Moby-Dick (Unabridged) + D. H. Lawrences critique of Moby-Dick

There's some very interesting and complicated racial dynamics, and the almost unconscious tacit acceptance of charisma as the main selling point for political power. The religious overtones are heavy and loaded in all possible meanings of the term, though, as Harold Bloom is wont to say, America or Ishmael or Ahab or the narrator Melville himself as he appears perhaps separately from the author-ness is, very much like the Pequod, obsessed with religion, even thinks its religious, though it is not itself a religious country.

And if there's any religion as a guiding light, it's decidedly of the Old Testament kind. The god of Moby-Dick ain't handing out any loaves and fishes, that's for sure. He was everything I thought he'd be and more. I was actually impressed by what a complex character he turned out to be.

I knew he'd be monomaniacal but there's some very interesting, tender moments he has both alone and with others which I was not expecting. You know how Shakespeare's language has that same rich density, that chiming music of cognition where the metaphors stream by like scales of notes as the characters soliloquize themselves into being? And there's even, as the story continues, quite a few stage directions, to boot. Melville had freshly discovered Shakespeare right around the time he'd begun work on it and it shows. A friend of mine had read it recently and we agreed that Moby-Dick sort of makes it so that you almost can't really read any novels after it.

In its wake, if you will. I personally am still feeling the reverberations. It's like an atom bomb for your brain. If that's the kind of thing you think you might enjoy, by all means please do give it a whirl. View all 33 comments. Mar 27, J. In in Manhattan, a strange trial was commencing. A merchant of that great city had been found in possession of barrels of spermacetti, the fine-quality oil which may be obtained from the head of the Sperm Whale. When an inspector demanded he pay the proper taxes on his goods, the merchant, who apparently made a hobby of science, declared that he had no fish product in his possession, and so the tax did not apply.

He was duly arrested and, contending the charges, a trial was begun to determi In in Manhattan, a strange trial was commencing. He was duly arrested and, contending the charges, a trial was begun to determine, once-and-for-all, if whales were indeed, fish. This was becoming an increasingly important question in the wake of Linneaus' great work and the recent codification by numerous biologists of the many families in which plants and animals numbered their descent, which would soon culminate in the great discovery of Darwin.

Is it possible there was some familial connection between whales and dogs? Or more troublingly, between these alien monsters of the deep and humans? It was important to determine an answer, but it is singularly strange that the venue chosen to answer this question was not the halls of academia, or even the wild world of the working naturalist, but a courthouse, with judge, lawyers, and jury arguing the question. Certainly, numerous scientists were brought in to testify, and so were experienced whale-hunters, who tended to give contradicting accounts.

Graham Burnett puts it, in his book on the trial, Trying Leviathan , these were men with 'lay expertise'--they dealt everyday with the subject at hand, but had no grasp of the history or theory behind it. One might point to the difference between the man who drives a car every day to work, and the man who knows how a car is built. So it is somewhat strange that, thirty-two years later, Moby Dick seems to show us relatively little progress on this question.

Melville first declares that whales are definitely fish though he does not discount their mammalian structures , laments the many futile attempts to depict them accurately, and then embarks on an attempt to classify members of the species which is hardly scientific. His approach was not a modern, thoroughly-researched analysis of the subject as it stood, but a conceptual exploration, and in the end, a flawed one, a failed experiment, and not the only one in Melville's great work. There are mistaken details, dropped plotlines and characters, vast shifts in style and tone, changes in point-of-view, as if several different sorts of book were combined together.

This is not a classic lauded for its narrow, precise perfection, but for its wide-reaching, seemingly-fearless leaps into waters both varied and deep. Reading Melville's letters, it is clear he knew his experiment was not an entire success, but he pressed on boldly despite his doubts, refusing to write anything less grand just because he feared it might, in some parts, fail.

It is a difficult thing for an author not to give in and write something smaller and safer, something certain. It is Achilles' choice: Like Ahab, Melville attempts something grand, dangerous, and unknown. It is a phrase we hear, which we understand, something pervasive. There are a number of reasons that Melville's great work, ignored and sneered at in his lifetime, is now preeminent. For all the flaws of his book, it is still full of remarkable successes.

It begins with several strange, ominous notes, like a Beethoven symphony, calling us to attention, with the mystic and dark theology of "There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within". But then it strikes away--there are still some dark shadows which flit across the scene, but for the most part, we are following Ishmael, in all of his funny, bumbling, pretentious, self-deprecating little adventures.

