Rating: 
Summary: The greatest American novel, but not for everyone.
Review: You can search endlessly in this book and never exhaust its content. Like the ocean it contains a depth that would take a single person years, if not a lifetime, to fathom. But it's also a very intense experience to read this book from cover to cover. If it's a class assignment, it's bound to be torture. If you're reading it because you think it's important to read, you may have a bad experience. However, if you listen to Ishmael, listen to his fascination and catalog of the whale and the experience of whaling, you will have revealed to you a soaring treatise on existence on Earth as a human. God, death, transcendence, reek: it's all here: an amazing undertaking for Melville and for any reader. But prepare yourself with patience and awake attention before you undertake this rigorous journey.
Rating: 
Summary: an endless voyage best avoided..
Review: I was so terribly disappointed with Moby Dick. I was expecting a novel of tremendous stature to justify its legendary reputation. However the story drags on and on. Worse, it seems that Melville is so in love with the whaling industry that he feels compelled to give the reader a lesson on whale anatomy, the different types of whales and the differing types of blubber they produce. Interesting? Not for me.Most surprisingly, I found the story to get boring once they went to sea. At the beginning, while at port, I found the characterisations and the discussion about the whaling communities to be interesting. Bottom line: I can't understand how anyone could like this novel. It was a PAINFUL read.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful action and emotion
Review: About 200 pages into the story, it is thoroughly enjoyable. The writing is wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest-ever American novel
Review: Melville's Moby Dick is not only a philosophical treatise on the nature of the soul and the meaning of life, but a damn-good story to boot. There's never been another American novel like this. The Pequod contains all we know of the world, and the sea itself contains all that lies beyond our senses. That is the grand 'stage' of Moby Dick, which Melville fills not only with existential searching, but rich, colorful characters, and ever-increasing dramatic tension. It may sound grandiose, but I believe that a good reading of this book can you a more intelligent, more thoughtful human being. That is, if you believe that literature is capable of such a thing...
Rating:
Summary: What was the moral again?
Review: After getting through this monumental work, I was amazed at the rather blunt way Melville got his point across. The foreshadowing was less than subtle, and the characters almost transparent. But I guess the point was not about the characters, but about ourselves; the real monster is within us, not outside. I found the commentaries on the whalers world view to be quite entertaining, as was the layman's taxonomy. The book lived up to its reputation as a true classic.
Rating:
Summary: A classic tale of the ocean
Review: Moby Dick is one of my favorite works of literature. It is a book about madness and obsession and humanity, combined with a fascinating history of whaling. I do realize that many readers may not be as enthralled as I was by the long passages about whales and whaling methods that interrupt the plot - I hold a degree in marine science so I must admit that I'm a bit biased. But even if you are not so interested, I think that it's worth fighting through those chapters for the sake of the story.
Rating:
Summary: astounding
Review: i'm only 120 pages into this, but totally capitvated. my question is this- how could someone create this immense work at a mere 31 years of age? melville's use of language is initally a bit jarring, but once you get into the rythmn of things, it soars like poetry. structurally moby dick is easy to digest. yes there are almost 140 chapters, but they are mostly short and largely self-contained. crammed with... well everything, moby dick is a staggering work of imagination, intellect and insight.
Rating:
Summary: Unabridged audio the way to go
Review: It took me a month to work my way through the Blackstone Audio Books unabridged version of Moby Dick, and I thoroughly enjoyed the voyage. The narrator did an outstanding job of using distinctive voices for a whole host of characters (though I did get confused between mates Stubb and Flask). The complaint most often lodged against "Moby Dick" is that the narrative wanders, with long digressions into philosophy, attempts to categorize whales, and the like. Here, the audio format shines--you can listen intently, or fall into a somewhat distracted brown study, much as Melville must have during his time on a whaler. When there is action, though, Melville is riveting enough to keep you listening, even with the week's groceries doing a meltdown in the back seat.
Rating:
Summary: REEEEAAALLY great.
Review: Well, it took me 3 tries and 32 years of livin' to finish off this Whale of a Tale (couldn't resist that)... really, if questions of Fate, God, Good & Evil, etc. hold no interest for you, then you'd better be pretty darned interested in the 19th C. whaling trade. What's the hurry, put it aside, and try again in a decade or so, it'll be waiting. I read it on the subway! It's perfect for that, since the chapters are short, and the actual plot is thread-thin... As dense with stuff as the Bible, as filled with symbolism (which, if it doesn't clobber you over the head, then just keep goin', I probably missed half of it, and this sort of thing is purely subjective). Also may I suggest "Narratives of the Wreck of the Whale-Ship Essex", where Melville copped the plot: nowhere near as profound, but a shocking collection of vintage memoirs of the ship that was actually "Stove by a Whale", as they said in those days. Worth it for the last sentence alone, which is profound... (tease!), it enhanced my Moby experience considerably...
Rating:
Summary: Equal parts madness and genius
Review: I think Amazon should require reviewers to give their age in the case of books like Moby Dick. Very few 16-year-olds forced to read this in high school English class are going to have good things to say about it. Why high-school English teachers persist in inflicting it on adolescents is a mystery. Moby Dick is a novel about the desperation and futility of the search for meaning in life (the whaling motif is secondary), which is not a theme that will ring true for readers who've barely begun their own such quests.
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