depth to this book about a mad captain's quest for revenge against a great white whale. And on the surface it's even a pretty darn good adventure story. And, honestly, Melville's prose is flowing, elegant, and as beautiful as any writing can po...moreSo, Herman Melville's Moby Dick is supposed by many to be the greatest Engligh-language novel ever written, especially among those written in the Romantic tradition. Meh.

It's not that I don't get that there's a TON of complexity, subtlety, and depth to this book about a mad captain's quest for revenge against a great white whale. And on the surface it's even a pretty darn good adventure story. And, honestly, Melville's prose is flowing, elegant, and as beautiful as any writing can possibly be. It's magnificent, actually.

It's just that any enjoyment or satisfaction I got out of the book was overshadowed by the tedious, largely pointless stretches of encylopedic descriptions about the whaling industry. Melville strikes me as one of those people who would corner you at a party and talk incessantly about whaling, whaling ships, whales, whale diet, whale etymology, whale zoology, whale blubber, whale delacies, whale migration, whale oil, whale biology, whale ecology, whale meat, whale skinning, and every other possible topic about whales so that you'd finally have to pretend to have to go to the bathroom just to get away from the crazy old man. Only he'd FOLLOW YOU INTO THE BATHROOM and keep talking to you about whales while peering over the side of the stall and trying to make eye contact with you the whole time.

Look, it's not that I don't get it. Or at least some of it. I get, for example, that Ishmael's description of the absurdities of whale classification systems provide a backdrop against which to project the recurring theme of mankind's doomed quest for complete understanding of truths that are ineffable and forever hidden (sometimes literally) under the surface. I get that. I just wish the guy didn't feel like he had to take it to such absurd lengths. I do not need twenty pages about how to properly coil a harpoon line! I can see why most people don't make it through this book without judicious skimming.

Still, I feel like I accomplished something and that I can now nod sagely the next time someone makes an oblique reference to Captain Ahab, mentions the Pequod, or refers to something as "that person's Great White _______." And chances are they skimmed more than I did, anyway.(less)

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May 04, 2010

Scroutch rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who read

Recommended to Scroutch by: God, Shakespeare, and Milton

Shelves: best-books-ever

Moby Dick is in one of my Top 10 books of all time. Maybe that doesn't mean a lot to you who do not know of my impeccable taste, but that is neither here nor there. Anyone who isn't a total asshole would recognize that Melville is a bad-ass and that Moby Dick is a masterpiece.

First of all, let me just say that I love the word "monomaniacal." Second of all, allow me to confess that I would totally make out with Captain Ahab. Whale bone peg legs are fucking hot, and so is be...more

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Aug 19, 2007

Matt rated it

· review of another edition

You know, it feels a little ridiculous to even write a review of _Moby-Dick_, because it's _Moby-Dick_, and what's the point of reviewing it? It's _Moby-Dick_. But for what it's worth:

I think I developed a complicated relationship with this book. On the one hand, I never sat down to read it thinking, "Ooh, boy! Let's read!" It often felt more like a task or quota to fulfill than enjoyment. But, when I did sit down to read it, I usually, at some point, felt a large swe...more

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Jun 18, 2008

Erik Simon rated it

· review of another edition

I first read this when I was nineteen; I did not enjoy reading it nearly so much as I enjoyed having read it. Every summer, a friend's daughter comes home from college, and together we read books she's interested in. This summer, she said she wanted to read MOBY DICK. I was not at all interested, but I'd never say no to a student who wants to read this book.

The past three weeks of reading have been unadulterated joy. The book: I get it, now, I finally get all the fuss. Harold B...more

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May 16, 2008

J rated it

· review of another edition

I have often said that if trapped on a desert island, I’d want Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki as the one book with me (rim shot). Being serious, I’ve later decided that since Catch-22 suits my mood any time I pick it up, that would be my real choice. Yet every time I read Herman Melville’s towering Moby Dick, I firmly believe that no other book should suffice.

It’s one of those books you always mean to read. “Oh yes, I’ve got Moby Dick on my list and Gravity’s Rainbow and Ulysses and Remem...more

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Jan 29, 2008

Rob rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Masochists

Shelves: classics

Moby Dick is probably two or three books that, if separated, could be good - Ahab's whaling story, a book on the anatomy of whales, and the narrator's tale of largely religious self exploration - and it's easy to see how someone could love it.

