White Jacket

by
Herman Melville

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White Jacket

by Herman Melville

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 · rating details · 278 ratings · 32 reviews

Melville wrote White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War during a two-month period of intense work in the summer of 1849. He drew upon his memories of naval life, having spent fourteen months as an "ordinary seaman" aboard the frigate United States as it sailed the Pacific and made the homeward voyage around Cape Horn.

A crewman on the man-of-war Neversink, White-Jacket g

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Paperback, 1 page

Published September 1st 1979 by Plume (first published 1850)

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Aug 12, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Semi-autobiographical rendition of life aboard a U.S. Navy warship. The narrator is curiously clad in a porous white jacket, and at one point mistaken for a ghost. Despite assuring his shipmates to the contrary, our candidate observer regards the myriad blooms aboard his craft with the same unmoored affect as one of Rilke's recently deceased. Examined are the everyday habits of the ships crew, the preterite, the elect, and those between. The author makes a strong argument against the naval tradi...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is not a novel in the proper sense if we define a 'novel' as having a 'plot'. Instead, it is a fictionalized account of Melville's experiences on an American man-of-war in 1843. Melville himself is the eponymous "W-J" and the book consists of W-J's brief vignettes on different aspects of the ordinary sailor's life aboard the USS Neversink as it rounds Cape Horn towards home. This may sound rather unordinary but Melville, who followed this up with 'Moby Dick', is such a superlative writer th...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Melville never made it as a novelist--really: Moby Dick and his other "novels" failed, with a failure that still echoes. Possibly that's because he could never shape himself quite to the novel pattern. He enjoyed the facts too much--small wonder, with his own life constructed of facts almost too exotic to believe. He was one of a very few of his time strong enough to visit the far shores and talented enough to paint them, a very rugged, and very American, sort of genius.

But this is too much pra...more Melville never made it as a novelist--really: Moby Dick and his other "novels" failed, with a failure that still echoes. Possibly that's because he could never shape himself quite to the novel pattern. He enjoyed the facts too much--small wonder, with his own life constructed of facts almost too exotic to believe. He was one of a very few of his time strong enough to visit the far shores and talented enough to paint them, a very rugged, and very American, sort of genius.

But this is too much praise to the America of that age, I think. Melville's allusions, his offhand references, presume a base of classical knowledge rare in his generation and non-existent in ours. Expounding upon those allusions could fill a large book--and indeed that book exists. Its study would make a decent education all by itself.

Yet we continue to treat books like White Jacket as novels, possibly because we have no name for the genre Melville invented, and occupied all alone for a very long time. It was a kind of adventure anthropology, the explication of the unfamiliar through a sharp and thorough eye, told with humor and poetry. No one did it before, and no one has done it since. Maybe no one ever will do it again.

Students of American maritime history should consider themselves lucky that this eye dwelt so long on an American warship of 1841--as it happens, one of the original six frigates signed into being by George Washington. Here, far more thoroughly and acutely than I have seen anywhere else, is the picture of life aboard an American warship in active service during formative years of the mid-19th century.

We meet the people, learn the usages, hear the rolling of the drums to quarters--almost feel the lash. We get more than the flavor of the officers' insolence, and feel the injustice of an essentially British system of discipline imposed on an American democratic ethos. We also see something of Melville the reformist crusader, whose stated objective it was to make known the horrors of flogging to a wide audience. In this, even if the book sold poorly, he succeeded.

As an historical document alone this book is extremely worthwhile. When you add the fact of Melville's authorship, you have a very strong recommendation indeed.

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Mar 27, 2013 Thom Swennes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having served in the U.S. Navy this book seemed to have extra meaning. An accurate classification of this narrative is difficult to name as it isn’t really a log or a diary but a series of observations, opinions and a multitude of salt stories. Navy customs and traditions are relayed, including the similarities and differences in the navies of different countries. The ship duties and pass times of seamen both aboard and in port are lavishly discussed. I had the feeling that Melville wasn’t reall...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Randy Cashner rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have been told that I have to read Moby Dick since it was one an American classic. I found it verbose and hard to follow. I have tried but the closest I ever got was the Classic Illustrated comic version. Recently, I found a copy of White Jacket and discovered another Melville.

I quickly become very engaged in this novel. Melville writes of his experiences on the USS United States. From the start, Melville is extremely critical of the navy and especially its practice of flogging which is descr...more

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Feb 22, 2010 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Merely the account of a sailor's journey on a man-of-war, what White-Jacket lacks in a noticeable plot, it makes up for in the sheer quality of its prose. In White-Jacket, the classic American author Herman Melville combines his unparalleled gift for composition with heartfelt convictions regarding life, both as a military sailor and in general.

