Moby Dick: Timeless Classics

A harrowing experience. It starts out so promising... and then the story is put on hold and the perspective is abandoned while Melville writes a series of loosely related essays. For hundreds of pages. By the time the story resumes, I couldn't care less about it; I just want to get through it. After coming so far, you can't NOT finish...

It's Moby Dick. There's not much new I can say about it. I'm proud to have finished it, although I frankly believe you could legitimately skip the entire middle third of it--the whaling manual--and it would be a better book. Suffice it to say that Conrad's Heart of Darkness touches most of the same themes and manages to be one the best books in the English language; Moby Dick, in my humble opinion, does not.

Long book. Kind of difficult to get through because of all the philosophical ranting. 135 chapters and 130 into it, still no Moby Dick ?!? A little anticlimactic since the actual encounter with the white whale happens in a total of three chapters at the end of the book. It was very interesting to read about the whaling industry back then.

For my taste, a few too many digressions about the particulars of whaling and whale anatomy. Also, I was sad about all the whale-killing. I'm bummed that I didn't love it more.

A classic story plus slabs of whaling documentary - a doubtful classic.Read in Samoa Jan 2003

Meeslepend, maar de onderbrekingen storen toch. Die vertonen trouwens sterke gelijkenis met methode van Herodotus: kritische bevraging van verhalen. Het geheel is niet helemaal geloofwaardig, en vooral het slot is nogal abrupt.Stilistisch vallen de abrupte veranderingen in register en perspectief op, waarschijnlijk toch wel een nieuwigheid. De stijl zelf doet zeer bombastisch, rabelaissiaans aan. Tekening Ahab: mengeling van sympathie en veroordeling

Moby Dick is a deeply weird book, not what I expected from a 19th Century classic, and my rating expresses my mixture of admiration, boredom and outright irritation at Melville's wretched self-indulgence and excesses. I know that's nigh to sacrilegious. Introductions to this book call it "the greatest American novel ever written" and the "greatest sea book ever written." I certainly recommend trying it on the grounds of cultural literacy and if you have any interest in modern literature or the art of writing. But as presumptuous as it might be to say so, I could wish Melville had a much more ruthless editor. He fronts the book with an extensive etymology and 78 "extracts" (ie quotations) on the whale from Genesis to Darwin where a selection of a few would more than do. Of the 135 chapters, over two dozen are essays on different aspects of whales and whaling that have nothing to do with the story of the White Whale Moby Dick, the Nantucket whaling ship Pequod or its obsessed Captain Ahab or the purported narrator Ismael. One in five chapters are completely taken up with describing the different species of whales, historical encounters, whaling equipment and methods, whaling products, every anatomical part you could imagine (every part, one chapter is devoted to describing the whale's penis alone), myth, maritime law--and three whole chapters devoted to whales in art. Mine eyes they glazeth over. Melville, instead of studding the book with bits on the theme, or letting it speak for itself, spends an entire chapter on "The Whiteness of the Whale." All to my mind absolutely skipable, skimable and yawn-inducing except to academics and literary critics. That's not all. This purports to be a first person narrative by Ismael. The novel famously starts, "Call me Ismael" as if the novel is spoken by Ismael into the reader's ear. Yet about a third way through Ismael disappears as a character--no matter how many "I" statements may still be embedded throughout--and becomes in effect the omniscient narrator, telling us of thoughts, acts and speeches of others he had no way of knowing. A character is named early on, Bulkington, in a way that should signal his importance to the story, then dropped without explanation. Much of Moby Dick reads like a sloppy first draft. Then there's the just plain trippy. As mentioned above, loads of chapters that are essays. Others that are prose poems or what seem to be displaced random snatches of Huh??? (see, Chapter 122) and more than one chapter in the midst of the novel that are in stage play format (See,, in particular, "Midnight, Forecastle.") Characters--especially Captain Ahab--speak not like 19th Century Americans, but Elizabethians spouting blank verse complete with "Hark!" and "Methinks." One of the introductions I read called Moby Dick "proto-post-modern," and it does at times read more like something James Joyce or Faulkner or their many followers like DeLillo might have written (not a compliment coming from me) than Hawthorne or Dickens. So why don't I give this a half-star and be done with it? Well, some of Ahab's Shakespearean language is striking and resonant. Hey, it's where Star Trek's Khan cribbed his best lines! ("I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the horn, and round the norway maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up." "He tasks me." "To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.") There are gorgeous descriptions of the sea--of sunlight against the horizon like a finger, of the wake churning the sea like butter and so much prose with music in it. There's biting social commentary, irreverent observations about religion, irony, glints of humor (especially regarding the Polynesian Harpooner Queequeg, the co-owners of the ship, and Second Mate Stubb.) A lot of the characters are memorable, beyond just Ahab. Pip, the Carpenter and the Blacksmith, the three officers, Starbuck, Stubb and Flask. Cut away all the digressions, there's a epic mythic story at the core--if you can keep yourself awake.