But I don't - frankly, I find the mix frustrating. With Ahab's story, which was the most interesting part to me, every time it gets a bit of momentum the narrator interrupts with a chapter along the lines of 'More About The Whale's Eye' that co...more

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Apr 18, 2008

Izetta Autumn rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: whosecanonisitanyway, adoration-of-author, favorites

When I first attempted to read this book, I was in a first-year Creative Writing Class. At the time, I was less than enthused about reading yet another white male, after a long run of school assigned reading of only white men. So I was resistant. And perhaps rightly so. After years of not having the opportunity to read international literature and literature by people of color, to my heart's content, I needed a break. An opportunity to explore and revel.

And then I re-read Invisible M...more

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Jan 05, 2011

Amanda rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Amanda by: Daphna Atias

Shelves: all-time-favorites, everyone-should-read, reread-and-to-reread

Second read, October 2010. Stand by everything. This might be my favorite book.

*******

Surprisingly funny, wholly engaging, and deserving of its lofty rank among the canon of American literature; I enjoyed every page of Melville's Moby-Dick. And although I think a book of this length intimidates a lot of people, I honestly thought the story had a lot of momentum and always looked forward to getting back into it. So don't fear the spine width.

I was warned going ...moreSecond read, October 2010. Stand by everything. This might be my favorite book.

*******

Surprisingly funny, wholly engaging, and deserving of its lofty rank among the canon of American literature; I enjoyed every page of Melville's Moby-Dick. And although I think a book of this length intimidates a lot of people, I honestly thought the story had a lot of momentum and always looked forward to getting back into it. So don't fear the spine width.

I was warned going in that I shouldn't feel obligated to read every word, as Ishmael at times goes off on tangents about whale anatomy and taxonomy and such, but I did read every word -- there was a lot of humor in even the more tedious sections of the narrative. I'm sure you know the bones (pun intended) of the story by now: "Call me Ishmael", Captain Ahab, a monomaniacal hunt across the oceans of the world for a violent white whale named Moby Dick, pagan cannibal harpooners. And how we all have our white whales we chase. But even coming in with the embedded cultural understanding of What Moby-Dick Means, it's also just a damn good story, and written awfully damn well at that.

The first fourth-ish of the book Ishmael is still on land. In fact, we begin in Manhattan and travel north to Nantucket, where from eventually the Pequod will set her ill-omened sail. The landed part of the book is probably the most humorous, as it is only at sea that Ishmael really gets into some of the textbooky stuff about whaling. But that's one of the great things about Moby-Dick, that, (1) even these parts are entertaining and (2) beyond being a great story, it's also a wonderful artifact of the "American fishery" (and America in general) in the mid-nineteenth century, something I'm sure most twenty-first century Americans think little of. After reading Moby-Dick I feel closer to the past on the East Coast (which I now call home).

Melville also demonstrates a particular deftness for form, something I wasn't even expecting but was impressed by. As the Pequod nears her fate, the narrative begins to split and shift: Ishmael as a first-person essentially fades away, some entire chapters are (possibly internal) monologues of crew members, some chapters contain stage direction and other theatrical elements. It keeps it interesting and is done in a way that works naturally with the story and what is taking place on board the boat.

In sum: God damn, it was good, and so funny, and well-written, and I already want to read it again. Recommended for everyone.(less)

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Aug 27, 2011

Grahm Eberhardt rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: everybody ever

I first read Moby Dick in college. It's ponderous, cumbersome, difficult and wordy. It's also brilliant. Most of the book is written in iambic pentameter and it creates a natural rhythm as you read, much like the ocean waves. And he's very evocative in his language. He not only paints pictures of the scenes his characters are hanging out in, but he goes into great detail explaining the backgrounds and uses of all the bits and pieces of whaling gear that make up the set.
There's an entir...more

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Jun 01, 2008

Joseph rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

Incredible. Incomparable. Ineffable.

One of the most challenging and most intense novels to which I have ever put my mind. Over the course of reading this book, I encountered resistance. When I said I was reading it, someone responded, "On purpose?" Just today, finishing it in a cafe, a couple sitting across from me spoke of the book to each other. "Have you read Moby Dick?" asked the girl. "I tried but it didn't do it for me," said the guy. Who are these...moreIncredible. Incomparable. Ineffable.

One of the most challenging and most intense novels to which I have ever put my mind. Over the course of reading this book, I encountered resistance. When I said I was reading it, someone responded, "On purpose?" Just today, finishing it in a cafe, a couple sitting across from me spoke of the book to each other. "Have you read Moby Dick?" asked the girl. "I tried but it didn't do it for me," said the guy. Who are these people.