It is, at the first, fundamentally a Sea Story in the old tradition, and we should not forget that it is a grand Romance, not serious-minded realism. One thing I was not prepared for was this book's often subtle and sometimes uproarious humor. Sadly, that part seems to be missing from its great reputation. As a Romance, it is not precisely concerned with developing holistic character psychology, it is enough to have types and archetypes, though they are often twisted. The individual pieces on the board act less like individuals and more like different aspects of one mind, the central mind of the book itself, of which each character forms a small part.

So if relationships are sometimes rushed, or lapse, or are unfinished, those may be flaws in pacing, but each relationship is building together, contributing to the vision Melville gives us of his little world, so they are hardly pointless elements. It is more that Melville takes shortcuts here and there to tell the central story, for as he himself points out, to tell the whole story of Moby Dick is more than any one author could do. Much has been made of the vast symbology of the book, probably too much. It is not an allegory, there is no one thing that the whale stands for, or Ahab, or the ship.

They are all parts of a story, and while we may understand them by thinking about evil, or good, or fate, or faith, to try to boil them down to some simple meaning is to miss the point, and to turn a great story into nothing more than a fable. It is a mistake to go in asking 'what does this represent', it does the book a disservice. Asking this question is not necessary for us to understand the work. Melville's bleak vision captured the imagination of the emerging post-modern thinkers who had seen the world wars tear apart concepts and assumptions which been long unchangeable and taken for granted.

But it is not that this is a dark, hopeless book, but rather that it is a book which lacks simple, familiar answers. It does not wallow in the notion of hopelessness, but rather seems troubled by the fact that hope so often leads us to an inescapably hopeless place. In the thirties and forties, this book became a sort of 'test' for intellectuals.

It gives no easy answers, yet it displays a wide array of ideas, conclusions, conflicts, and worldviews. So when one literary critic asked another what he thought of Moby Dick, he was asking what he was able to create from this basic toolset of ideas which had no simple, right answer. Unfortunately, this open-endedness has given the book an undeserved reputation of being inaccessible and requiring some vast store of knowledge in order to 'get' it.

It is fundamentally a story about characters, and the only thing required to get it is to be a human being with an interest in other human beings. In fact, at one point, Melville makes a parody of the idea of the text which is full of allusions that only experts will understand, with the tale of 'Darmonodes and the elephant', which is not actually a real reference to anything, but was made up by Melville to tease those who are obsessed with dissecting every allusion.

Certainly, it does slow down around the middle, when we start getting various explanations about the history and methods of whaling, but the book is not a series of dry explanations, these are the collected stories and ideas of men. Though Melville, himself, only worked as a whaler for less than two years, he researched and compiled many different accounts to create his book. And these explorations of whaling, like the characters, all contribute to our understanding, they build meaning and help to color certain words and actions. There are some terms which Melville likes to re-use throughout, and some of these seem to be stylistic oversights, but his repeated use of the term 'monomania' monomaniacal, monomaniac is a reference to a specific psychological condition , which is how Melville intends it to be taken, instead of as a simple description, so I don't count this as a 'favored word' of the author's but an example of specific use of a term.

Another of his experiments is to play around with the voice of the book, which starts as a first-person narrative by Ishmael, but also includes Shakespearean soliloquies and choral scenes complete with stage directions and a number of scenes which it seems impossible for Ishmael to have witnessed.

As with most of the book, these are not obscure, nor do they make the action difficult to follow, they are just more example of Melville's playful experimentation. Indeed, there is much of Shakespeare here, from the speeches of personal intent to the broad humor, the crew's sing-song banter, the melodramatic, grandiose characters, the occasional half-hidden sex joke, and the references to Biblical and Greek myth. But being a modern author, Melville's writing is easier to comprehend, particularly because much of his styling and pacing has passed into the modern form of books, movies, and television.

There are also some particularly beautiful passages where the prose begins to resemble poetry, and between the grotesque, funny characters and the thoughtful, careful writing in some scenes, I began to compare the work to The Gormenghast Novels , though while Peake maintains this style throughout, Melville often switches back and forth between styles and tones. So, with all his mad switching about, his vast restlessness, Melville reveals that his own is more of a 'polymania'--an obsession with varying things--and while this does mean that his work has many errors, many experiments which didn't quite pan out, it also means that the book as a whole is completely full of remarkable, wonderful, funny, poignant, charming, exciting, thought-provoking, philosophical, historical, and scientific notions, so that even taking the flaws into account, there is just such a wealth of value in this book, so much to take away from it.

And yet, don't worry about taking everything away--that's a fool's errand--Melville did his best to write what he could, trying not to worry about whether it was all perfect, so the least we can do is to be bold enough to read it as it is, and take what we can from it, without worrying whether we've gotten all of it. Walk the beach, and do not worry about picking up every stone you see, but take a handful that please you and know that it was worth your while.