Surprisingly, despite lacking in much of a storyline, the ending of this book is one of the greatest of any I've read to date. The whole last chapter bui...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started my year with Melville, so it's fitting that the final book read in my Goodreads challenge should also be Melville. White-Jacket, as the subtitle states, is a chronicle of life on a man-of-war frigate. As usual, Melville brings his bombast and seemingly endless reserve of allusions to the tale. In parts, the novel is very critical of navy practices and the inequity between the common sailor and the officers. There are tales of scourgings followed by (and often interrupted by) long philo...more

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Apr 05, 2013 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2013

We see Melville becoming what he would be here. There are some marvelous, thrilling stretches, but there are certainly some times when we are becalmed, stranded with no wind. He's tips over into preachiness too often here, alas. But he's zeroing in on the masterful voice and tone and prose of Moby-Dick.

But let's be clear, there's some wonderful work here, not to mention the fact that it's invaluable as a historical document of daily life aboard an American man-of-war. It's just not really, well,...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Matthew rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't quite finished White Jacket, but I feel like I've got enough of a sense of it to talk about it properly. I'll edit this if the last forty pages or so change my mind.

Now we slap the label "timeless" around quite a bit when it comes to writing, and it can mean a lot of things--that the story can speak with lucidity across generations or even centuries, or that the prose is such that it feels like it was written by a contemporary even if it's a few decades old. Whatever your personal bar...more I haven't quite finished White Jacket, but I feel like I've got enough of a sense of it to talk about it properly. I'll edit this if the last forty pages or so change my mind.

Now we slap the label "timeless" around quite a bit when it comes to writing, and it can mean a lot of things--that the story can speak with lucidity across generations or even centuries, or that the prose is such that it feels like it was written by a contemporary even if it's a few decades old. Whatever your personal bar for timelessness, this book will not meet it. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing--a lot of the best books are very rooted in their time and are better for it. I'd be hard pressed to find a better example of this than this book. Not only is it steeped in the lives and struggles of a time and profession that has no true modern analogue, it has a specific intended audience and a specific intended effect.

You might notice that I refer to this as a book and not as a novel. This is mainly because, although this has some of the trappings of a novel, they're threadbare and exist almost solely to serve the main point: to communicate to "landsman" what life is like for sailors in the American Navy. This isn't anything underhanded by Melville, it's not like some heavy-handed novel in that respect. No, he breaks character (the eponymous "White Jacket" is at times both a first-person narrator and discussed in third person) and talks directly to the reader, at length and often, regarding many of the practices and abuses that occur on board ship with the very clear objective of changing influential peoples' views on how the navy ships are run. When he makes the case for these things he's impassioned and articulate and generally convincing...but so far removed from the case he built, in a time when any sane person agrees that yes, naval officers should not be able to flog seamen with impunity for their own amusement under guise of discipline, reading page after page about it is more than a little tedious. That such an impassioned case was ever necessary at all is a point of interest in itself, but that doesn't make it enjoyable or engaging reading.

The most interesting parts of this book were the accounts of how life was actually lived aboard these vessels, and this translates best across the century and a half mainly because like us, the people to whom this was addressed were assumed to have no idea what this life consisted of. So if you're curious about life at sea in the nineteenth century, there's something of a gold mine here, and one not embellished by all the maritime adventure stories so common in the day.

That said, the actual novel portion of this book is rather weak. By and large the characters are just caricatures, invented or likely pulled from Melville's own experience as stand-ins for what would otherwise be memoir and essay. As far as I can tell he invented the Neversink and her crew solely so as to not slander any individuals and allow a debate about the practices about which he is so concerned. So it's basically an overt tool where (now that all interested parties are long dead) a memoir might have been somewhat more interesting. And at close to five hundred pages, there's no shortage of dead wood floating around to wade through.

All told, this is a book more interesting in theory than in fact that was, I'm certain, much more at home in the time it was written with the audience for which it was intended. It's well executed, but has much less to say to a modern audience.(less)

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Aug 10, 2011 Cheyenne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have always been a big Herman Melville Fan. I think that this book is very interesting, but it is not as easy to follow as Moby Dick. There are some very interesting metaphors and motifs that go on in this book. The idea of White being a bad luck color, as it clearly was for our protagonist, is a very interesting idea. It is also something you tend to see in Moby Dick. In the true Herman Melville style it is very easy to get inside the head of the main character to know exactly what they are t...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Jonathon Dabell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In White Jacket, Herman Melville captures various snapshots of shipboard life and draws direct parallels with the wider world. There isn't much plot to speak of; in fact, apart fom the fact that the narrator and his companions are homeward bound from a Pacific South American port to the East coast of America, via the dreaded Cape Horn, there is no plot at all. Instead, Melville provides mini-stories and lots of explanatory detail about life on a man o'war, focusing in particular on some of the h...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Duffy Pratt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic

Imagine Moby Dick. Strip away the entire plot. Get rid of Ahab, Queequeg, Starbuck, and any other interesting character. Discard the philosophical flourishes and the incomprehensible contemplations about the nature of whiteness. Substitute one man-of-war for the Pequod, and go very heavy on the man-of-war analogues to MD's whaling chapters. Voila: White-Jacket.