Maybe I'm a literary snob. I don't think that's such a bad thing. If you don't become ill at the state of modern "popular" fiction, sometimes called literature but resoundingly far from it, you have not given enough time to exploring how things once were; how dedicated writers were to creating an experience; a time when craft reigned. After reading Moby Dick, I'm just dumbstruck as to what passes for literature these days.

But then maybe people don't want to be challenged anymore. Maybe books have become as much a diversion as television. Sure, books are meant to be a diversion; they are meant to be enjoyable and to pass the time in a pleasant way. Otherwise, why read? But Moby Dick is more than that and literature should be more than that. Books should change you and open you up and free you. Modern fiction is little more than reality tv. Why else would the modern reader be so obsessed with both the non-fiction and fiction memoir? We want to escape but not be challenged. We pick up a book like Moby Dick, feel pressured by it to think, and put it right back down.

Moby Dick is the American epic. There is nothing even close to it. If you think you know of a book that can rival it, let me read it and prove you wrong. This is the novel that all other novels should strive to be in spirit. How can these people turn it away?

Go back to your Palahniuks and Lethams and Eggers and everything else masquerading as something important. Don't give Moby Dick a chance, don't open your eyes, and relax deep into your easy-chair of mediocrity. Moby Dick is difficult. Moby Dick is something you won't fully understand when you try to read it in high school, in college, in your formative years, in your later years. It is something that needs multiple readings and needs to be read at a time in your life when you are most susceptible to the truths it entails. It deserves to be read now and forever.

We all have a White Whale we are chasing. The question is whether or not one may ever truly recognize it.(less)

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Greggles With a review so pompous and incendiary, how could I resist? I'm adding this one to my list, but by the time I've finished it I hope you've actually ...more
Jun 02, 2008 07:55am

Capsguy Who are you? You are nothing.

I am very, very thankful that I can read and appreciate books like this without having to bother with people li...more
Mar 07, 2011 07:23am

Joseph Wow -- I forgot I even wrote this review! I love your response, capsguy, but there's no need for such seriousness. I recommend Jon Kabat-Zinn. I'm gla...more
Mar 07, 2011 07:34am

Jun 17, 2008

Rebecca rated it

Um. This is the weirdest, most outrageous book I've ever read. Using words like "classic" and "epic" and "desert-island-book" is just way too banal for this enormous, bizarre, utterly insane novel. I was in turn amused, bored, outraged, irritated, and charmed, but mostly blood-thirsty for the business of KILLING WHALES to begin.

Ishmael, in the first paragraph, says, "I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world."...more

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Aug 07, 2007

Eric rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

"Novelist" is too small a term for Melville--he's some kind of shaggy Norse bard, writing rhapsodic yet precise, musuclar yet dulcet Elizabethan-tinged English at the midcentury high noon of "realism." For the time and place, the book and the man are uniquely American products, such as only America's social fluidity, untamed confusion of forms and sheer what-the-fuck randomness could produce: a sketchily educated scion of a declined old family goes to sea as a common sailor, ...more

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Dec 28, 2007

Alexander rated it

· review of another edition

I read this in a week, on a trip to Tokyo. I started it on the plane over, finished it while I was there. There was something about the way being submerged in a foriegn language while reading it made it more intense.

I found it weirdly thrilling for how it seemed to me to be this whole novel about the handsome tattooed Queequeg, and the strange beautiful relationship he and the narrator have, and then wham! The whale.

In some ways, the long aria-type chapters about whales...more

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Feb 06, 2011

Jessica marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I totally started this once and was pleasantly surprised by an engrossing beginning: homoeroticism and a punk rock character, not at all what I'd expected! I fully intended to keep reading past page fifteen, and I'm still not sure where I went wrong. I guess I was yahooing it up in those days, and probably this whale of a book (come on, it's long) (uh, that latter wasn't supposed to be a pun....) didn't fit in with my rather sailorly lifestyle. Now that I'm all sedate and sophisticated, I hope t...more

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Jan 18, 2010

David rated it

Shelves: pants-crapping-awesome

There once was a grouchy alpha whale named Moby Dick who -- rather than being agreeably shorn of his blubber and having lumpy sperm scooped out of his cranium like cottage cheese -- chose life. Unlike so many shiftless, layabout sea mammals of his generation, Moby Dick did not go gentle into that good night. This whale, in short, was not a back-of-the-bus rider. He assailed a shallow, consumerist society, which objectified him only as lamp oil or corset ribbing, with the persuasive argument of h...moreThere once was a grouchy alpha whale named Moby Dick who -- rather than being agreeably shorn of his blubber and having lumpy sperm scooped out of his cranium like cottage cheese -- chose life. Unlike so many shiftless, layabout sea mammals of his generation, Moby Dick did not go gentle into that good night. This whale, in short, was not a back-of-the-bus rider. He assailed a shallow, consumerist society, which objectified him only as lamp oil or corset ribbing, with the persuasive argument of his thrashing tail, gaping maw, and herculean bulk.

