Goodreads | Moby Dick

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J rated it:

(review of isbn 0143058096)

05/16/08

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 a...more

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Alison rated it:

(review of isbn 0142437247)

07/03/08

Read in July, 2008

Avast! Here be spoilers!
I loved this book. But I don’t really want to talk about my feelings; I want to talk about how Melville wrote a truly radical book, a book that turns the world upside-down, one of the Best. Books. Ever.
Moby Dick begins as the story of a fastidious Yankee schoolmaster who signs onto a whaling voyage but finds himself in the realm of topsy-turvy. At first he is terrified and disgusted by his boarding house's filth and by his bedmate, Queequeg, a South Paci...more Avast! Here be spoilers!
I loved this book. But I don’t really want to talk about my feelings; I want to talk about how Melville wrote a truly radical book, a book that turns the world upside-down, one of the Best. Books. Ever.
Moby Dick begins as the story of a fastidious Yankee schoolmaster who signs onto a whaling voyage but finds himself in the realm of topsy-turvy. At first he is terrified and disgusted by his boarding house's filth and by his bedmate, Queequeg, a South Pacific cannibal, idolater, and tattooed guy. But Queequeg's affection, integrity, and bravery destroy many of our whaler’s prejudices about race, nation, religion, and relationships between men: "Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair." He even consents to worship Queequeg's little carved idol Yojo: after all, if his own Presbyterianism demands that he do unto others blah blah blah, and if he would have Queequeg join his own faith, "Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator." So far this is all charming, funny, and slyly subversive. But Melville's project seeks to upset even more fundamental prejudices about humans, nature, and God: that these categories exist in hierarchy, that they are not interchangeable, and that they possess any discrete characteristics at all.
Our narrator tells us that whales are more or less fish, and that they are often deadly to their human hunters. This combination of baseness, bestiality, violence, and superiority in the whale unsettles the assumption of human ascendancy in the food chain, evolution, and/or God’s Creation. This is unsettling stuff; in a typically 19thC (and 20th) way, there follow dozens of approaches to understanding –and delimiting--the whale: biological, historical, fabular, anecdotal, commercial, religious, etymological, archaeological, all intended to quell uncertainty and establish a chain of command: man on top, fish bottom (even rejecting the possibility that such a brute of an animal could be a mammal). But Captain Ahab’s mission—to exact revenge on the whale who bit off his leg—upsets all of these rational claims.
“’Vengeance on a dumb brute!’ cried Starbuck, ‘that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.’” A man who regards a fish as his antagonist also acknowledges a kind of equality with that fish: either the man becomes less a man, or acknowledges the fish as more than animal. Ahab does indeed blaspheme; in claiming Moby Dick as his enemy, his tormentor, his ambition, and his end, he rejects both the divine mandate in Genesis for men to dominate animals, and the supposed resemblance between God and man. His obsession puts his ship and sailors in the deepest danger: not of being killed, but of ceding their special relationship with God, i.e., their in/difference to animals, their humanity. And the sailors give it up, willingly, in stupendous cult scenes sealed with blood! If a man can give up the attributes that heretofore defined him as a man, choosing to seek equality with the non-white, the non-Christian….then why not seek equality with a fish? If this is madness, it is the madness of the utter destabilization of authority and identity: Ahab, devilry, Moby Dick, animality, humanity, and godlike aspirations—all are mixed.
In some of the strangest and most wonderful passages, Melville uses form to demonstrate the disintegration of the crew’s humanity: the intense characterization vanishes, to be replaced by theatrical choruses, incursions from one point of view into another, the occasional struggling return to a kind of documentary objectiveness, which gives way to further dissolution of reason (see our narrator’s impassioned rant on what Moby Dick means, personally, to him: whiteness itself, the very element of divinity and horror, according to him). As a character, our narrator virtually disappears: his confident first-person gives way, even his name ceases to be mentioned. Other characters persist, but increasingly do so only in worshipful apprehension of the whale—some numbly, some eagerly, but all of them looking forward to the whale’s coming as the denouement of their endeavor. Form unravels; human aspiration to godliness unravels; and our narrator, who has accepted a great many paradoxes and uncertainties, must finally suffer the consequences of his acceptance.
If Ahab is a portrait of a madman struggling between his bestiality and his sublimity, then what of the whale? The reader who has been tracking these disruptions will be waiting for Melville to recognize the whale’s rights as an individual being, to explore the moral implications of his uncanny anatomical , behavioral, and emotional likeness to men, and to feel compassion for his plight (our narrator’s increasing use of the epithet “poor whale” is telling); that is, we expect to see the whale humanized. But in the last pages of the novel, Melville accomplishes a wondrous feat: we see the whale not as humanlike, and certainly not as a mere symbol of any of these embattled traits, but as a whale qua whale, which is an animal, which is divine.
“A gentle joyousness - a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.” And, “warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight.”
The most confounding moment of all, when everything we understand of this world comes to its fulfillment, is when we see that Moby Dick is beautiful, that he is a happy whale who delights in his whalishness, that he has sea-fowl groupies who love him. He is the most powerful, lovely, destructive, peaceful, astonishing thing in the world. He has an existence of his own, self-sufficient, without regard for human intention, and inscrutable to human regard. He is a mystery who refuses to be understood by science or history. These are the attributes of God, and Moby Dick is a fish. To aspire to godliness is to aspire to fishiness. The human-God equation has been shattered.
In this world, what room is there for humans? Well. Ahab gets real mad at all this; he and Moby Dick tussle it out to the end. The Pequod sinks, taking down all the sailors; Tashtego, who’s climbed to the top of the mainmast, is last seen as an arm reaching over the waves: “at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.”
Only one man witnesses this last snub at heaven; one man survives utter dissolution, and he asks us to call him Ishmael.
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Esther rated it:

