Moby Dick

Rating:
Summary: What are you chasing?
Review: We call classics those works of art which say something essential about the humankind and that also say different things to different people, no matter when or where they live. This book is one of those. It is a story of adventures in the sea; of the obsession of a man; of Fate and its inevitability; of the blind race that is life; of the undesirability of getting what we lust after. The plot is the simlpest, as it happens with many masterpieces: Ismael tells us the story of a mad captain whose only thought is to kill the whale who damaged him. The symbolism is not hard to find. What happens in between is great literature. Instead of writing a long and pretentious lecture, Melville decided to tell his message in a novel of adventures. We travel the world with Ahab, witnesses of his madness and his deep humanity (not understood as goodness, of course). In a sense, we all are Ahab: we lust for something we don't really know, and we spend our lives running after that undefinable object, until we die. Moby Dick has a quasi-biblical tone and ambience (and size), but every single page is worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: More about whales than I ever thought I wanted to know
Review: "Call me Ishmael". With these words so begins this epic tale. Melville's words are many, rich with meaning and flow from his pen in torrents, using the character Ismael as the narrator. The plot surrounds Captain Ahab who is obsessed with killing the white whale, Moby Dick, who has cost him his leg on a previous whaling expedition. But this book is much more than this simple plot.

Moby Dick is about whales. And there sure is a lot about whales --more about whales than I ever thought I wanted to know. It's as if every single legend, every single description, and every single fact ever known about whales is included in this book. Melville writes in a wordy archaic style; his sentences are long and complicated, his references are often obscure, he goes off on tangents that are hard to follow. But yet I found myself getting caught up in the complex rhythms of his language as I would pure poetry -- just for the sound of the words.

Although the character of Ismael is forever in the background, we are treated to a long line of lively characters. We meet the tattooed Pacific Islander Queequeg who Ismael thinks of as a cannibal and who is one of the three dark skinned harpooners. We meet the First Mate Starbuck who is a voice of reason. We meet the carpenter and the cook and the young cabin boy who loses his mind after of act of cowardice. And of course there is Captain Ahab in his madness.

But even though all the characters are richly drawn, I felt they were mere players, creating the stage setting for the detailed grueling descriptions of the whales. The reader joins the men on the whaleboats for the kill. We feel the highs and lows of joy and disappointment and fatigue. The danger frightens and intrigues us. It is an adventure as well as a gruesome murder of the whale.

Most of all, I felt sorry for the whales. Melville does a lot to humanize them. They become more than just beasts of the sea which will bring wages to the crew. By the end of the book I was rooting for the whales. Of course by this point I had struggled through hundreds of pages of excruciating detailed descriptions. I knew all about the oil, the blubber, the bone, the brain, the skin, the eyes, the sprout, the tail. I knew the different smells of different parts of the body from perfume to rot. I admired their strong fighting spirit. And I deployed the brutality and wastefulness of their slaughter.

The pace of the book is very uneven. Sometimes it's even hard to remember the plot. And in addition to all this whaling lore, Melville goes off on long wordy philosophies on the nature of man and the meaning of life. His themes are repeated over and over and sometimes it seems that he never gets to the point. By the end of the book, the actual search for the white whale and the inevitable conclusion is simply a punctuation mark to finalize Melville's thoughts. And it spite of the book's length there are just a handful of pages devoted to it.

Of course I recommend this book. It's an enriching experience. But it is certainly not for everyone, especially if you like clarity, conciseness and focus in your choice of literature.

Rating:
Summary: a whale of a tale, but not for everyone
Review: I can't believe I reached my 30's (even majored in English) without reading Moby Dick. I was turned off on Melville during college when an overzealous teacher assigned us what he called Melville's "worst book," Pierre, Or the Ambiguities. I still don't remember WHY he chose that one, but it was not particularly good. So, while I hunted down many classics, this was not one of them. Then, after finding an old edition in a library sale for $.10, I decided it must be a sign. I was completely enraptured from the beginning. The opening chapters that describe Ismael and Queequog's relationship are stunning. Then, the focus shifts and like the crew, we become accustomed to life on the ship. In fact, the process of reading Moby Dick mirrors the process of getting your sea legs. The years at sea drag on almost as long for us, but I don't mean this in a bad way. I found the whaling chapters fascinating although I did expect to be bored by them. Looking back, it's interesting that Ishmael becomes so secondary in the middle of the book we feel a kind of literary illusion that he disappears until the end. Instead, we take on the characteristics of the crew watching with horror as fixation takes over Ahab. My favorite scene takes place when Ahab is so crazed in his single minded pursuit that he turns down the captain of the Rachel's request to look for his lost son. Though reading Moby Dick is a struggle, lots of great literature doesn't come easy (Magic Mountain comes to mind) -- if you're up for the challenge, go for it. It's infinitely rewarding for a strong reader. Plus, you can always rent the movie with Gregory Peck which is pretty damned good and much shorter!