In his seminal (in more ways than one) animal rights saga, Herman Melville conjures an aquatic, rascally Norma Rae out of an elephantine albino whale. Reasonably enough, Moby Dick (hereafter M.D., despite possible confusions with the profession) is irritable when people are chasing him, stabbing him with harpoons, and trying to kill him. Thus, in an act which would be protected by law as self defense in most enlightened nations, M.D. bites off part of the leg of one of his many hunters, the humorless Captain Ahab.

Gall alert! Gall alert! Ahab has the nerve to hold a fucking grudge against the whale for this entirely ethical dismemberment. (He also holds a grudge for some incidental damage incurred to Lil' Ahab as a very weak corollary of his lost limb, but I'm not even getting into that. Judge Wapner would've never stomached that half-baked reasoning, so neither will I.) Now mind you, M.D. doesn't, like, come ashore in Nantucket, rent a lowrider horse-drawn carriage, and try to put a cap in the ass of that one-legged old bitch-ass captain who wanted to decapitate him. So, I mean, who's really the petty one in this equation?

The novel Moby-Dick eschews a first-person whale narrator in favor of Ishmael, a bit of a rube who shows up in New Bedford with big dreams of a whaling career. (Whaling was the Hollywood of that era.) He meets this reformed cannibal harpooner named Queequeg who hails from the South Seas, has lots of tattoos, and moonlights as a decapitated-human-head salesman. So basically he's rough trade. Ishmael and Queequeg become fast-friends and do all kinds of jovial homoerotic things together, like cuddle in bed and curiously espy each other undressing -- despite their pronounced cultural differences. I think Ishmael acts as a keen ethnographer when he highlights the variances: Queequeg, the savage, idol-worshipping, hell-condemned, unenlightened, "oogah-boogah" heathen, and Ishmael, the... white guy. Yet their love endures. It's as if all the sexual currents in Neil Simon's Odd Couple were suddenly foregrounded.

Ishmael and Queequeg find employment on the whaler Pequod, helmed by none other than the killjoy Captain Ahab himself -- he of prosthetic whalebone leg, abbreviated schlong, and legendary grudge-holding. So the Pequod embarks upon a three or four year whaling adventure around the globe, ostensibly in search of valuable whale oil, but in fact -- as we later learn -- to bring about Ahab's vengeance against the Marxist whale M.D., who refuses to be expropriated by the Man.

Interestingly enough, as the journey goes on, Ishmael's character seems to evaporate. In other words, he gradually shifts from a compartmentalized first-person narrator to an omniscient third-person narrator. He seems almost to have rescinded his identity (or he only rarely invokes it) in the latter part of the novel, as if -- while we have been distracted by gloppy whale sperm and passing ships -- he morphed into the Star Child. This transformation is, of course, intentional and creates a sense of broadening perspective throughout the novel -- of transcending the menial and specific to embrace a grand, universal tragedy.

Here's the bottom line. Moby-Dick is an American classic that sounds as though it would be absolutely torturous to read. A six-hundred-page nineteenth-century novel about the pursuit of a whale? You've got to be kidding. Did I mention that there are chapters after chapters that merely detail the processes and (often gory) procedures of whaling? I know. Try to control yourself before you run out to the bookstore or library, right? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

This novel is magnificent. It proves what I have held true ever since I started writing myself -- that any subject at all, from whittling to colonoscopies to Riverdance to bagpipe playing, can be enthralling in the hands of a competent writer -- a writer like Melville, who simultaneously locates the universal in this seemingly very particular narrative and makes even the occasionally perplexing rituals of whaling seem fascinating.

Also, it's a captivating historical document chronicling M.D.'s groundbreaking role in the nascent Whale Power movement. Eat tailfin, honkies!
(less)

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Apr 27, 2011

Weinz rated it

Shelves: favorites

Damn you DK.
___________________________________________________________

If anyone wants to go whaling this weekend I am now an expert on the subject. Leave your harpoons at home though; we don't want to hurt them.