Lots of neat info about whaling in the 1800's. Plot is a bit thin, and of course by now everybody knows how it ends, but worth reading to see what the whalers went through back then.

The writing was good but there was just too much of it. It felt like the author was one of those people at a party who really drag their stories out; thinking they're been dramatic and entertaining but they're just being boring. This definitely wasn't a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

This book is not as adventurous as I thought before. It turns out to be even more. If you're a biology freak, you'll love this book. Maybe one-fourth part is about whale anatomy, especially sperm whale. Blubber, bones, spouts, nose, teeth, fins, you name it. References from numerous books about whales are included.Another one-fourth is about the technical details of a whaling-ship, the tools used to catch a whale and the process of getting oil out of it. Kinda gross and horrible. Poor whales. I don't want to be a whale in those days (1850s). Maybe the only thing I ever love from a whaling ship is that the journey seems to be more lively compared with slave-ship, a ship-of-war, or a merchant ship. Moreover, one whale ship seemed to be always in the most friendly term with another.Another one-fourth is basically a description followed by reflection on the crews and officers, especially their infamous captain, Ahab, who swore that he would chase the whale that had made him lose one leg (also destroyed his pride, I suppose) until the end of the world. The words used are so poetic, the narrative is filled with soliloquies, which will become awfully boring and unpractical if used in modern days.The last one-fourth is the adventure part. Yay, finally ;pOf which, kinda exhilarating. The life dynamics in the ship, which is named Pequod, were great. I have to say that Melville should have give more length to this part of the book, because I still think there's much to be told, such as the interaction between the crews and the exotic pagan harpooners (who does not love Queequeg anyway). Blame me not, I love adventurous stories.However, Melville had his own reason. He did not want Moby Dick to become a mere adventure story. Definitely not. It is also not a "preachy" book that told us not to drag innocent people into our own dark ambition, like Ahab. It is more than that. It gives us a more thorough explanation on how it feels to become a whaling-ship crew, how it feels to have a voyage around the world to seek whales (and what not) plus what is this Leviathan called whale really about.It took me a month to finish this book. Yeah, it's not THAT long, only 540 pages or something. A bit tiresome (especially with the biology lesson and technical details), but it's worth it. The climax/ending is breathtaking, I assure you...

People have said that Moby Dick is an American classic - the ultimate American novel. I've also heard that it is long and tedious and rambles on about things that are only vaguely related to the plot. After finishing this book, I felt that it was a combination of both - a great American epic that depicts the story of a man obsessed with killing a white whale and, at the same time, one of those classics that goes off topic for chapters at a time. I read this book gradually in both audio and print over several weeks, reading bits in between some of my other books. I found myself drawn to it more and more and even talking to others about the book. The descriptions of whaling in the 19th century are fascinating. I thought I would be completely disgusted by the hunting and killing of such a noble animal, but instead, I thought the graphic descriptions of the dangerous lives of the whalers was really impressive and I found myself sharing these stories with my family. Yes, there were chapters (especially the infamous White chapter) that I would finish and not have any idea what was the purpose or benefit of the chapter, but overall, I really enjoyed this book. It is definitely the type of book I would want to visit again, this time trying to understand all the Biblical and mythological references. Definitley deserves to be read by everyone.