(review of isbn 0679600108)

07/23/08

Read in July, 2008

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, afte...more 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 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.
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Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0142437247)

09/08/08

recommends it for: People I despise

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

So, what really is the point of Moby Dick? Is it about obsession? The things that drive each of us in our ambitions, whether they be wealth, hate, prejudice or love? Is it a deconstruction of Puritan culture in colonial America? Is it a Joseph Campbell-esque heroic tale? Is it a good ol' yarn of men against ...more

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Justin rated it:

(review of isbn 0143058096)

06/10/07

Read in June, 2007

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...more 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 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.
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Josh rated it:

(review of isbn 0142000086)

06/11/08

Read in June, 2008

When someone speaks of “The Great American Novel” as a literary ideal, they’re likely thinking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath, A Catcher in the Rye or Moby Dick. In fact, I’d wager that if you were to ask any random stranger on the street to name the first book off the top of their head, Moby Dick would come up as often if not more than the Bible.

So what more can really be said about this novel that is practically a synonym for “book.” What can you re...more

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Joseph rated it:

(review of isbn 0142437247)

06/01/08

Read in June, 2008

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 people....more 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 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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Colie! rated it:

(review of isbn 0143058096)

04/14/08

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Colie! by: Cara and Elizabeth
recommends it for: Anyone American. Know your lit!

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 book, I ...more 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 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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Amanda rated it:

(review of isbn 0142000086)

08/25/08

bookshelves: all-time-favorites, everyone-should-read, to-reread

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Amanda by: Daphna Atias

Surprisingly funny, wholly engaging, and deserving of it's 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 an...more Surprisingly funny, wholly engaging, and deserving of it's 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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Lauren rated it:

(review of isbn 0142437247)

03/07/08

Read in January, 2006

This book currently occupies a hallowed place on my favorite-books-shelf. I've read all of it once, and parts of it thrice. My first copy (which is now one of two in my possession) was increasingly dog-eared the further along I read. The sheer beauty of some of Melville's passages can stop my breath momentarily; while at other times, his comedy makes me laugh out loud -- any book that can make me do either of these is notable, and a book that does both is exceptional.

Ishmael, the narrator...more This book currently occupies a hallowed place on my favorite-books-shelf. I've read all of it once, and parts of it thrice. My first copy (which is now one of two in my possession) was increasingly dog-eared the further along I read. The sheer beauty of some of Melville's passages can stop my breath momentarily; while at other times, his comedy makes me laugh out loud -- any book that can make me do either of these is notable, and a book that does both is exceptional.

Ishmael, the narrator, is a school teacher who takes to the sea "whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off..." I find I have to quote this passage (from the first page) directly, because it is not only brilliantly written but a perfect example of Melville's blend of humor, pathos, and perspective. Plus, it makes me want to reread the entire book every time I see it.

The book is, in my opinion, not primarily a parable of obsession, vengeance, and the limits of humanity thrown into relief by the isolation of the sea -- blah, blah, blah. Its readers are often bored by its encyclopedic passages detailing the intricacies of whaling ships or cetology or the "try-works". However, these passages are very much in the character of our narrator: Ishmael is a school teacher who passionately loves learning and revels in describing as much as possible of the life constituted by "whaling". Perhaps it is because I can share in this love of learning that these passages have never bored me in that way.

Moreover, I think the book is often absolutely hysterical: "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." Or "Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed." And those are just in the first 10 (short!) chapters.

All in all, the book could be divided up, as some have said before, into the story of Ahab, the story of Ishamel, a treatise on whaling, and a tome of short stories of the sea, and any one of them alone would be exceptional. However, their combination yields a work of complex beauty that holds me in awe and harbors a power and singularity I have found in very few other places....less

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Jamie rated it:

(review of isbn 0142437247)

08/03/08

Read in August, 2007

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 possibly b...more 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 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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Rob rated it:

(review of isbn 0143058096)

01/29/08

bookshelves: classics

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: Masochists

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 completely...more

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Izetta Autumn rated it:

(review of isbn 0143058096)

04/18/08

bookshelves: adoration-of-author, favorites, whosecanonisitanyway

Read in January, 2008

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 Man by Ra...more

Moby Dick

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