Rating: 
Summary: Worth the effort
Review: Yes this is not for the faint of heart...tough sledding at times but the reward of allowing Melville's poetry to seep into your soul makes it well worth it. I read this in my 20's and didn't get it. Reading it again 20 years later I found the prose to be less dense and the story stands on it's own as one of the greatest. Forget the symbolism and enjoy the ride.
Rating: 
Summary: not very good
Review: This "classic" book was not what I expected it to be, it was very boring and kind of hard to read. The real exitement does'nt even happen until the end of the book. Maybe if they updated the book a little bit so people could read and understand it more this book would definetly be better.
Rating:
Summary: A Book of Thunderstorm Brilliances
Review: I have not read this book, but I heard the first instalment on BBC Radio 4, and wow!. It's a roller coaster ride of oceans. Prose, poetry and clashes with the tides of the seas. I am going to buy this book, it's a tidal wave in your hands.
Rating: 
Summary: Many too many words, but boil it down and...
Review: I read this book a few years ago when I was really into whales and whale watching and wanted a little historical perspective. I did get that and more, and less, depending on how you look at it.The book is long and difficult to get through. There are many chapters and parts of chapters that don't have to be included. As an example, there is a chapter on the identification of various species of whale, what they look like and where they range etc... From my previous whale knowledge, I knew that in several descriptions, multiple species were crammed into one and sometimes one whale was split into more than once species. Interesting, but hardly important to the story. If I were going to edit the book, and keep only the pieces that are of masterpiece quality, I'd have somewhere around 50 pages (the book is about 500 pages). At its best, the book is lyrical, suspenceful, the characters are deeply developed and their actions are believable. The story is exciting, crazy, tragic and frustrating all at the same time. At its worst, the book is pedantic, wordy, much too complex and down right boring. Truly, this book is combination of the best and the worst, sometimes right beside each other. In the end though, I have to agree with the critics over time, and that the classic pieces are what I took with me in the end. The plight of Ahab, the fanaticism, the tragedy and idea of an unobtainable goal all stay with me. The material that remains part of popular culture is there for a reason. The whole idea of a "white whale" as the unobtained goal. "Thar she blows!", Captain Ahab himself, "Call me Ishmael" and many more make the book worth everyone's effort to read at least once.
Rating: 
Summary: Email me, Ishmael
Review: Boy gets whale. Boy loses whale. Boy gets whale. Spawns yawns.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest American Novel
Review: The characters of Moby Dick are at the very least Shakespearean, because the common distinction in literature of "good guy versus bad guy" is absolutely annihilated. Captain Ahab is both King Lear and Iago incarnated together in one body, there is a part of him you dislike, and a side to him you love, and he is neither hero nor villain, and ultimately human. Just like Shakespeare as well, there is an entire side of the book undiscovered, and to read Moby Dick allegorically is to travel through profoundly familiar terrain.
Rating:
Summary: Help I need some water
Review: What a terribly dry book. I cannot concieve how this book has become a classic. The author could not have written a more boring book. The action is slow if existant at all, and written in a way that you would think if it was narrated you would think a sermon was being given. I picked this book up with the greatest intentions. I never read it in High School. Now I know why, my English teachers were sparing me the trouble.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent oratory skills make this book shine.
Review: Bill Bailey makes this audio cassette version come alive. His voice is deep and rich. You can become immersed, even tranced by the entire works. Even where Melville gets a bit too detailed in the craft of whaling, I found that was still quite interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Moby Dick
Review: I think Moby Dick is a really good book because it has funnyparts and not so funny parts, but the not so funny parts I reallylike! It is kind-of mysterious at the beginning because the narratorof the story meets this one guy and he thinks he has tatoos but they aren't really tatoos. I'm not going to tell you the rest. I'm leaving it so you can figure it out when you read the book. Somtimes it was hard to understand like who is Moby Dick, and what does he do, but you can figure that out in the book. You can't really understand the end of the book but with my dad's help and me reading it again I got to understand it.I would think kids like me would like this book! I would recommend this book to everybody in the world! If I could I would give this book 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars! END
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Novels Ever
Review: An over the top piece of work, one of the world's best novels and certainly the single best American novel. Melville points out to us what at some repressed level we all know yet won't allow to occupy our psyche's: that our world is a dangerous and mysterious place where evil masquerades as good. Melville was so far ahead of his time on so many issues like racism, the environment and slavery that it's no wonder he died broke like other tormented visionaries like Van Gogh. Melville's style makes it a tough and challenging read, no doubt, but it all works to deliver one profound and critical message after another. A must read if there is one.
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