Moby Dick

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Summary: Moby Dick is different
Review: Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick. It was consider being one of his best books he ever wrote. Moby Dick is a book about revenge. Better yet, it is a book that shows that revenge can and most of the time will come back to haunt you. This theme of the book kind of goes back to a quote from animal farm, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" This quote can be tide with the theme of revenge in Moby Dick. Revenge and Absolute power is an idea that never comes true. Absolute power and revenge never come true, because as soon as you think you reach them or the point that is best; it all comes crashing down. Like in animal farm, Napoleon tried to reach the point of having absolute power, but every time he thought he had it, he had to do something, or something had to happen which would keep him from reaching it. An example would be that he had to keep wrecking the windmill to keep that animals busy, so they would not question him. Another example is that even though Napoleon had the dogs, someone, or in this case an animal, had seen, heard or thought something that they did not like or were curious about, dealing with Napoleon. In Moby Dick revenge was used as a "tool", to strike back at something, but in the end the only thing that happened was that this "tool" destroyed it's user.

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Summary: Moby Dick: a tiresome book
Review: Moby Dick, was a horrible waiste of time. Along with its wordy paragraphs, it also talked about uninteresting issues. It is also to long, and you don't hear of them encountering the whale until the end of the book. Heres a good idea, after you read this book, go buy a vile of arsenic, drink it and you will be much happier. The only monster was the book itself. It leaves you with that, "I hate myself" feeling you get after accidentally destroying a major city with a hydrogen bomb or something, anyways, do not read it!

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Summary: A HARD READ BUT WORTH IT IN THE END
Review: Moby Dick is one of the rare novels where I think that you should go and see the movie first before reading it. The Plot of the book becomes very hard to follow with there being over 200 hundred chapters in the book(1-10 pages long)so you should go and see the movie so you can know the plot and know what is happening so when you read it you won't get lost. Herman Melvile provides incridible details almost as if it really happen. This can make some people think the book is boring but Melvile seperates the 500 page book into over 200 small easy to read chapters so when you get bored with what Melvile talks about in one chapter you can just skip the whole chapter and not miss anything big in the book. Melvile kind of makes the book long with his details but towards the end it gets really exciting and the ending is the best you will ever read. I promise.

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Summary: One of the greatest American novels
Review: Moby Dick is one of the most elegantly written novels in American history. While it is the story of the Pequod's journey around the world in search of Moby Dick, it is also far more than that. The psychological studies of Captain Ahab and the other boatsmen that Melville has sent along on the voyage are captivating. At down times in the Pequod's search, Ishmael, the onboard narrator, gives many insights into the mind of the typical early nineteenth century whaler. He also gives brilliant, colorful analyses of whales and other marine wildlife encountered on their journey. Some of these chapters may seem tedious at first, but their fundamental nature in relation to the heart of the story and the motivation of its lively characters quickly becomes apparent. While this book might appear lengthy to the modern American reader, it is definitely worth the time spent in its consumption as it is one of the most beautiful of all American novels.

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Summary: Is it reading an epic, or is it an epic read?
Review: Such a hard read? Yes and no. This is not a book to be skimmed through as if it were the a new Grisham novel or the latest "Left Behind" installment (I confess I stopped reading "Left Behind" after the first). No, its words are poetical and poetry does not reward the skimmer. Don't just read for the story but for the prose itself. It is beautiful. That being said, I do appreciate the difficulty of the read. It took me about 10 weeks to finish. There are some bits maybe Melville could've trimmed up a bit. Six (count them, six) chapters comparing the heads of the Sperm Whale and Right Whale are more than enough. Also, the chapter or two devoted to different paintings of whales seem a bit much. The Reader's Digest version would, no doubt, keep the first fifty and the last seventy-five pages of the novel and hack away vigorously at the middle four hundred. But despite all this, if you do read this book, please finish it. It rewards the constant reader with a spectacular conclusion. It's worth it.

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Summary: Genesis 1: 21 And God created great whales...
Review: "And God created [ Sperm Whales ]" so Herman Melville could write Moby Dick.

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Summary: medium
Review: the book is reasonable, but also better than some news of our times.

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Summary: Melville's glorious mess
Review: It's always dangerous to label a book as a "masterpiece": that word seems to scare away most readers and distances everyone from the substance of the book itself. Still, I'm going to say that this is the Greatest American Novel because I really think that it is--after having read it myself.

Honestly, Moby Dick IS long and looping, shooting off in random digressions as Ishmael waxes philosophical or explains a whale's anatomy or gives the ingredients for Nantucket clam chowder--and that's exactly what I love about it. This is not a neat novel: Melville refused to conform to anyone else's conventions. There is so much in Moby Dick that you can enjoy it on so many completely different levels: you can read it as a Biblical-Shakespearean-level epic tragedy, as a canonical part of 19th Century philosophy, as a gothic whaling adventure story, or almost anything else. Look at all the lowbrow humor. And I'm sorry, but Ishmael is simply one of the most likable and engaging narrators of all time.

A lot of academics love Moby Dick because academics tend to have good taste in literature. But the book itself takes you about as far from academia as any book written--as Ishmael himself says, "A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." Take that advice and forget what others say about it, and just experience Moby Dick for yourself.

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Summary: The Greatest American literature ever
Review: Quite simply this is the greatest book ever to come out of the USA, and none has matched it since. In some ways it can be read as a tragedy or a gothic novel. It can be hard going, with in depth chapters on various details on the lost art of whaling and whales themselves. Melville worked on whaling ships for many years and had first hand experience of what went on, so too he heard the stories. Although some people I know don't like this approach to novel writing, I think it fits very well into the whole.

Melville's novel is almost manichean in its nature. Ahab is a blasphemer, and a Cain like wanderer in quest of the monster that took his leg. It shouldn't be forgotten that Ahab was the king in the Bible who helped lead his people into idolatory against Elijah. Many of the epic motifs are here- the futile quest and dangerous obsession, man's struggle and sometimes hatred of the force's of nature, the danger of following the mad leader and so on. There is also a hint of almost black magic in parts. Most of the book is concerned with the ship and its crew and the sea and the White Whale, the two are pitted against each other. It is a book of the Elements. But whereas Ahab does not forgive the white whale, the sea "forgives" Ishmael, who survives to tell the tale symbolically by holding onto a coffin as the ship goes down.

I think its message about leadership is important. Ahab's obsession is what kills his men. Moby Dick is merely defending himself. But his men could have easily prevented their deaths had they taken the step of mutineering early on.

There's a lot I can't say here, because I'd just be repeating what other people would say better. Don't forget this isn't the only book Melville wrote- his short stories are amongst the best in early US fiction.

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Summary: call me ishmael...
Review: it took me nearly two months to read this book,moved from maine to ohio while i read it, got a couple of headaches trying to follow the story, but i stuck with it...its not so much the story about a white whale as it is about a man's obsession, and how that obsession destroys him in the end.take your time with it. find a good coffeehouse and kill a few hours a night and be patience with the story. the book is worth it.