Rating:
Summary: This book was my white whale
Review: It took me three tries in as many years to finally settle down and read this book, but I'm so glad that I finally did it. I have two copies of this book - the luxurious and delightful Arion Press edition, which I must recommend to anyone who loves the look and feel of a good book, and the Norton Critical edition. The Norton helped me get through the rough spots (and made toting the book around much easier), and the Arion Press edition reinforced the fact that Melville's Moby-Dick is pure poetry, a cerebral treatise on the nature of man, the state of 19th century society, and the meaning of madness. It's more than that, though - it's also a hilarious and engaging tale, as anyone who has read of Ishmael's first meeting with his savage friend Queequeg could tell you (I laughed until I cried!). Melville wrote with excellence on so many levels that I could continue to expound on the virtues of the book for days... but I won't. A great companion to this book is Ahab's Wife, which adds an emotional richness and helps a floundering reader sympathize with (or at least, reflect upon) Ahab's dangerous and heart-breaking quest to find his whale.

Rating:
Summary: This book is gonna make it!
Review: Finishing "Moby Dick" goes up there with my greatest (and few) academic achievements. It was a gruelling read, but---in the end---completely worthwhile.

I've been reading it for 6 months. I started over the summer, during an abroad program in Oxford, and I remember sitting outside reading when one of the professors came over, saw what I was reading, and said: "It's a very strange book, isn't it?"

Looking back, that might be the best way to describe it. The blurb from D.H. Lawrence on the back cover agrees: Moby Dick "commands a stillness in the soul, an awe...[it is] one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world."

Now there are those who will say that the book's middle is unbearable---with its maddeningly detailed accounts of whaling. Part of me agrees. That was the hardest to get through. But, still, even the most dull subject offers Melville an opportunity to show off his writing chops. He's a fantastic writer---his text most resembles that of Shakespeare.

And, like one Shakespeare's characters, Melville sees all the world as a stage. Consider this beautiful passage from the first chapter:

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnifient parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."

The end of "Moby Dick" informs the rest of the book, and in doing so makes rereading it inevitable. It is telling that Moby Dick doesn't appear until page 494. It is telling, because, the majority of the book is spent in anticipation---in fact, the whole book is anticipation. It's not unlike sex, actually---delaying gratification to a point of almost sublime anguish. What comes at the book's end, then, is mental, physical, and spiritual release (as well as fufillment).

The book leaves you with questions both large and small. I was actually most troubled with this question---What happened to Ishmael? No, we learn his fate at the book's end, but where was he throughout it? We all know how it starts---"Call me Ishmael"---and the book's first few chapters show him interacting with Queequeg and an innkeeper. But then we lose him onboard the Pequod---we never see him interact with anyone. No one ever addresses him. He seems to witness extremely private events---conferences in the Captain's quarters, conversations aboard multiple boats, and--what can only be his conjecture--the other characters' internal dialogue. Is he a phantom? What is he that he isn't? Somehow I think this question masks a much larger and more important one.

Try "Moby Dick." Actually, don't try it---read it. Work at it. Like lifting weights a bit heavier than you're used to, "Moby Dick" will strengthen your brain muscle. Don't believe those who hate it, they didn't read it. They didn't work at it. Be like Ishmael, who says: "I try all things; I achieve what I can." Or, more daringly, be like Ahab, whose ambition is his curse, but whose curse propels and writes the book itself.

Rating:
Summary: A Man's Revenge
Review: After writing many works that discredited him, such as Typee, Omoo, Mardi, Redburn, and White-Jacket, Melville wrote Moby Dick as a way to redeem himself. Hawthorne roughly stated that Melvilles' writing of Moby Dick was a last attempt to regain his popularity with the public. However, many people took him as a fool. He would be doomed to spend the rest of his life as a failure. As previously stated, Herman Melville was discredited by all of his writings before Moby Dick. As a way out, he wrote Moby Dick, a story about whaling and a possessed man named Ahab. Ahab was the captain of a whaling ship named the Pequod, and seduced the crew into his twisted ways. This actually happens today with employers and their employees. Ahab lives on this quote from the 35th chapter titled the Masthead, "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain". The hatred of Ahab that drives this ship will also lead to the death of it and its crew. Thrusting his steel into the whale for three days at different times led to his death. On the third day Ahab thrust the steel into Moby Dick and the whale "flew forward; with igniting velocity" and the rope "caught Ahab round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone." Turning to leave, the remainder of the small boats' crew turned to return to the ship "and now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lance pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Peqoud out of sight." The story line of Moby Dick was rather spelled out. Man meets man, they become friends, depart on whaling voyage, and one of them dies. Reading this book these days, might bring the younger less educated reader to the conclusion that this book is useless and is of no other purpose than to read for a class project. This is actually a well-written book by a well-lived man. Hawthorne states that "When he pleases, Mr. Melville can be so lucid, straightforward, hearty, and unaffected, and displays so unmistakable a shrewdness, and satirical sense of the ridiculous, that it is hard to suppose that he can have indited the rhodomontade to which we allude."