Long one, from right after I first read it: Um? By the time I got into higher school, I wasn't like, literary (I was obsessed with Dune, and Richard Brautigan, okay?), and in college the extent of how much I cared for non SF canon and sub-canon pretty much began and ended with personal interpretations of Shakespeare and believing that Sonnet 18 was a eulogy. In other words, less than nought. So, other than the basic ideas needed to remain culturally literate and a fondness for the name "Ishmael", Moby Dick passed me by. It's a long book, and I'm not like, an analyser, so this'll be quick. Basically, I guess it's supposed to be a descent into madness/inescapable obsession? But for me, the whole feeling of this book was endearing whimsy and fey humour (with a morbid sense of life, but that's what makes it great). It's like listening to some old guy recount something that is really important to him, but he knows that serious things are most safely treated with soft mockery. Anyway, the sneaking increase of Shakespearean language styling is nice as a clear clue to the crazy, as is (my) eventual realisation that the excessive text-bookery of whale and whaling education chapters is the thumbprint of Ishmael's madness. It's why the book is so damn long and descriptive. He is attempting to catalogue all the impressions of the events of the Pequod in his mind. Like, have you ever sat down to write something, beginning with a short description of the set and staging and realised pages later that you are still singing the praises of the wallpaper and softly lit curtains and shit? Anyway, that's how I picture it.

It took me three weeks, but I finished it.

Oh my... I don't know if I hated it or didn't mind it (certainly didn't love it). It was a chore to read, and reading shouldn't feel that way. I'm glad I got through it, but again I don't think that should be the aim of reading! I can see why it's so lauded, but at the same time I don't believe that something is good just because it is verbose and tome-like. The story was good, but the characters were very underdeveloped. I'd have loved to have known more about their individual stories (especially poor Pip, and Queegueg). I did warm to the chapter upon chapter of whale facts* a little, but I felt they were self indulgent and didn't really add as much to the story as they would have if they were trimmed down a bit to make room for more actual story. At times the prose was beautiful, but at others I found myself reading pages without absorbing a thing. It's an incredible piece of work...but not a great reading experience.

*after at first Googling whether you could skip those and still follow the book...

A promising beginning on land as the narrator unveils his character with a good degree of humour, sinks without trace as soon as the Pequod puts to the ocean. The narrator is forgotten (a risible postscript doesn't help), as is the story, as the novel transforms itself into a lengthy discourse on whaling, whales, the colour white, and any passing fancy that slipped into Melville's mind. Its form is random, its narrative is inconsistent and its symbolism is ham fisted (and more oft that not actually announced as symbolism). When the chase finally erupts it is an exciting and emotional ride, but little could overcome any reader's feeling of exhaustion by this point. I deserve a medal for reading every page of the unabridged version, since less than 1/5 of its volume is taken up with any semblance of story.

Moby Dick is worth reading, despite being pretty abominable philosophically (and parts of it are seemingly interminable and hard to get through, but I think that's actually a deliberate aesthetic choice on Melville's part). There are parts that are very good. The opening chapters about the friendship that develops between Ishmael and Queequeg are actually quite entertaining, and Melville makes some insightful psychological points through the character of Ahab. There are a lot of sort of proto-postmodernist elements in terms of the novel's form, along with Melville's belief in man's impotence in both thought and action which they represent---but nowhere near to the extent that would come later, in, for example, Ulysses.

Any time I mentioned to someone that I was finally tackling the book of the whale, I would get eye-rolls or declarations of boredom. But I actually got sucked further and further in, as pulled by some leviathan's great wake.Ishmael's tale of Ahab's dark revenge is not a typical narrative. If one's looking for a well-paced action yarn, don't read it. It's a story of character asides and the sea and the secrets of the whale physical and metaphysical. Ishmael concerns himself chiefly with the unfolding sublime (in Burke's sense) rather than the mundane.Images and old-sea phrases will doubtless rattle around in my head for decades to come.

Beautiful when focused on the actual story. The whaling chapters took me right out.

