Rating: 
Summary: An Epiphany
Review: It is often quite difficult to ascertain Melville's position within American Literature. Initially, it would seem his position is that of a "dark Romantic," a dark mirror of his seemingly more optimistic counterpart Nathaniel Hawthorne. We could support this--maybe--until the moment we come across this connundrum of a novel, this monster, this whale of confusion and organic contradiction. Almost everyone I have ever talked to, who enjoyed the novel and read it seriously, described a moment where they were literally in awe of the scope of Melville's project. This is obviously not simply a story about one man's obcession about a whale. We partake in Ahab's obcession through the words of the narrator, the one who supposedly points out the old man's madness at the beginning of the book. We follow Ishmael on his deconstructive mission, labelling out the parts of the whale with an eye that would make Jacques Derrida proud--until, we step back for a moment and find ourselves ecstatically struck, not by any present spiritual totality we would expect from writers like Hawthorne, Wordsworth or Keats, but by the body parts we've already explored and thus somewhat, discarded. Melville makes us tremble in the gaze of this monster, even as we find ourselves fascinated, overwhemingly tempted to eat of the forbidden fruit dangling before us in tattered sinew and bitter meat, blood, blubber, and oil. Reading Melville inevitably reminded me of Milton and my own, somewhat egotistical remark that _Paradise Lost_ would be a better book had God never opened his mouth. _Moby Dick_ is the book I envisioned, with a marine God who is always present in the novel, but who never speaks, whose seduction and law come through silence and absence. Rather than attempting any direct articulation of the "ways of God," Melville simply shows the law as a haunting presence, as a state of things we must constantly attempt to subvert, but over which we have absolutely no control. Human beings are punished for their transgression, as only Ishmael survives the end of the novel. However, there doesn't seem any hope in the book, as if salvation didn't, or couldn't exist. We are left only with our narrator, clumsily and pathetically clinging to a raft, his community, his world sinking behind him. Ishmael desperately tries to recreate that community through his writing, but this attempt can only succeed if we follow him in his transgression. To recreate community, Ishmael must once again sin against his whale-god and bring us with him into hell--or at least, out of the innocence of Eden.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Novel !!!!
Review: This is one of the great novels I have ever read!
In the middle of a suicidal depression, Ishmel (Ishmael means "outcast") embarks on a spiritual voyage of self discovery ("some men look at a ball and pistol- I take to the sea"). The sea represents the "ungraspable fantom of life- and this is the key to it all"- The key to Moby Dick at least! One other blunt hint- Ahab does not hate the White Whale because it bit off his leg! Rather there was a later, more brutal injury that occurred when Ahab's new whale bone leg shattered and he fell on the jagged shard and it peirced his groin- you have to be sharp to catch this, but it is a key to understanding Moby Dick that almost no one spots. During a long miserable fever that followed, Moby Dick became the material emobiment of evil. This book is truly a stunning excursion through the world of ideas and understanding. It will draw you back again, again, and again. Reading Moby Dick was one of the great experiences of my life- If you cannot afford a trip to Europe, you can get much of the same horizon expanding experience by reading Moby Dick. Try to get an edition that offers footnotes to understand the mulitude of levels that Melville offers.
Rating: 
Summary: Moby Dick = Boredom
Review: this book is boring. that is all. I read this book over the course of 2 days and wrote a 50 page journal on it in the same time. I hope to never read it again. No narrative drive, no interest. Symbolizism yes, but that doesn't make a book. No wonder Melville flopped as a writter.
Rating:
Summary: Moby-Dick became my Moby-Dick
Review: It must be admitted to, whether you enjoy his work or not, that Herman Melville is one of the most thorough writers in the English language. And it is this trait that we should be thankful for, especially as applied in Moby-Dick. A friend of mine, when asked if he read Moby-Dick, replied, "I read about 2/3 of it." If you ask people the same question you will more than likely get the same response. The book is too thorough, too exact and too honest for readers who do not dedicate a significant part of their life to reading it. As for a review, I will not offer one, because of my deep appreciation for the novel (I do not want to bore you with my overused adjectives). I will, however, offer sound advice on how to enjoy the novel: 1. Read the unabridged version
You cannot remove one comma from the work as originally published without losing the beauty of the novel. 2. Have a Bible handy
Preferably a Bible with an index. There are many Biblical names and events mentioned, including Job, Elijah, Noah, the Great Flood and Rachel. 3. Set aside plenty of time
The novel took me over seven months to complete. Rarely was I able to read more than two pages in one sitting. There is too much to ponder to allow a quick reading. Moby-Dick became my Moby-Dick. My life revolved around the novel. I feel for you, dear Ahab...