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Nov 15, 2011

Alex rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, reading-through-history

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." (Ch. 104)

"In this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim)." (Ch. 1)

These two quotes sum up Moby-Dick for me. The first is obvious: Melville has indeed written a mighty book on the mightiest of themes, and that's why Moby-Dick is so great. The second is subtler. It turns out that the Pythagorean maxim he's referring t...more"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." (Ch. 104)

"In this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim)." (Ch. 1)

These two quotes sum up Moby-Dick for me. The first is obvious: Melville has indeed written a mighty book on the mightiest of themes, and that's why Moby-Dick is so great. The second is subtler. It turns out that the Pythagorean maxim he's referring to is this: "Avoid beans." Right here at the beginning of this mighty book, Herman Melville is making a fart joke.

So Moby-Dick isn't what I thought it was. It's funnier, and trickier, and less boring. Despite the farting, it's a book of enormous weight; I can't remember reading a book with this much pure authority since Milton's Paradise Lost.

And yes, the chapters on whales and whaling are necessary. The white whale doesn't actually show up until the last 30 pages of a 625-page book, and when he does, it's in a climax of astonishing power. That's partly because Melville is a crack action writer, but it's also partly because he's spent much of the last 600 pages building Moby-Dick up as the Leviathan, establishing his (completely literal) larger-than-lifeness.

You gotta remember that in 1860, nobody knew shit about whales. Think of the whale like the rapper Ice Cube. Back in the NWA days, he created a scary, unknowable being (audio link includes several bad words) of immense power and danger - a thing most of us had never seen in real life. Now he's recast himself as the star of "Are We There Yet?" (video link includes crap). He's cuddly now, and I grew up on bumper stickers that said "Save the Whales!" But once upon a time, both represented the implacable unknown.

There are seven chapters in a row about whale heads in Moby-Dick. But by the end, you know exactly what a dangerous weapon the sperm whale's head is, and that's going to be important when the wet t-shirt contest happens. (That's another Ice Cube song. It's awesome.)

And besides, they're not as bad as they're made out to be. They're not as exciting as the more plot-driven scenes, sure, but they're worth it just for Ch. 32, where Melville shows that whales are fish, and Ch. 105, where he proves that it's impossible to hunt them to endangerment. Oops!

The Penguin Classics edition is beautiful, and it has a good introduction by World's Foremost Moby-Dick Champion Nathaniel Philbrick, but it completely lacks endnotes for some reason. They're not necessary, but you're not gonna get that fart joke without them.(less)

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Apr 14, 2008

Colie! rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone American. Know your lit!

Recommended to Colie! by: Cara and Elizabeth

The best part of reading Moby Dick is looking for unintentional innuendo. The title begs for it. So far, I believe this is my favorite chestnut: “At first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.”
I've had similar experiences myself.

Right on. Now that I've finished the bo...moreThe best part of reading Moby Dick is looking for unintentional innuendo. The title begs for it. So far, I believe this is my favorite chestnut: “At first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.”
I've had similar experiences myself.

Right on. Now that I've finished the book, I can speak further than my sophomoric joy of homoerotic quote hunting, for which this book has fertile grounds. It took me a while to finish, but I blame Los Angeles. I don't have the luxury of subway rides to peruse. And it's all sunny, all you want to do is be outside and do yoga. Anyway. I started and stopped MD a few times in my youth (you know, like age 13 youth) and when I picked it up again, I couldn't believe how FAST it read. Then of course it got slow in the middle... Ishmael likes to ruminate over measurements of whale bones, physical traits of Sperm v. Right Whale, Whales in art and history, which I guess is all well and good, but once that's done with and we return to the story of Stubb and Starbuck and Tashtego, Queequeg, and OF COURSE that crazy hot old man Ahab, it's a reading feeding frenzy. I'd have to say those pages read about 20 times faster, minimum. Which made me super sad that they were, in my opinion, so scare. (Scarce in a 1,000 pager.) And I was in complete disbelief when I actually completed my read: these pages zip by, and in 1.5 pages you're DONE. It's so fast, you don't even trust yourself to believe what you read really happened. I had to skip back and reread. [Avast, here be spoilers:] I thought, "No way I read that right. Is Ahab gone? The whole Pequod? WTF!!!" And then there's this half page epilogue to confirm: yep, that's all, folks. Part of me was really pissed: Ishmael, you couldn't give it JUST a little more time? It kind of felt like a poorly planned essay for the SAT, where the middle is fleshed out really completely but then the student finds he only has one minute to wrap it up. But I think Melville probably wasn't writing under that kind of time constraint. On the other hand, my feelings of loss and abandonment seemed somehow appropriate for the book, like I was left in the big open sea, sans Pequod, on a floating coffin myself. (less)

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Jul 09, 2007

Rachel rated it

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Shelves: fiction

I am endlessly irritated by the inclusion of Moby Dick on 8th Grade English class syllabi.