This is a very challenging book to read, even for a 5th grader like me. I recommend this book to 6th graders, and up, but maybe some 5th graders my age can read it. Even though the language was confusing and there was some minor killing, I have to say the book was awesome.

What a crazy old bugger that Captain Ahab was!It has taken me so long to finish this book that I'm glad I can slam it shut, put it on the shelf and write this review. But where to begin?I don't want to slam the whole thing. Really, I don't. Because I was quite looking forward to reading it, and the first few chapters where we meet Ishmael and Queequeg got me quite interested in the story. The they got on the ship and it all kind of slowly went downhill from there.Being on a whale ship, in between when you are actually chasing whales, must get pretty boring for the whalers. That's how this part of the book seemed to me. A lot of philosophizing about ... stuff? ... and then scientifically inaccurate (they probably seemed right at the time) descriptions of the whale as a 'big fish with lungs'. It floated in and out of the actual story (which I was more interested in) about the madman Ahab and his crazy quest to find and destroy Moby Dick (who does not appear until the 466th page, in my edition!) and the philosophy and musings and explanations from Ishmael. As the story went on I felt we lost Ishmael's point of view and it became more of a third person narrative. That was too bad - I liked Ishmael and his story. But I get that his story is a mere part of the whole adventure.I enjoyed some of this book, but mostly I was just glad to finish it!  

Amazing, amazing book. Deep in history, lore, humor, character, and symbolism, it's easy to see why this is an enduring classic. The meticulous details of whaling many complain about seem to me essential -- wrapping the novel in a time capsule which captures just what a whaling voyage was and entailed. Even the most prosaic chapters are written with a keen ear for Ishmael's voice, subtly revealing little pearls about the man telling us this story. And the story itself -- such vividness of language, imagery, and emotion, such a compelling depiction of charismatic madness. The strength of Ahab's personality practically forces its way out of every page he appears upon. "No, no—no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?" *shiver*.

Where to start? I found this book extremely tedious and hard to get through. I had meant to read the book for a long time--hey, it's a classic--and finally got around to it this month. What a huge disappointment.OK, I get it. I know that this book has some beautiful prose and novel literary devices (stage directions, soliloquies, etc.). I also found the narrative itself relatively interesting (although it didn't blow me away--whale pun intended). The relations between Ahab, the mates, and the harpooners are complex and layered, and were the only real thing sustaining my interest. However, even this could have been better developed--the book begins by piqueing our interest in harpooner Queequeg, but he then fades from sight for most of the novel. The last 10% or so was well-developed, well-written, and surprising. It would have been really enjoyable, but by that point, I simply didn't care about Ahab, Moby Dick, or even Ishmael himself.Here's why. At least 1/2 of this book is only tangentially related to the narrative. And it's dull. Oh boy, is it dull. Every conceivable aspect of whales is hammered to death ad nauseum. Here's a partial list of some of the topics you'll learn about, in excruciating detail, if you read Moby Dick: an extended taxonomy of all whales, the physiology of whales, deficiencies in illustrators' depictions of whales, the types of ropes used to haul in whales, the measurements of sperm whales, fossilized prehistoric whales... Asleep yet? I almost was.I gave the book 2 stars because the narrative itself was sometimes engrossing, and I did at least manage to finish the book (unlike Tristram Shandy that I *really* hated, but that's another story).

This is an odd book. It has some passages that I found really very uncomfortable, the chase of the sick whale, for example, turned my stomach. Having said that, it serves to illustrate the mindset and the times they lived in. Did I enjoy it? Not sure. But I did always want to know how it ended (badly). Starts and ends as a first person tale, not sure it always fits into that category though.

What's there to say? This is not just about a Whale, but about Life. A seamless blend of adventure, philosophy and documentary. One of the best books EVER.

Everything you could ever possibly want to know about whales and a depressing gothic-like story that absorbs you. Oh, I know, it's an allegory... Just read it and enjoy - if you can avoid the frustration in pausing to learn about whales.