Rating:
Summary: Nothing extraneous in Moby-Dick.
Review: I am alternately overjoyed and dismayed when I read the reviews of _Moby-Dick_ here. It's wonderful to see that people are still reading it and even better to see that they're enjoying it and it affects them in such a way that they feel compelled to share with the rest of the world how great a book it is. To fellow Melvilleans and Dick-Heads, I say: right on! I can't help but feel disappointed, though, when I see reviews that fault it for being too long or having extraneous details in it. It kills me when people advise skipping the cetological passages. If you read the book and feel this way, then you've missed the point completely. _Moby-Dick_ is much more than a tale of the whale-fishery. It's an epic. There's a reason behind the cetological chapters. As Van Wyck Brooks wrote in an article about his third time through the book:
"It seems to me now less chaotic, better shaped, than it seemed at first: nothing surprised me more than to discover how conscious Melville was of what he was doing.... It seemed to me intolerable that he had not removed the chapters on whales in general, on whaling, whales' heads, pitchpoling, ambergris, the try-works, etc., and published them separately: they were glorious, but I could not believe that they had been deliberately introduced to retard the action. It struck me that the action should have been retarded as it were within the story. I do not feel this now. The book is an epic and an epic requires ballast." Many people are put off by those very things. Try to imagine, though, where _The Iliad_ would be without the large catalogue of ships, or where _Paradise Lost_ would be without the large detailed list of all the fallen angels. Without the encyclopedic passages (which are well-written to boot, and a shame to skip), _Moby-Dick_ becomes nearly as banal as every other sea-story that came out at the time, saved only by Melville's extraordinary talent with a pen. Melville had a reason for doing everything he did in the book. Earlier in 1850, in his essay "Hawthorne and his Mosses" (easily one of the most wonderful examples of a writer writing about another writer -- find it using Google and enjoy it), Melville bemoaned the lack of a national literature and said that he would stand by Pop Emmons' "Fredoniad" (a so-so American epic poem, modeled after European epics) until a better epic came along. By casting _Moby-Dick_ in such a manner, it seems to me that Melville was making a deliberate attempt to create that "better epic," and in doing so helped to establish American literature as a separate entity from English literature (for more on this, read F. O. Matthiessen's _American Renaissance_, the Bible of American studies). In creating this epic, nothing is expendable: the cetological passages are just as important as the soliloquies. Besides the critical aspect as to why they're important, they also serve a commonsense function. Recall, those of you who have read the book, the chapter entitled "The Town-Ho's Story." Ishmael is telling the story of the Town-Ho to a bunch of guys in Lima, Peru. A number of times, he mentions things they're not familiar with: the Great Lakes and canallers (the men who work in canals). Each time such a topic comes up, the narrative is interrupted and Ishmael has to explain to the audience what these unfamiliar things are. By the time he gets to the final digression, he decides to have fun with it, and rhapsodizes on canallers, figuring that even digressions can be an interesting and artful way of telling a story. That chapter provides the layout for the rest of the novel, with Ishmael as the storyteller and YOU as the audience. Each time he digresses about the various species of whales, or their heads, or their tails, it's for YOUR benefit, so you get a more complete picture and aren't left in the dark as to what's going on when the men are "trying-out" the blubber or when Tashtego is working with a "pitch-pole." Beyond their explanatory function, they are also beautiful passages of writing (reread the chapter about the tails, if you don't believe me; Ishmael's love for the beauty of whales is dripping off the page). Yes, it's a long book, but it's anything but boring. If you find the cetological passages boring, try a few things: 1) keep in mind that they provide the "ballast" for our first indigenous epic; 2) try to appreciate the beauty of the prose, and don't get bogged down in its being solely focused on whales and whaling; 3) see it as a story being told to you by a very conscientious narrator who is intent on having you understand everything about whales -- this last point is quite important, especially when you contrast Ishmael with Ahab. They are both obsessed with whales: Ahab through action and Ishmael through words. The cetological passages are Ahab's monomania wearing off on Ishmael, save for in Ishmael it manifests itself in worship for the beauty of the whale; 4) think of the above 3 points and appreciate the skill and artistry it took to weave all of that into seemingly innocuous passages about whales and their parts. When I finished the book, I only had two questions: "How did he? And why can't I?" I was consumed with jealousy(!) that Melville could pull something this amazing off, and I later learned that William Faulkner felt the same way: "Moby-Dick is the book which I put down with the unqualified thought, 'I wish I had written that.'" I am amazed that everyone doesn't feel that way.