I admit, to many, this recipe probably sounds truly dreadful. And as a novel, it is dreadful. The more I read of him, the more convinced...more Imagine Moby Dick. Strip away the entire plot. Get rid of Ahab, Queequeg, Starbuck, and any other interesting character. Discard the philosophical flourishes and the incomprehensible contemplations about the nature of whiteness. Substitute one man-of-war for the Pequod, and go very heavy on the man-of-war analogues to MD's whaling chapters. Voila: White-Jacket.

I admit, to many, this recipe probably sounds truly dreadful. And as a novel, it is dreadful. The more I read of him, the more convinced I am that Melville is easily the worst novelist of all those who have fine reputations. His books tend to lack plots, drama, or believable characters (and here any characters at all). His dialogue, when he bothers with any, is as bad as it gets. But avast maties! There may be no one better at pure rhetoric than Melville. And when he's good, his prose is just a pure joy to read.

As a novel, this book is a total disaster. But that's not what he was trying to do. Instead, he says he's trying to show us the world on a man-of-war. Here, I think he fares much better. He's also spending much of his time crying for reforms. For those of you who think that scourging with a cat of nine tails is a good thing, you should probably read something other than this book. Melville makes a very good case for reform here. And if the Procrastination Society of America has this reform somewhere on its agenda, I might get around to joining them someday.

I was about ready to give up on this book. As a series of short essays on life aboard a ship, it was a hit or miss thing. Some sections were great to read, but frankly, much of it is pretty dull and even worse, somewhat repetitive. But then, out of nowhere, there is an purely inspired section about the Massacre of the Beards, and reading it just made my day, perhaps even my week. As I said, when Melville is great, he's as good as anything. And because of this marvelous gem, along with some other scattered nuggets, I have to say that I liked this book. But then, I love the whaling chapters in Moby Dick, too. Take that for what its worth.(less)

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Aug 08, 2010 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-lit

I came to this book looking for that vivacious, digressively probing and insightful, colorful Melvillian narrative style, never mind the subject matter. Had I simply been curious about the details of life aboard an American man-of-war in the mid-nineteenth century, I would certainly have enjoyed this book more. I’ve noticed a number of writing modes in this great American author, and the one I enjoy least (although it has its moments) is certainly the encyclopedic mode. Mere, bare-bones descript...more I came to this book looking for that vivacious, digressively probing and insightful, colorful Melvillian narrative style, never mind the subject matter. Had I simply been curious about the details of life aboard an American man-of-war in the mid-nineteenth century, I would certainly have enjoyed this book more. I’ve noticed a number of writing modes in this great American author, and the one I enjoy least (although it has its moments) is certainly the encyclopedic mode. Mere, bare-bones description. This turns a lot of people off to Moby-Dick, and they should certainly avoid this book. In Moby-Dick, that encyclopedic style is so colored with allusions, metaphors, and other figurative language that it makes it much more interesting; that figurative style certainly colors this book somewhat, but was lacking in many parts.

Nevertheless, Meliville is thorough in his description of life aboard a man-of-war: chapter topics include: “breakfast, dinner, and supper”; “a flogging”; “a man-of-war library”; “smuggling in a man-of-war”; “prayers at the guns”; and, certainly one of the more interesting chapters, “the massacre of the beards”. Despite being a bit dry, the novel was influential enough in its ruminations on the unjust practice of flogging that it brought about a ban on the practice shortly after its publication. And Melville, just as in Moby-Dick, which was published the same year, twists his subject matter into a kind of universal theme: just as almost all world knowledge is made to apply to the whale in Moby-Dick, so, it would seem, life aboard a man-of-war can be a metaphor for life itself (although a bit more direct): “As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing, never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral. The port we sail from is forever astern. And though far out of sight of land, for ages and ages we continue to sail with sealed orders, and our last destination remains a secret to ourselves and our officers; yet our final haven was predestinated ere we slipped from the stocks at Creation.”

And the novel ends with an exhortation:

“Oh, shipmates and world-mates, all round! we the people suffer many abuses. Our gun-deck is full of complaints. In vain from Lieutenants do we appeal to the Captain; in vain—while on board our world-frigate—to the indefinite Navy Commisioners, so far out of sight aloft. Yet the worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would. From the last ills no being can save another; therein each man must be his own savior. For the rest, whatever befall us, let us never train our murderous guns inboard; let us not mutiny with bloody pikes in our hands. Our Lord High Admiral will yet interpose; and though long ages should elapse, and leave our wrongs undressed, yet, shipmates and world-mates! let us never forget, that
‘Whoever afflict us, whatever surround,
Life is a voyage that’s homeward bound!’