View all 30 comments. Aug 20, Stephen rated it really liked it Shelves: And I really, really enjoyed it While recognizing its hallowed place among the canon of world literature , I was still surprised, pleasantly so, at how captivated I became with the novel from the very beginning. Instantly, I loved the character of Ishmael and was amused by his unconventional introduction in the novel.

Forced for economic reasons to share a room at in inn with a complete stranger, described by Melville in a manner that completely takes for granted the normality of the situation, was wonderful. It really sucked me into the story. From that unusual beginning, I was lost in the narrative. Of course, Ahab is our central focus. Larger than life, focused beyond the point of madness, single-mindedly bent on tracking and killing Moby Dick.

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Ahab is the personification of the destructive obsession. I was awed reading about the reckless, casual manner in which Ahab used his men and risked their lives in his relentless pursuit of his "white whale. On the downside, the descriptions of whaling and the day-to-day drudgery of the ship board activities did get a little tiresome and I found chunks of the book a bit of a difficult slog. However, I would gladly wade through some of the detritus to get to the gold, which this has aplenty. In sum, a true classic, worthy of its reputation and its mystique.

Memorable characters, amazing language and an unforgettable story of madness and obsession. View all 24 comments. One of the greatest novels ever written. A five-star rating here is as rare as seeing the White Whale itself! Nov 27, Candi rated it liked it Shelves: And this is what ye have shipped for, men! To chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.

So why only 2. Well, simply because the departures from the main narrative were often mind-numbing and effectively brought the momentum of the plot almost to a stand-still for me. Interspersed at frequent intervals among the compelling, fictional aspects of the book are a plethora of non-fictional descriptions of the whaling industry, the various species of whales, the anatomy of the whale, descriptions of whaling lines, whale processing gruesome but sometimes interesting , whale paintings, whale writings, and whale ships.

What initially prompted me to read Moby-Dick — aside from being able to say I actually accomplished this feat — was my reading of In the Heart of the Sea: A little over a year ago, I hesitantly picked up this non-fiction book as part of a group read. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how engrossed I became in that true account of another fated whaling expedition.

I learned a lot without ever feeling like I was dozing off in the middle of a grand lecture hall. When I realized that Herman Melville was inspired by that tragic story to write his own mythical tale, I was convinced to give it a try. All grumbling aside, there is much to admire and even enjoy in Moby-Dick.

For one, when in the moment, the chase is one of the most thrilling scenes in all of literature. As I mentioned from the start, the characters are wonderful — so well-drawn and easily identifiable. Like a man possessed, Ahab is consumed by this destructive purpose despite the vehement forewarnings of the scrupulous first mate, Starbuck. That simply smote thee from blindest instinct!

To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous. I will say that the climax of the novel is stunning and I truly did enjoy the ending! View all 53 comments. Ishmael, as now we finally got to know each other I allowed myself to scribble some words to you. At first, I wanted to thank you for your fascinating report from your voyage. I had heard, always from second hand, many accounts about that what happened to you and your companions.

Some claimed that it was stupidity and unbelievable bravado to chase after that Moby Dick. Others maintained that it was manful adventure and any landlubber would never be able to understand that. Man, you really can write. I still hear roaring of the ocean in my ears, my skin is as sunburned and covered with salt.

I'm walking with a stagger like on the rocking deck of Pequod and that climbing to the crow's nest I admire your meticulousness, even pedantry in precise description of each and every wave, each sea creature, all colours and scents of the sea, all the good side and the bad side of sailor's life. Of course what interested me the most was your boss, captain Ahab and his motives for all that mad escapade. Did I say mad?

With due respect, but there was something wrong with him. I can understand his anger, his despair because of lost health, I can feel how his ambition had suffered, how his self-love was harmed but I'm afraid I can not fully comprehend his fixation about that whale. Moby Dick was Ahab's nemesis, his destiny, his obsession and curse, I see it that way but you … His officer for instance, Starbuck, that one who advised Ahab to beware of Ahab, he seemed to be so reasonable man.

To finish this longish letter I wanted to mention your pal, Queequeg. I had such a fun reading about your first encounter and growing friendship. That was really something to see how your attitude developed and how you rooted for this cannibal. I felt truly heartened especially now when people are so negative and disrespectful to each other.