Just because you CAN slog through 800 pages about whale hunting at 14, doesn't mean you should.

Moby Dick was a life changing book...but until you've had your own white whale, until you've foolishly imperiled yourself and the people who care about you in the name of something that will only screw you in the end, how can you possibly get anything from this book?

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Mar 04, 2011

Andrew Breslin rated it

Thanks a lot, Melville. No, that’s okay. Really, I wasn’t using my brain for anything else. I’ll just obsess about marine mammals 24/7 from now on. That’s fine.

I think about whales all day now, and dream about them all night, having finally finished this mammoth tome after years of aborted attempts. “Mammoth” is not even a sufficient adjective to convey the intimidating biggitude of this literary cetapalooza, because whales are much bigger than elephants, all their immediate kin, and...more

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May 17, 2009

Patrick rated it

· review of another edition

Ah Moby Dick. Now I can say that I've read it, including the technical chapters. I am almost never a fan of long books. I feel that authors, for instance Nabokov, that write too much often begin to lose their hold on their message and meaning, and ultimately the reader. However, Moby Dick needs to be taken in stride with an understanding that Melville did not simple write a book, but a tome that immortalizes the whale, the ocean, and the madness that drives us all to the end of our own diabo...more

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Jul 23, 2008

Esther rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Everyone’s heard of this book. And a lot of people have started it. But read the whole thing to the bitter end? I’m convinced that the people who have achieved this accomplishment did so because they had the book assigned for some literature class.

Why do so many literature classes assign Moby Dick? I’m sure that it is because the book figures so prominently on so many lists of “Great Books of Western Literature”. And why is it on so many lists of “Great Books”? Well, after read...moreEveryone’s heard of this book. And a lot of people have started it. But read the whole thing to the bitter end? I’m convinced that the people who have achieved this accomplishment did so because they had the book assigned for some literature class.

Why do so many literature classes assign Moby Dick? I’m sure that it is because the book figures so prominently on so many lists of “Great Books of Western Literature”. And why is it on so many lists of “Great Books”? Well, after reading the whole thing, I’ve decided that it must be that the people who compile those lists don’t actually read the books on them; they just copy someone else’s list.

Because, really, Moby Dick is not that great of a book. It cries out for editing – very heavy editing. The problem is, though, that if Herman Melville were to submit his book to any modern-day editor, I’m sure it would be rejected for publication. It is a wacky combination of adventure novel, non-fiction treatise on whales, and morality story. Unfortunately, it manages to come up short on all three. With prudent editing, it might make a compelling short story. My edition of the book ran for 135 chapters and over 800 pages.

We’ve all heard how Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab and his quest for the White Whale. With a book published in 1851 that no one really wants to read to the end anyway, I think I can be forgiven for including spoilers in this review. If you want to read this without having the end spoiled, well, stop reading here, and go knock yourself out – I’m sure your local library’s copy is not checked out.

The narrative finally meandered to the bit about Captain Ahab and his failed whale hunt at Chapter 133. That’s right – we have 132 chapters of exposition. Tedious, tedious exposition, long on minute details and Weird Portents (a la Shakespeare). In fact, Melville seems to have forgotten sometimes that he was writing a novel, because he writes some of his chapters with stage directions, just like Shakespeare. The narrative point of view is first person, from that famous first line, “Call me Ishmael”, but, again, Melville seems to have forgotten himself (although with a novel this long, I can understand his wandering attention. I know my attention wandered while I was reading this bloated carcass of a novel). The narrator relays the inner thoughts of characters who are all alone, and of events that he didn’t witness firsthand. Stereotypes are broad and offensive to modern readers, although I suppose in 19th century America, they were typical enough.