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Aug 22, 2007 Cat rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19thcenturyamericanliterature

I read this book after reading Erving Goffman's "Asylums". In that book, Goffman, a sociologist, discusses the rise of "Total Institutions", i.e. institutions that totally control the lives of those within. Melville's "White Jacket" is a book that Goffman often referred to in order to illustrate different aspects of life within the total institution.
The introductory essay to this book discusses White Jacket in relationship to the growing bro-ha-ha over slavery, but I thought the book was much mo...more

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Nov 08, 2007 Bill W. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was intended as a tract against the Navy's use of flogging, and certainly it serves that purpose well enough; but its fascination endures today - especially for any Navy veteran - because of its insights into the culture of a warship, then and now. Over 150 years after he described it the heirarchy of a US Navy ship has changed little: the Master-at-Arms is still the ship's disliked and mistrusted policeman, and his lackeys are detested; the brig remains a fearsome place; chief petty o...more

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Nov 13, 2008 Scott rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Masochists who long for the good ol' days

You know how it goes. I took a sailing trip a few months ago so afterward I figured it was a good time to read Melville again. White Jacket alternates between descriptive expositions on various facets and crew members of the ship which are usually followed up with anecdotes and ruminations illuminating whatever the previous chapter sought to lay out for the reader. He's not trying to give you a seafaring epic but rather he's trying to show you the day to day existence of a Man of War ship in a s...more

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Mar 09, 2013 Paul Mirek rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, historical, non-fiction, so-meta-right-now, the-working-grind

In its own way, this semi-fictionalized series of vignettes is as epic as the big MD itself. Heck, they both even end with a baptism in the deep blue sea, although here Melville rallies to drive his point home--because this is after all a book with a message, an urging to redeem the men White-Jacket lives among, but not with. It's also a book of characters, such as the luckless poet Lemsford (who stores his manuscripts in the guns) and the charismatic but fatalistic Jack Chase, who could only be...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Jeremy Hornik rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: keepers

I have an indefensible fondness for "White Jacket". It's basically an account of life aboard a man o' war, and how people eventually find or do not find their place in the world.

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Feb 28, 2009 Matt rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Moby Dick was good because of the story and intriguing because of all of the research. White Jacket was the same except without the story or the intrigue.

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Jul 17, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Good story Melville is way to "flowery" in his descriptions. I don't need a whole chapter to describe a ship entering a lagoon.

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Sep 22, 2011 Peter Zingg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Melville's warm-up to Moby Dick. About 30% of the chapters are terrific stories about men on a US Navy man-of-war in the 1840's, told in Melville's wry hyper-vocabulary style.

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Feb 18, 2010 Walter Greatshell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've owned this book for a long time, but I never could bring myself to read it until now. Melville is a lover of technical details (in this case, the details of crewing a Man-of-War), so to appreciate him, you have to allow him to sell you on the subject, something I've resisted since plodding through the slower passages of Moby Dick. But I'm actually loving White Jacket. Melville is a funny and sympathetic narrator, who's not above making fun of himself as he recounts the jail-like conditions...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Marcus rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't recall a book with more charm and humanity than White Jacket. Great passages on daily life aboard a warship as related by the title character known only by the white jacket he wears. And I had no idea that Melville was so damn funny. Each character aboard the ship is clearly an allegory for characteristics of America of the late 1800s; often not subtle characters, but engrossing. If only read for his broadsides against corporal punishment, which entail several full chapters, the book wou...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Timothy Street rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A glimpse into the US Navy of the mid 19th century. Melville clearly presents that he was an intellect born before his time.

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Apr 18, 2013 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed the book, and recommend it for anyone interested in history or this subject matter in particular. It was very detailed, but never boring. I found the chapters on the surgeons especially interesting.

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Jul 09, 2011 Ke Huang rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not unlike Moby Dick, White Jacket is at times educational, humorous and poetic. I liked how it showed many different parts of the war ship, without being too judgmental.

As a woman, though, I was surprised how little the seamen talked about our sex.

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May 26, 2011 Charles Berman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A wonderfully written book that, as it "does what it says on the tin" is also a complete and unforgettable undermining and repudiation of the very notions of hierarchy and authority.

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Jun 28, 2008 Sophieline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a great classic that everyone should read, tremendously enjoyable and, it goes without saying, very well written. I liked it more than moby dick. there i said it.

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Nov 02, 2007 Theo! rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the book that helped ban flogging in the US Navy. An incredible book which you will be reading today. Do it!

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Jan 06, 2011 Carly Clem rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

-Reading at the urging of a friend-

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About Herman Melville

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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