It makes me think that everyone needs savage on own side to learn from each other some kindness and respect. So long, Ishmael or as you sailors say, Happy boating. View all 16 comments. View all 4 comments. Jun 14, Luffy rated it did not like it. Is there a polite version of saying 'I hope you're roasting in hell since you died Herman Melville! If there's not, there should be The naysayer replied sarcastically. What will my boss and my wife and friends think of me when I tell them I gave Moby Dick 1 star? That's my feeling as well. This book is only for the pedants, the elite of snootiness, many of Is there a polite version of saying 'I hope you're roasting in hell since you died Herman Melville!

This book is only for the pedants, the elite of snootiness, many of whom will be real behemoths intellectually. I persevered with this book just to know how awful a classic can be. I can assure you folks, they don't make them like this anymore. I don't think I got it. Okay, I admit that. The problem with Moby Dick is not that it's boring.

It's hypnotic in its lack of actual plot. It wouldn't get published today. Has there been a movie adaptation of Moby Dick? The closest to it is Jaws. That was a masterpiece. This book is an editor's nightmare.

Moby-Dick or, The Whale

It is the type of book, that when part of a curriculum of a class will prevent the student from loving books. View all 36 comments. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale that on the previous whaling voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. The novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in , but during the 20th ce The novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in , but during the 20th century, its reputation as a Great American Novel was established.

William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written it himself, and D. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world", and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". View all 3 comments. May 11, Daniel Clausen rated it it was amazing. Call Me Daniel Call me Daniel.

Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little money in my bank account, and nothing particular to interest me in the world of mortals, I thought I would pick up a classic book and see a little bit of the literary world. It is a habit I have of chasing away adulthood and the drudgery of office life. Whenever I find myself involuntarily thinking about ditching town or becoming a beach bum; whenever the temptation to live in a Winnebago by th Chapter 1.

Whenever I find myself involuntarily thinking about ditching town or becoming a beach bum; whenever the temptation to live in a Winnebago by the sea grips my soul; whenever I have the temptation to smack some smug coal-suited individual for his money barbarism, it's high time for another literary adventure. This is my substitute for a gambling addiction or alcoholism -- fine gentlemanly pursuits for some weary at heart, but not for me.

With a cynical yet philosophical flourish, others go into the business world, I quietly start a new literary adventure, a new book review. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards words and literary adventures as me. On the Dignity of Book Reviewers On behalf of the dignity of book reviewing, I would advance only the facts. But after employing the facts to their best effect, what reviewer would not be tempted, when such enabled with a not unreasonable surmise, to use conjecture to further their cause.

It is well known that in the celebration of classic authors there is a process of ego-massaging that has become quite popular. The typical novice book reviewer might consult the cellar of his imagination, looking for well-oiled phrases of modesty "Now, I don't have a grounding in the classics But the question remains, does a dead man or woman's ego need any massaging?

And are book reviewers really so dignified as their seasoned prose would make them seem? Having no facts at my disposal and nothing but conjecture, I surmise that many of those who use these well-oiled phrases "Well, I'm no English major but Such a reviewer might say: The book should be subtitled: My apologies in advance if the praise is lightly salted: And like an all-you-can-eat buffet, it often gave me diarrhea. Chasing the Literary Masterpiece "Do you know the literary masterpiece, reader?

Have you seen it? If you skinned your eyes twice daily to sharpen their focus, would you be able to see clearly a literary masterpiece in a sea of vulgar paperbacks? Are you game for the chase? Are you game to wade through detail after detail Are you game for the game of hunting the great literary masterpiece? Well, I am, reader. And this is what ye have shipped for, reader! What say ye, reader? Will ye sharpen your eyes, hone your wit, hold fast to your pages, and have your bookmarks on ready?

Are you brave enough to weather the rough pages of a thousand useless details to find that literary masterpiece? The Old Used Bookstore Entering that gable-ended used bookstore, you found yourself in a narrow room, crowded with bookshelves, book stacks, boxes of books, more a place for discarded paper than a repository of knowledge. Such unaccountable masses of paper, must, mold, it seemed the nostalgic creation of some book-loving-or-hating Damien Hirst.

But what confounds you the most in this bookstore is the heavy weight of unread and unloved things in the world, an orphanage for the dreams of liberal arts majors, and the used bookstore owner, some dreary soul, burdened with the lumpy, soggy, blotchy forms of the world's unloved. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that you find yourself marveling before.

Of course, you don't intend to buy anything. That's not the purpose of the used bookstore. Instead, you intend to stare, sympathetically at this monument to human failure And when the winter comes and the flowers freeze and die, the bookshop-keeper too will pass away, and another, equally old and pitiable sapling will spring forth to take its place. The old man holds up an old, moldy copy of Moby Dick. It is a mild, mild day. On such a day, I did write my first short story.