But it is not only as an adventure story that Moby Dick disappoints. Melville spends the bulk of his book discussing all aspects of whales, mostly based on his own experience, I suppose, but not really well-researched or fact-checked. There is a chapter on pictures of whales, and how most artists made mistakes in their depictions. Then a chapter on carvings of whales, and how many of these are flawed as well. The gross external anatomy of the sperm whale is described ad nauseam, with a chapter on the eye, and anther on the ear, and another on the forehead, and another on the skin, and another on the tail, et cetera. Through it all, Melville insists that, scientific opinion be damned, whales are a type of fish. While the book does give fascinating details on how a whaling ship of the mid-1800’s functioned, it is not a reliable source for actual facts about whales.

And then, as our literature classes love to point out, there is the moral theme of Moby Dick. Melville opines that there are good and bad reasons to hunt and kill whales. The bad reason, as demonstrated by Captain Ahab, is personal vengeance. His monomania regarding hunting down and killing this particular whale is his madness and his downfall. Whaling is a tremendously dangerous pursuit, and loss of life and limb is to be expected. Whaling is supposed to be a noble calling and the only valid reason to hunt the whales, therefore, is the obscene profit that can be made by doing so. What kind of stupid moral lesson is that?

In any event, after 816 pages of this, we get down to it. Moby Dick is a legendary whale that has been hunted for years but never killed, and has a reputation for not only getting away, but also causing death and loss of limb for those who attempt to engage him. At the end, after being chases and tormented for three days, the whale turns on his hunters and destroys their ship. Everyone drowns except for our narrator. There is no reason given why he should be the only one spared – his behavior was no more exemplary or moral than his shipmates – he just happened to get lucky.

One thing that did surprise me in this book was the overt homosexuality among the main characters. Early on, Ishmael and Queequeg share a bed in an inn, and by morning have become intimate, with Ishmael infatuated with the cannibal. Late in the book, there is a declaration of love from Ahab to his first mate, Starbuck, which intrudes unexpectedly. I’m not making this up; check this out:

“Starbuck, of late I’ve felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw – thou know’st what, in one another’s eyes.”

This being a Victorian novel, we are spared explicit scenes, but there seems not to be a heterosexual character populating these pages. If you are tempted to pick up the book to satisfy your prurient curiosity, help yourself. I’ll bet, though, you give up on it before you reach the end.
(less)

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Feb 23, 2008

W rated it

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"Call me Ishmael"--God will listen. Strange name for a pretty godless rant, which is really one of the top four books in America. The bible story has Abraham chasing Hagar and their son, Ishmael, out of camp in favor of Sarah and Isaac (one of the two saddest stories in the the bible), so the questionable confidence in a Christian god is always challenged.

Speaking of Moby Dick, I am reminded of Maxwell Perkins habit of giving his best writers: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe,...more

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Jun 10, 2007

Justin rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Whale Lovers/Whale Haters

I really didn't know what to expect from this book other than what comes down the pike (i.e. crazy man with one leg captains a whaling ship and wants to seek revenge on the whale that bit his leg off). For one, I'll just say that this book is much more a celebration of whales--or, more specifically, the sperm whale--than it is a book about killing whales. I mean, don't get me wrong: If the whole idea of catching and slicing up whales make you squeamish, you will probably be horrified by more tha...moreI really didn't know what to expect from this book other than what comes down the pike (i.e. crazy man with one leg captains a whaling ship and wants to seek revenge on the whale that bit his leg off). For one, I'll just say that this book is much more a celebration of whales--or, more specifically, the sperm whale--than it is a book about killing whales. I mean, don't get me wrong: If the whole idea of catching and slicing up whales make you squeamish, you will probably be horrified by more than a few passages in the book, not to mention the fact that the sole purpose of the voyage being undertaken in the book is to do exactly that (kill whales). But if you put yourself back in the time when the book was written and try to not judge too harshly by today's killing-whales-is-really-really-bad (which I agree with) standards, then, yeah, you'll see Melville really set out to put whaling and, by extension, the sperm whale, on the map. Pages and pages are dedicated to an exhaustible understanding of the whale itself.

The other thing I wasn't expecting in this book was the overwrought prose. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me, considering when the book was written, but, to some extent, it did. Not that it was always a bad thing. When I had time to really sit down with this book, I rather enjoyed a lot of the more poetic passages. Here's an example of Ishmael describing Moby Dick (the whale) for the first time:

On each soft side--coincident with the parted swell, that but once leaving him, then flowed so wide away--on each bright side, the whale shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all for who the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way thou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed before.

This paragraph perfectly captures the peacefullness and destructive force that Moby Dick, and the sea itself at large, represent. Hemingway wrote a story about an old man and a fish, but he could (nor would) never do justice to all the poetic majesty of the sea and seafaring life.