I enjoyed this book. It was quite long, but I felt it was worth it. I was very surprised at the way Moby Dick was constructed. There were so many chapters devoted to teaching the reader about the whale fishery, that by the end of the book, you feel that you have a handle of the job done by the narrator and every other man on ship. It's really quite interesting to show how dangerous and exciting a job like this could be a couple of hundred years ago. If all of the information pertaining to the way whale ships operated in these times, the book could be looked at with a historical fiction genre tag. It is that detailed in terms of creating a record of Nantucket and the main business in that area of the United States at the time.

What an amazing book. A marathon of a book, slow and careful, meting out information on whales and whaling and the culture that leads to the exciting climax. I can see why some people might have trouble making it through the more "academic" sections (in quotes because, well, science has come a long way since the 1850s), and I have a suggestion for you. I actually got this book on CD from Recorded Books, read by Frank Muller, and listened to it every time I was in the car. Frank Muller does such a wonderful job narrating the unabridged story that even the dry descriptions that don't seem to move the plot forward were engaging.
I now think of Moby Dick a spiritual text, as full of anecdotes and lessons and symbolism as it is. And it provides more information about the fascinating world of 19th century whaling than I ever thought I'd know. Can you even imagine taking down a massive sperm whale with nothing more than a tiny boat, some spears, and rope? Do you know what it would be like to watch a whale die? And even after it's killed, how on earth would you get the blubber off of it? If you read Moby Dick, you can "experience" all of these things, complete with the success and tragedy that come with them. Plus, the story is really funny! I don't know why no one told me this before. I was actually laughing out loud at many parts, which I did not expect. I would try to give an example here, but it's sort of like re-telling a joke from Shakespeare--the language is so precise and idiosyncratic that I just end up bungling it. But give it a try, and see if you're not already laughing by the end of the first chapter.
I would highly recommend Moby Dick to anyone, and especially the Recorded Books version read by Frank Muller.

Finally got around to reading this one - and I can see why it's a classic! There's not too many books that I've got on a list to re-read one day but this is one.

Was a good adventure story full of revenge, gained friendships and a very protagonist Captain. In the end I was voting him off the island and on the side of the whale. I could have gone without the detailed descriptions of the catching of the Whales for rendering of oils. I felt sorry for the animals and the roughness in which they got captured. You could say it is a true Fisherman's story.

Too many details about the ships!

Call me impressed. The blurb on the jacket of this audio book calls it a “breathtaking masterwork,” but actually, it’s better than that! It is a epic and staggering tale every bit as big as its subject matter--the largest of all living creatures and the edacious, relentless men who hunt and kill them. Melville’s language is grandiloquent and a bit archaic, almost like the King James Bible. Although some might find that pretentious, I think it works in its context. My experience of the book may even have been enhanced by listening to it rather than reading it: the language is so elevated that, like a Shakespearian play, it is more moving when heard than when read. Melville says somewhere near the end of the book that one should write big stories about big subject matters, not about small things. And indeed, this book is not about mice or fleas; it is about whales and whaling.Moby Dick was first published in 1851. The plot is of course familiar to most; beginning with the first sentence “Call me Ishmael” to the obsessed quest by Captain Ahab on the whaleship Pequod to catch and kill the whale that severed his leg, this story has been swimming through the culture in every medium from music to movies (including adaptations like “Jaws) and television.Melville can be forgiven for utilizing a sprinkling of omens and preternaturally prescient shamans, reminiscent of Shakespeare’s witches, to create a foreboding atmosphere. His characters were superstitious and would have attributed such portentousness to ordinary coincidences. And what wonderful characters they are! Dickens himself would have been proud to have limned them, especially the “pagan savages,” the harpooners named Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo, and Fedallah. This is not just a novel. It is also an encyclopedic treatise on the subject of whales and whaling, relating not only what scientists of the time knew, but also much of the lore (obviously exaggerated, but in many ways more interesting than the truth) prevalent in the fishery. In the performance to which I listened (“Unabridged Classics” on 18 CDs), Frank Muller did a superb job of mastering accents and employing different voices for different characters. This book sets a very high standard for other fiction. It deserves its rating as one of the greatest novels in the English language.(JAB)