An elementary student, yes, an elementary student. Thirty, yes, thirty years ago! Thirty years of continual writing! Thirty years of privation, peril, and solitary penmanship! Thirty years of making war on the mysteries of the human condition! Since then I have not spent one week without a short something being written. How for thirty years I have feasted upon nothing but concise prose and weary, used pages of long abandoned books.

Ah, ah, Daniel has furiously, foamingly chased his prey -- the literary masterpiece -- more a demon than a man. A fool--fool--old fool Daniel has been. Why palsy the hands with this foolish chase? Behold, reader, locks of grey in the hair and nothing to show for it but tears and rejection slips. I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though every rejection had seeped into my bones. Stand close to me, reader! Look into these eyes. Do you see the imaginary worlds waiting to get out? Branded, I am with such imaginary world! And thusly, do I give chase to the great literary masterpiece!

Let us fly to a pub or some other diversion to get your mind off of this foolish chase! Like a palm tree in a hurricane, he shook. Aye, thirty years to the chase So, how do you feel about this book review? Do you feel you nailed it? I think the review was fine. The book at times was a slog, so it was nice to do a creative review that mixed some of the elements from various chapters Was it a good book? More Ishmael and Queequeg, please! I wish I had gotten a bit more of them at the end. The book started off strong with these characters, so I was disappointed that it was more of Ahab and Starbuck's story at the end.

I also wish someone had listed all the chapters that were just about whaling that I cold cut out and still enjoy the book. Are you going to do another long review like this soon or do you plan to take some time off? I think before I take on another long book review like this, I'm going to do a training montage, Rocky 4 style, in a very cold place. I'm going to play the song "Hearts on Fire" continuously while staring down a copy of "War and Peace" and doing sit-ups.

At the end of my training montage, I'll run up a mountain and yell at the top of my lungs View all 14 comments. A public house in Pittsfield, Mass. Two men are at the bar: They take a drink of ale and the bearded man speaks. Writing my sodomy book. Why would you do this? Sodomy exists, Nathaniel, and someone needs to write about it. It might as well A public house in Pittsfield, Mass.

It might as well be me. You will be crucified. Your writing career will be over. I've already begun the writing. It is a waste of time. Write another sea tale. Aaah, but that's why this is genius. It is a sea tale. I'm writing about whaling, a giant sperm whale, shipboard camaraderie, obsession. There'll be a chapter dedicated to ambergris But no one will ever know it's about sodomites. Then why do it? If no one will know what you do then there is no point. I thought you were above such egotistical conceit.

This is a story that needs to be told. You haven't been to sea, Nathaniel. It is part of the life out there. Even for those of us who do not take part, sodomy is always there. It is the secret life of sailors. And this story needs to be told for them, for everyone. Yet they will not know. You say yourself that no one will know what you've written, just us. Just you and I. Some others will know. Some will figure it out. Not everyone will miss the point. That, then, is from whence the trouble will come. Melville shakes his head and pulls an empty stool over to rest on.

Hawthorne finishes his ale and calls for another. A fresh mug is set before him Hawthorne: So what are you calling it? What does Lizzy think? You are truly a fool, Herman. Melville shrugs as Hawthorne raises his fresh ale in a toast To folly. I'll drink to that. View all 13 comments. Wanna know a secret? That assignment in high school? Thank you, Cliff Notes. By that, I mean the guy named Cliff in my English class. He owed me a favor. A whale of a favor. Then, feeling the guilt of being an educated American who ha Wanna know a secret? Then, feeling the guilt of being an educated American who had not read the book, I sat down to finally read it.

Because the book had a reputation, a monstrous reputation. While I was reading comic books , fantasies , and role-playing game rulebooks in any spare time I had, my friends were reading Moby Dick. Or they had read it already and they were brooding on it. I saw what that book had done to them. It didn't look very pretty from the outside. But I have an addictive personality.

My curiosity — well, it gets me into a lot of trouble. Even then, I kept it a secret. Some kind of intellectual pervert. I can hardly help myself. Time to repent and face up to reality. And the reality is: I really liked Moby Dick. Nor was it as boring as my little dalliances within its excerpts had initially indicated.

No, actually, it was good. And the book is not as "heavy" as you might think, at least not all the time. I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys. We learn to trust him as our narrator.

Granted, there are moments, like the exhaustive and exhausting taxonomy of whales that tried the nerves the optic nerves, in particular , and, yes, the language is archaic and even a bit esoteric at times. The alliteration can get a little tedious, too, even for a Dr. Seuss fanatic like me, as in this sentence: It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow.