However, what Hemingway could do was sublimely represent the masculine and stoic grace of the sort of characters who did lead seafaring lives. And I guess that's where the contrast lies (and where I'm also sort of torn about who writes a better seafaring story in the Melville-vs.-Hemingway title fight I just made up): more than once I thought about how, due to the prose, Ishmael comes off sounding more like a prancing, lisping, effete, Little Lord Fauntleroy describing (and ascribing) the most fanciful things to what were probably very stoic and burly men in the most flowery prose. On the one hand, if you can get over that, then, yes, the prose often is quite beautiful and, again, much much better at touching the rightful majesty of the sea. But, yeah, on the other hand, reading Moby Dick, you get the feeling that most of the sailors on any given ship-of-fools at that time probably didn't talk in the way Melville ascribes to them (unless it was an especially well-read ship-of-fools) and, at the very least, that the old, grumpy Ahab didn't speak in parables more fitting to Homer than a whaling ship.

But Melville probably has more in common with Homer than Hemingway as far as what each was trying to accomplish with their respective stories. Both Melville and Homer want to inject a large amount of poetry and eminence into what are essentially professions that require neither poetry nor eminence (whaling and warring, respectively). Hemingway uses understatement to, as I said earlier, do justice to the terse, stoic nature of the men who populate his books.

Also, Melville is funny. Seriously. But not seriously funny. Just funny.
(less)

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Mar 18, 2009

Matt B. rated it

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Shelves: classics

I liked this particular edition (Univ. of California, Illus. by Barry Moser) more than any other edition of Moby Dick, for two primary reasons: 1) no notes or appendicies! and 2) it has great aesthetic qualities.

The lack of explanatory notes and interpretive essays, I count as a "plus." This is the kind of book you read for pleasure, and which you display as a masterpiece of American writing. It is not a tool or study guide, and yet, neither is it the sort of thing you buy ...moreI liked this particular edition (Univ. of California, Illus. by Barry Moser) more than any other edition of Moby Dick, for two primary reasons: 1) no notes or appendicies! and 2) it has great aesthetic qualities.

The lack of explanatory notes and interpretive essays, I count as a "plus." This is the kind of book you read for pleasure, and which you display as a masterpiece of American writing. It is not a tool or study guide, and yet, neither is it the sort of thing you buy to let it sit on the shelf and collect dust. One (generally) does not append 300 pages of essays to the back of a fine painting -- why do that to a work of literature? So this an edition for reading and enjoying, and perhaps for showing off to friends.

Readers who found Moby Dick intimidating in college might appreciate this edition, not least because it includes illustrations. These illustrations, it should be noted, are not depictions of the scenes in the book -- Ishmael is not pictured, nor Queequeg, or any of the other iconic characters. The illustrations are, rather, beautiful, factual renditions of whaling-related people and objects. They are a sort of visual dictionary for those of us unacquainted with whaling.

Aside from their informative role, the drawings help emphasize Melville's metaphorical transformations from his many pages of technical information on whaling. Melville "read the book of nature" in whaling, meaning he drew metaphorical and symbolical meanings out of the otherwise mundane scenes and activities of a whaling voyage. On one page, Melville would describe in minute detail a given species of whale, as if it were a scientific specimen; then on the next page he would show us that animal according to a new perspective, a metaphysical perspective, inspired by a deep interest in what power upholds and moves nature. The drawings show you sailors and whales, ships and tools, each in a simple woodcut style. But I would hazard a guess that the artist contemplated the same metaphysical questions raised by Melville's prose: the harpoon, is it a symbol of gratuitous violence, or a symbol of mankind's ingenious mastery over nature? A beautiful tool, an ugly tool? Or some amalgam of all of these? (The artist's rendering of a harpoon is very fine, by the way).

For these reasons, I would recommend this edition for someone who wants to own a copy of Moby Dick for purposes other than schoolwork.(less)

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Feb 28, 2009

Willow rated it

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I never expected to like this book. It was required reading in a Freshman English course. I couldn't put it down, and my love of reading was revived after a long period of teenage disinterest in anything that didn't involve friends, boyfriends, cars and trying to keep up with my big sister, who was in the Class of '69. The only things I remember reading in high school were Life Magazine to 'witness' the incredible events happening around the country, far from me in my small town in Iowa. So ...more

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Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His first two books gained much attention, though they were not bestsellers, and his popularity declined precipitously only a few years later. By the time of his death he had been almost completely forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick — largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and most responsible for...more

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