Rating:
Summary: The Mad-Cap Adventures of Captain Ahab
Review: One thing that is rarely mentioned about this book is the capicity it has to make one laugh. The humor is just so profound, I think I must read it again to recapture an example. Also, some of the chapters are very short, and thus it makes excellent nightstand reading. It is the kind of book that will dominate one's thoughts during the moments of one's life that occur between the actions of the day. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Get on and read it
Review: There is so much to say about this book,it has everything and to say anymore will perhaps just add to the clutter.However ,this work is above all ,is one that has to be savoured.This is the literary equivalent of the three course meal,it needs time but it will reward you many many times over.I read this as a boy of 16 and was captivated I read it some 15 years later and there was much more on offer.In a world of clunk click entertainment Melville will take you on voyage of discovery.It's all there waiting,just for you,go for it................and bon voyage.
Rating:
Summary: Literature's Leviathan
Review: Beginning with the narrator's famous humble request to be known only as Ishmael, and ending with his life being saved ironically by the buoyancy of an empty sealed coffin, "Moby Dick" introduces its reader to a world of monstrous proportions, both literally and figuratively. Its subject is whaling, of course, but its theme is the much broader topic of man's motivation to do desperate and destructive things. Ishmael is a seasoned sailor who decides to try whaling, so he goes to Nantucket Island with a companion, the noble savage Queequeg, to look for work on a suitable whaling ship. They end up on the Pequod, which is captained by a badly scarred old salt named Ahab. Ahab has one obsession: to find and kill Moby Dick, the legendary great white whale that bit off his leg in a vicious melee. The 135 chapters of this novel are divided between narrations of the Pequod's whaling voyages throughout the world and technical discussions of cetology. Ishmael tells you everything you wanted or needed to know about whales and a lot more -- skin, bones, jaws, eyes, spout, tail; swimming, feeding, breathing, mating, nursing; the hunt, the harpooning, the towing, the uses of the whale carcass and its oil -- every conceivable aspect of whale culture is covered, until you start to feel that the book itself is somewhat of a whale. However, these extensive lectures are necessary in order to lull the reader under the book's spell; Ahab's hunt for Moby Dick wouldn't mean anything unless you felt like you were part of the crew. Ahab's fixation with the great white whale can only be described as monomaniacal, as Ishmael refers to him many times. For much of the story, Ahab remains in the shadows, silently nursing his hatred and anger. There is always a creepy foreshadowing of impending doom, that he will stop at nothing, not even the death of his crew and himself, to achieve his bloodthirsty goal. The Pequod encounters several other whaling ships, and on each one he feverishly inquires of the captain whether Moby Dick has been spotted. At the end, he finally does get the chance to meet his natatorial nemesis, and his fate is an example of what can happen when a man lets himself be consumed by his hatred. "Moby Dick" is a classic because it has a haunting insularity -- it seems to exist alone in a world of its own creation, one that no other novel is able to penetrate, although many have tried. Consider the originality of its characterization: Its titular antagonist is a silent, elusive demon, and its protagonist (Ahab) is a bitter wretch, someone we don't ever want to be even though we all have felt his level of anger at some time. In the world today, there are plenty of Ahabs chasing great white whales; those who are innocently trapped in the middle, like the crew of the Pequod, are often the ones who suffer the consequences.
Rating:
Summary: The Finest American Book Ever
Review: This is, without a doubt, the most complex, detailed, rich book I have ever read. While it can take up to 3-4 months to finish it, it is well worth the effort. Nothing is superfluous, if read closely enough. Not even Cetology, the chapter on the various types of whales, is superfluous. In addition to touching virtually every theme of 19th century American life (including religion, capitalism, racism, friendship, family, industrialism, and the romanticism of the open seas), it is a THRILLING story to read. As my english teacher said, Melville's incredible command of the english language allows the reader to get an exact sense of what he intended when he wrote the "pithy tome."
Rating:
Summary: (...) Awesome Book Review on Moby Dick
Review: This book was a very good one. But it had alot of big and unusual words in it. They do not interdues Moby until you get half way thrue the book.The words were ity bitty. they used an accent as if you were in there country. This book was a very good book.
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