Moby Dick

Moby-Dick, or, the Whale by Herman Melville

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I doubt I can add much to the conversation.

I loved the imagery of the whale when it fully breaches:

"So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier."

One thing I was surprised about is that we have this eloquent naturalist in Ishmael, who visits the whale bone temple and has nowhere to record his measurements of the skeleton but for a small space on his right arm, saving the rest of the free space on his already crowded body for a poem. It completely changed my idea of Ishmael for the better. No longer was he this logger of events, but a true liver of them.

I'm sure I'd get a lot more of the deeper meanings and motifs from further readings, but I doubt I'll ever slog through this one again, there are too many books to read.



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