But Melville — first off, the guy has chops. He can write a great sentence. Secondly, he weaves dimestore philosophy throughout almost seamlessly, and I love works with a bit of the philosophical in them. Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw.

Another example comes to mind, as the narrator holds a rope tied around his friend, Queequeg, who is rather busy working on a whale carcass in the water, all the time trying to avoid being bitten by the school of sharks that is feeding on the body atop which the poor laborer is walking. I love the implications of this "monkey rope", how we are, as humans in society, tied together and dependent on one another. That tightrope between fear and warmth seems to be a comfortable spot for Melville.

Not an easy trick! And third, his characters are incredibly detailed, alive, even. It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad.

That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock.

In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on.

I find the crazed prophet Gabriel of the ship Jeroboam to be fascinating, as well. In fact, all the certifiably crazy people in the story Gabriel, Ahab and, later, Pip are fascinating in their ability to lift the reader beyond the mundane with their mad, eloquent ravings. No one will want to read that! The popularity of Moby Dick attests to that.

But if Melville were to submit his manuscript today, few agents would take it. And some obscure small press, run from a kitchen table in a suburb on a shoestring budget, would eventually take it and publish it right into nothingness. Eventually, as word spread among a cult of readers, one of the larger presses might note that the book was getting some notoriety and ask for sales trends.

Maybe that's what makes this book so good. It's a tough read. It requires some stamina. You'll probably need to grab a dictionary from time to time. Some parts will read incredibly slow and you'll need to re-read them. Others will be over before you know it and you'll need to re-read them. This is not a book for the casual reader any more than the Pequod's quest was a casual fishing trip off the coast. This book is deep water. But like any challenge that requires great effort, the results are worth it.

Some might consider this read a quest in and of itself, even memorializing their participation in the quest. I don't blame them. Moby Dick is a sort of readers' rite of passage. Now I can say, with some sense of pride, that I am one of the initiated, forever baptized in the depths along with Ahab, Queequeg, Starbuck, Stubbs, and all the rest. I know these people, or I knew them.

I have smelled the blood of whales, the salt of the sea, tasted the iron of the harpoon, stood atop the mast and taken in the rolling immensity of the sea, seen the white whale rushing up from the watery dark toward my boat. I have served my time on the Pequod. And I say, welcome aboard! View all 27 comments. Sep 27, Paul Bryant rated it really liked it Shelves: There's an old s science fiction story in which aliens have taken over Earth and now wish to learn everything about the human race.

But they can't tell what's important and what's trivial, yet. So to be on the safe side, they employ people to read every single book ever published and summarise its main points. And the story is a day in the life of one of these readers. And he's got Moby Dick. And what he writes on the file index card is: Nineteenth century knowledge about cetaceans, particul There's an old s science fiction story in which aliens have taken over Earth and now wish to learn everything about the human race.

Nineteenth century knowledge about cetaceans, particularly physeter macrocephalus, was inadequate.

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Another way of summarising this one is boy meets whale, boy loses whale, boy gets whale back. And another way would be: Dec 10, Chloe rated it it was ok Shelves: Could it have been an illicit love scene between Ishmael and his cannibal harpooner Queequeg? Did Ahab put aside his vendetta with Moby in order to form a chorus line of ivory-appendaged amputees?

Sadly, none of those things came to pass. Instead I quickly learned that Moby-Dick is not one book, but two. The first is familiar to all of us: Want to know how I knew he was monomaniacal? Regardless, this half of the book is exactly what you would expect from a yarn of its sort. The sailors are a mixed bag of old sea dogs, young cabin boys enchanted by the glittering romance of the sea, and pagan harpooners living solely for the hunt.

This segment of the story flies by like an albatross over the azure sea prolonged exposure to this book has left me unable to make any non-nautical metaphors - brisk, refreshing and nigh effortless. The second is more in line with the Naturalist writings of the 19th Century and is nothing less than a complete history and biology of whales, whale hunting, gutting whales, refining their blubber into oil, and the unique structural adjustments made to ships to allow the processing to take place while at sea.

I have to admit, I thrilled at reading the first few of these chapters. Melville writes them well with great description of the inner workings of the sperm whale and I laughed at his chapter on how the placement of their eyes meant that whales were effectively blind- he was obviously writing before the discovery of sonar. Little-old 21st Century me liked the idea of having a piece of knowledge that Melville, for all of his in-depth research and trust me, it's in-depth , could not possess.

The struggle came when these chapters extended for first twenty, then fifty, then finally a hundred pages. The pacing of the story fell off as I was treated to descriptions of the oxygen: I understood what Melville was doing- if he's not going to introduce the actual nemesis in this tale until the very end of the book then he's going to make damn sure that the reader knows just what this whale is capable of. It just dragged so slowly that by the time we did finally catch a glimpse of Moby, I greeted it with a sigh of "finally" rather than much excitement.

