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Summary: Symbolism!
Review: This is an amazing metaphor for good vs evil, one of the best I've ever seen. The insane drive of Ahab, his refusal to listen to Starbuck or anyone else who tried to turn him away from the darkness of the water, his moment of tragic truth and his final destruction are all elements that make Melville's masterpiece's consideration as a classic deserved.My favorite aspect of the book is Fedallah, Ahab's Psychic Friends Network, who is always just standing around, saying something foreboding or looking at us in a way that foretells Ahab's doom.
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Summary: A beautiful edition of Moby Dick!
Review: This edition of Moby Dick is so beautiful! The first copy I owned had tiny print, narrow margins, and small pages. Luckily, I lost that copy and bought this one. The creamy pages and hand-set type do this story justice! It is an expansive tale, so richly told, and dense, and this edition gives the words SPACE. Usually I am more content oriented, but I gasped when I opened this edition. The care and love for the story is obvious. Well worth a few extra dollars for a nice edition.
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Summary: Whales, revenge and religious ambivalence
Review: On one level, this is "Everything you always wanted to know about whales but didn't know enough to ask". On various other levels it's the story of man consumed by avarice and vengefulness (Ahab), another who finds himself struggling with his religious beliefs (Ishmael), as was the author himself. This is NOT the "Greatest Novel of the 19th Century" (Bleak House, War and Peace and others are better), but it is right up there. The prose is at times beautiful, although there are many chapters devoted to whale science (cetology) which some might find tedious. I thought they were interesting. The book's real merits are on an allegorical level and for someone who's not afraid of "Big Books", this one is well worth a read.
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Summary: America's Literary Gift to the World
Review: This is more akin to a mystical experience than simple reading. It's not always easy, and it's far from tansparent. This book makes you work, but isn't that what you read for? If you want something easy then just watch television, for heaven's sake! If you're still not convinced by Melville's vast, truly awesome canvas, try his shorter works, particularly "Bartelby the Scrivener." This tale presaged Kafka long before "The Hunger Artist" starved himself before an audience.
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Summary: A very suspensful book that always leaves you hanging.
Review: I read this book and found a lot of useful information about the 1800's. This book always leaves you hanging and at the end it all ties together. This was probibly Herman Melville's best book ever. suspense is one thing that this book has a lot of. Again this was a great book and I hope everyone gets a chance to read it.
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Summary: Har! Har! Har!
Review: Thar she blows!!! A hump like a snowhill! Tis' Moby Dick! Har!!! This masterpiece is better than that song ye hear so often, har... you know the one... "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest..." Well matees, thars what I think. My name is Roger, and this novel made me feel like a Jolly Roger!! Har! I remember the old days, and this book reminds me of them. Squids and whales and peg-legs. No nuclear submarines like The Hunt for Red October. Har!! The sea was made for Ishmael, Ahab, and the white beast which tormented em so, yo ho ho. Twas a moonless night, dark as pitch, when I first picked up this book. I finished it in less than a fortnight! Har har har!!! An excellent read.
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Summary: The Bible of American Literature
Review: For those who worship taletelling, and the majestic power of the poetic phrase and desire madness, adventure, philosophy, evil, metaphysics and enlightened wisdom and insane rants and tirades and obssessions about the watery realm of the sea, there is only one book to read. The book written by the master himself, Herman Melville. Moby Dick is his masterpiece and those who are its adherents keep it at their bedside table instead of the Bible. Because Moby Dick is the literary person's Bible. Magnificent stuff, the musings of a diety lie therein. Nuff said. Adieu, Melville, I hope I've done you a little justice.
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Summary: There's a whale in here somewhere?
Review: There are certain books which become classics because of the characters they create, the stories that they tell, what they say about society, both in the time they are written, and later, or because they simply make you think. This is not one of those sorts of classics. This book is a classic because it is a classic, not because it is any good. Oh, I suppose if one could get past the fact that it was written by a man being paid by the inch, you would find a story/allegory buried somewhere inside. But you would have to be extremely patient, enjoy torturing yourself, or just want to be able to say that you've read it in order to get there. It pains me to think of all the good books which were probably written around the same time which have faded into obscurity, while this dreck has become a classic.
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Summary: A great story but extremely long - winded at times.
Review: What can be said about a novel considered by many to be one of the crowning pieces of American Literature ever written. Well for starters, the book is quite a task to read, but a task that should be completed by anyone who is interested in fine writing. Or even perhaps the human pysche. But of course the book is not without flaws. The main flaw being that of length. I found it extremely irritating at times the number of pages Melville would prattle on about the type of rope used by the whalers or the hardness of the steel used as the spikes for the harpoons. Another criticism I have to make is that collectivly the tale of the search for White Whale only constitutes about half of the novel. The other half taken up by seemingly trivial information on the tools of the Pequod. But if these aspects can be overlooked or perhaps even skipped, as alot of the chapters don't add to the story at all, then the final result is an extremely well written novel about the insane quest of Ahab for the White Whale in which he "came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations."
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Summary: Surprizingly enjoyable and humorous.
Review: I am ejoying this book so much and am surprized that it is not more popular. I laugh out loud at least once per chapter. The chapters are short and the pace is quick. It is a very poingant novel for this time as much as for when it was written; it takes a good look at the forces that shape America and the mentalities behind those forces. This book can really help you to enjoy some of the things about America that ordinarily annoy us. And, of course, the story is a total gas!
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