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant beyond words
Review: I picked this up because it was Moby Dick and I wanted to read the book that so many of my friends and peers had so much scorn for (they said it was utterly boring).

I began to read the book and was immediately captured by the grace of the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. Then, as the book became more cerebral and Melville went into his (extremely) detailed descriptions about every part of a whale and every type of whale, my interest began to wane. I kept pushing on, though, enduring for nothing more than the incredible passages that sprinkled this book. And then it hit me. This book hits a reader hard. For a few hundred pages, I was removed, looking at Ishmael and only mildly interested in the workings of the boat and the scrubbing of the deck.

then it changed

After a while, Melville's poetic prose drew me in and I was on the boat. I caught myself anticipating the arrival of whales and dreading Ahab's rise to the quarter deck. The book captures readers. Perseverance is rewarded, you will be missing out on so much if you put this book down.

And this is just dealing with the story. Melville is undoubtedly one of the finest writers ever. He is so subtle; he challenges the readers to keep up with his elevated symbolism. There is so much meaning in each line of this book, it is impossible to realize it all. This book deals with so many things: the basic adventure story, God, nature, human ambition, etc.

If you are unconvinced, pick up a copy and read the last page of "The Whiteness of the Whale" chapter. Good readers will be rewarded by this book. They will be given a literary opus for all people who enjoy books. Learn to hate the whale, I dare you.

milo

Rating:
Summary: What are other people thinking?
Review: I've read some of the reviews that other people have given this book. I particularly enjoyed the one about you have to be "uncouth or un-intelligent" if you don't like this book. Now, that's not absolutely true. It's only mostly true. For those of you that were wondering, the biblical references and the protracted prose are all parts of a much larger, grander scheme, and if you wail and knash your teeth at these alone, it just shows you didn't really understand what the book was about. If you don't try and enjoy it as both poetry and prose, you will fail miserably at enjoying it - it is an immersion completely unlike anything else. And if you spend a lot of time at it and eventually put it down without finishing, thinking it stupid, you obviously didn't try very hard to understand it. Maybe we can blame people's inability to understand the book rather than blaming the book.

Rating:
Summary: Classic story or classic bore?
Review: Many of the so-called "literary" types will scoff at the title of my review, stating that anyone who doesn't appreciate Moby-Dick must be uncouth and un-intelligent. But I beg to differ. Any novel, no matter its reputation, should be challenged rather than be blindly accepted as a masterpiece. I proceeded to do so with this novel, and I was surprised by the outcome. To be blunt, this novel was hard to follow, with its numerous mythological and Biblical references, along with its difficult vernacular and extremley long sentence length. The story underneath all the surface is interesting, but even that couldnt overcome the weaknesses. I valiantly tried for two months to finish this book, but I couldnt get into it at all, so I finally gave up. Maybe somewhere down the road I will try again, but the point is that nobody should accept things because of what the status-quo say is correct. Give it a try and form your own opinion. You may agree with the multitude, or you may agree with me.

Rating:
Summary: Melville's Not All That
Review: An American classic? Yeah, maybe, but not a very good read; more soporific than reading Nausea or studying for the CPA exam. Too much whale talk. It is interesting to learn of the differences between baleen and right and sperm whales, but to devote a whole lengthy chapter to it? I dunno, seems a little excessive, especially when Mr. Melville integrates a lot of the scientific blabber (not blubber) about whales in the rest of the chapters as well. Was he just trying to impress us with his cetology knowledge or bore us to death with his words stiffly lined together like a harpoon slowly inserted through the brain? Maybe I missed the boat, I don't know. Supposedly the style was revolutionary at the time, more fluid and natural than some of the old dogs writing then, like Hawthorne, but it sure doesn't seem that way now. Maybe fifty years from now Kerouac will seem slow-footed. Who knows? That still doesn't change the fact that Moby Dick ranks up there as one of the most overrated novels in American literature, right up there with The Sun Also Rises in fact. Now Bartleby the Scrivener was a helluva story--concise and tight, and he didn't waste bombarding you with superfluous legal background info. My advice to you, the American reader: Read the first two and last two chapters, skip the rest. Then get Bartleby the Scrivener and enjoy. Oh yeah, when you do read the last two chapters of Moby Dick, let me know how they are, 'cause I never got to them.