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I think that, in the end, I don't regret taking the time to read this tome. There are some absolutely rapturous descriptions of the ocean, a body I never tire of hearing about, and the hunger that the crew showed for the hunt especially the antics of Stubb, the second mate, and the harpooners made for some exciting reading.

However, the endless treatises on whale physiology just went on too long for me to be able to rate this over two stars. View all 17 comments. Jul 10, da AL rated it it was amazing Shelves: View all 11 comments. Nov 23, Szplug rated it it was amazing. Fuck me with a mincing knife such that I shit banana splits, but is this the most lushly, gorgeously written sea-skein of supernal and scotopic skaldic skill ever set to run before the trade winds for a voyage of six hundred and twenty-five pearlescent pages?

Could aught be a more ariose attar of tars in cetological skin, a testimonial to the Old Testament wherein the primal and subcutaneous have pride of place and the canvas of the watery sprawl infinitely spread about the buffeted body shivers Fuck me with a mincing knife such that I shit banana splits, but is this the most lushly, gorgeously written sea-skein of supernal and scotopic skaldic skill ever set to run before the trade winds for a voyage of six hundred and twenty-five pearlescent pages? Could aught be a more ariose attar of tars in cetological skin, a testimonial to the Old Testament wherein the primal and subcutaneous have pride of place and the canvas of the watery sprawl infinitely spread about the buffeted body shivers the soul unto a pastiche derived from the plasmic furnaces and vermicular warrens of chasms in origin oceanic and earthly; obsessive and repulsive; solar and abyssal?

Melville's great fluke has swept me from my perch amidships and cast me headlong unto a raging sea, what tempestuous, roiling vestments must carry me leagues afar ere a calm be found where I might gather my thoughts and bob in contemplation of both the evermore and nevermore, oblong and overwrought, whilst I await the succor of sails upon the horizon and curse Fedallah, that wizened Parsee flame vizier!

Some thoughts of which a few, particularly towards the end, contain minor spoilage: Best introductory sentence ever. Best introductory bromance established ever. The Castaway , though brief, build to such a crescendo of sustained and impassioned exhortation that it asphyxiates mentally and physically—I'd actually found myself not breathing for the final stretch—while, in interior quarters, I damn well saw poniard-finned and sail-fluked starbursts and fainted dead away. For all of Melville's rich and baroque timber to his words, his passionate embrace of the tale, each snippet panel of life is somberly interpreted and summarized, the banes and limits and dread tidal undertows of life assembled as a motte-and-bailey edifice against becoming carried away, whatever the desire attached to such vigorous enterprise.

It's a rawboned force Man is up against, and he'd do well to heed the cautionary, well-lived words of the author, though the latter would not fain to rail against the living of life to the fullest—rather, that one must understand it's a thorny hedgerow to be traversed in breathed ways, under desert sun and polar stars, with many ghosts and chimeras set to whisper and cry and generally taunt one with cobwebbed doubloons cast upon the path; and tangled roots upthrust from ink-bound deeps to trip and lame one's progress.

Moby Dick is brimming throughout with humor sourced from the full complement of its founts—even when the events of a chapter's active spread are collated and pressed, via the somber rollers of Melville's weighty voice, unto a brew of bitters speaking to eye-agonies of starlight wherein gravity triumphs, that mirthful spirit—sardonic brow arched, comical ears perked, ironic ocular twinkled, jocular lips awry—retains its presence; a cetological oil spilled upon the briny and benighted waters of tide-flowed life, refusing to be subsumed within the whelm of its pathos and pain, its peril and phantasms, portents and apostasies.

While his prophetic voice is timbered of the Platonic, his prognosticative agency blows from empirical quarters—and his sussing of how things would turn in the modern spin is remarkably acute and well-assessed. Even his calculation of the unlikelihood of the Leviathan being hunted unto evaporation from the boundless watery steppes, though erroneous in the end, struck much nearer to the truth than the pessimistic warnings cast about by his contemporary forecasters.

There's little in the way of conventional discourse and relation, between Men together, or set opposite Nature and its incorporeal elements, that Melville failed to espy and set down, in glorious fictive exposition, at some point of unfolding within this wondrous book. Notwithstanding that the author delineates the conjoined operations of a whaling expedition to the most minute detail, as well as digresses, upon whatever subject falls either to hand or his mind, at will and at length; that some characters, immediately upon attaining a favored placement within the pantheon of the reader's estimation, are banished from the narrative flow for an hundred pages or more; that this voice is as apt to launch, in the space of a salty blink, upon speculations of a philosophic, pedagogic, scientific, prophetic, or didactic nature; I was never bored for the space of a second, did not skim one single sentence.

As in the best such novels, Melville is concerned with more than the simple telling of an episodic story, progressed in temporal proportionality—he is trying to stretch his authorial hands around, and grasp sufficient to set forth with substantiality, as much of the whole what comprises our existential essence—assemble, in theatrical form, the greater part of the pageant in which we shall be assigned a role—as is humanly possible: Much as John Ralston Saul remarked upon the difference between the early form of the novel, in which the author—having garnered a wide experience from trying his hand to many tasks in life—set about informing the public of this myriad, to relate to them all of its collective variety, through the creative tale; as against its modern evolution, in which a solipsistic interiority speaks to one mind's awareness of its existential environs divided between body and spirit, and efforts, at times, to convey that tunneled-vision to the degree it might become universal; so Melville is a transitional performer herein—accomplishing a bounty of the former, while yet garnering sufficient of the latter that the whole becomes a rich melding of styles current at that time and barely gestating in future form.

A man for all seasons, then, with a similarly emplaced story to tell Death prevails throughout, and encapsulates the end. The first thing that struck me about Melville's style was how much it reminded me of Thomas Carlyle, with Emersonian flavoring—but there's also a direct link between Moby Dick and, say, Blood Meridian , particularly in the depiction of life as a hard and furious and magnetic interlude between the darkness eternal, and of how fates conspire, tragic flaws conflate, inexorable nature confound our efforts to stave off that irremediable end; indeed, hasten its reclamation because we are all—by dint of our awareness of its surceased claim—rendered mad in some way; not the least in that we shed so much blood on our own.

Somewhere I can't precisely recall I came across a reviewer discussing Moby Dick as a Gnostic work, which strikes me as a potent interpretation, though it requires an alien god whose light resides beyond our universe, and Melville proves himself quite able at snuffing out whatever hints of illumination send soulful beams from the music of the spheres. The narrative arc is truly fascinating, in that the tale begins from the solid observational perspective of Ishmael, a flesh-and-blood figure whose thoughts and relations, as he positions himself for cetaceous adventure, are of his immediate awareness—and then slowly progresses such that he abstracts himself while the figure of Ahab emerges as the magnetic focal point, of whose solo thoughts and room-shuttered soliloquies Ishmael would fain need have conjured out of thin air.

The charismatic presence of this rage-fueled, iron-willed man—a skipper become absolute tyrant over the superstition-veined decency of Starbuck, the laugh-addled ineffectuality of Stubb, and the common-man ductility of Flask, let alone the pagan otherness of the swarthy harpooner triad—seems of a seaborne Napoleonic type who imperil their dominated collective, whatever system they maneuvered through to attain their preeminence. There are many futilities and fatalities and frailties that Melville delineated through the course of the book, and of which the narrator's curiosity-driven, malleable-formed openness to new experience and being expanded by life—rather than consumed in its ravenous operation, and during which obsessions ever emerge, full-formed, to burn the fuel faster and truer—was the only one that, fortune-kissed, proved able to survive the climactic tempest.

I loved how Melville ejected Ishmael from Ahab's doomed boat as a nameless oarsmen set adrift, a nondescript figure seemingly served up as a bobbing meal for the encircling sharks—and it is only once the seas have calmed, and the tragedy been fully laid-bare, that this cipher, in a succinct italicized voice, reclaims the name of Ishmael with which he more forcefully and assuredly greeted the reader in what seemed a lifetime past. A rather ghostly whisper set to close the book upon Ahab's inflationary, captivating madness.

Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville

As often as it goes off on tangents about whaling and details I don't care about, somehow those chapters are short enough to not lose my attention entirely, and they always rounded back to a relevant point that made them integral to the story rather than background information. I think Ishmael and Ahab are two tremendously developed characters. I'm eager to delve into my research on this book because 4. I'm eager to delve into my research on this book because there's a lot of interesting and relevant themes to work with.

That's all I'll say. Moby Dick - Herman Melville 3 29 Dec 12, Connect editions 3 14 Aug 21, There is more than one author with this name Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His first two books gained much attention, though they were not bestsellers, and his popularity declined precipitously only a few years later.

By the time of his death he had been almost completely forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick — largely considered a failure d There is more than one author with this name Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. By the time of his death he had been almost completely forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick — largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and most responsible for Melville's fall from favor with the reading public — was rediscovered in the 20th century as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.

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