Customer Reviews

Moby-Dick

5 star:		(123)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

This book is interesting and boring at the same time (I find that hard to believe as well). The beginning starts of fresh, right away the author catches the readers interests, but as you keep on reading you begin to lose interest because the Author brings out filler after filler which frustrates the reader and makes you wonder when is he going to get to the point. Since your so far ahead from where you started to read? you don't want to stop and you start to have that feeling of once you start someting you have to finish it. As the book goes down forward (around page 300) it gets interesting once again.

This book was simulatenously good and bad, you have to have a lot of patience for this book, if you don't you'll just drop it and pick up something new. The only reason I picked up this book was because it's a classic, and the only reason I tortured myself into reading this book any further was because... it was a classic.

3/5 because it was somewhat good. I suggest you just watch the movie and forget about reading the book, it's almost the same thing.

The print is much too small, making reading rather difficult. Also, the paper is very light, making page-turning a bit delicate.

The thing I always tell people about Moby Dick is that the beginning is lighthearted fun, the ending is amazing, and the middle is (to be blunt) quite dull. I think most people who make it to the end love the book, but getting there is a chore because Melville spends a great deal of time either talking about minutia of the whaling trade, or going off onto tangents almost in a stream of consciousness fashion that seem to have very little to do with the narrative (he devotes an entire chapter to telling why the color white is frightening, and another to listing characters from legend whom he identifies as whalers (Perseus I can see, but St. George?)). The language is gloriously poetic in places, but other times it rambles almost aimlessly and feels very convoluted and self-indulgent, even by 19th century standards. (Yes, I know these are qualities that the book's devotees hold dear, but they're also the reason that so many people never finish the thing. Might as well be honest about it.)

At the end, it's extremely disturbing getting into Ahab's head and understanding what makes him tick-disturbing because it's present in all of us, an instrinsic part of the human condition: his rage at not being God. Ahab is pride incarnate, with all the hatred that comes with it. (The story of Jonah, sermonized in the beginning, is ultimately one of the need for humility before God, with the whale as God's agent. And it's important that Jonah's sin is not merely disobedience but a refusal to go on a mission of mercy.). I felt unsettled for a long time after I read this, because it demonstrates what a short jump it is between a classically Satanic villain (a being of total pride and hate waging an all-destructive and ultimately futile war on God, and luring all others to follow him to damnation) to the modern concept of the existentialist hero, fighting bravely against hopeless odds. Seen through his own eyes, Ahab is genuinely heroic--and then the reader has to step back and realize that on the contrary, hatred has all but consumed Ahab's soul, leaving the Rachel without help and leading his crew to death for his own pride's sake. If to understand is to approve, the reader who now understands Ahab is left asking, "Good God, what kind of person am I?" Today we tend to view pride as a virtue rather than a vice; what does that make any of us?

Needless to say, there's a lot there. It wasn't until years after I'd read the book that I'd sorted it out enough in my mind to feel that I finally "got it," and I'm still in the process of getting it. Everything in Moby Dick is a symbol, and I suppose that no two people completely agree on what the symbols represent (Melville surely wanted a degree of ambiguity, anyway). Here are my own opinions on what it all means: (spoiler warning)

The whale represents God.
The crew is mankind.
Queequeg, Dagoo, and Tashtego are the pagan nations of the Earth, willing to literally worship Ahab.

Starbuck is Christendom.
Ishmael and the rest of the crew are godless men of no religion, whose anchorless wills are overwhelmed by Ahab's own.
Elijah is a prophet.
Ahab is the Antichrist.
Fedallah is Satan, and his attendants are demons.

Even though Queequeg is one of the pagans, it is through his seeming death and resurrection midway through the novel that Ishmael lives--because of the coffin. And Starbuck, innocent of any crime, goes down with the ship anyway (giving Ahab pause, just before his own death, to essentially stop and say in horror, "What have I done?")

I'm not sure what Pip represents.

If you're buying a paperback, I'd recommend the Tor edition, (ISBN 0812543076) just because I think it's got a very nice cover painting, something publishers often don't bother with when reprinting a "classic."

Wow! Every aspiring writer should give this a read...or then again maybe they shouldn't since it may be too depressing to read something this good. Like Joseph Conrad's works, Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness, Moby-Dick is somewhat autobiographical, at least in the sense that Melville took to the high seas in a whaling boat in the middle of his life, prior to writing this. As a high schooler I found this book terribly boring, but now I mainly see it as amazingly well written. Kids probably shouldn't be forced to read classic literature because they generally don't appreciate it. In a sense, the whole novel is one long buildup to the final devastating scene, and perhaps there's some Freudian or other indirect psychological meaning to that layout of the story, but you'll have to find an expert for the correct interpretation. Apparently, Melville wasn't particularly commerically successful in his lifetime, partly because he was unconventional in style and wouldn't crank out mindless rubbish. Billy Budd is also certainly worth reading again. In summary, Moby-Dick should be required reading for every adult! Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

Although it took me a while to get through this book, I am very glad that I read it. As a warning, Melville can be very long-winded and wordy at times. You will find that he could have said what he wanted to with far fewer words, while still using the colorful language he is known for. But then again, the feeling that this book is so long may in fact be on purpose to really give the reader the sense of how long whaling voyages were in those days.

But even with those seeming flaws, the book is very rewarding. Melville's writing really is beautiful. He is able to bring alive Captain Ahab and his obession for revenge that has become so popular. The other passengers on the ship also come alive as Melville uses colorful dialogue and humor. And as you are taken on the journey with Ishmael, you learn a great deal about whaling.

If you have the time and patience, I recommend this book to you. If you start it, stick with it - you will be glad you did. Now that I have finished it, I look forward to reading it again (because I know which parts I can skip past and which parts I want to read again more thoroughly).

This was indeed the best book I've ever read. It gave interesting descriptions of savage native life and of life at sea during the time. Ahab was a perfect portrayal of a man blinded by revenge. He will go to any price to get it, and the price he pays...well, that would reveal the ending. Bildad was the religious old man most people think of when they think of the times. Peleg was the swearing contradiction of Bildad. I definitely think you should read this book. It was very interesting and fun to read.

I'm still reading the book, but this version is quite helpful because in the back it has explanations for Melville's sometimes confusing allusions.

I made my mind to read Moby Dick after reading Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. I did enjoy reading it overall, but I have to confess that at times I had to force myself to keep going, and also that I glanced over a few chapters without - I think - missing too much of the overall plot.

If you are planning to read this book just keep in mind that the language, although beautiful, has a much slower flow than that of a more contemporary book. Melville has quite insightful and philosophical passages, and from a historical perspective this is an extremely rich book. The information on whaling and the economic importance of it during that period is remarkable - quite a resource for anyone doing research on the subject, or merely curious about it.

But, if I had to summarize it in a few words, it is a book about men facing their demons, and as such, it is a timeless book.

Would I read again? Probably not, but I do feel it is a book that deserves to be read at least once.

Everybody knows about the story of Moby Dick already, so I'll dispense with that part of the review. The reason I bought this book was for the reproductions of every original Rockwell Kent pen and ink drawings from the 1930 Lakeside Press (Chicago) edition of Moby Dick. This edition faithfully reprints every one of Mr. Kent's excellent drawings, even on the original page numbers.

Say what you will about Moby Dick, but if you like the drawings of Rockwell Kent, this edition is for you.

Thank god for this vendor, the only supplier that would back me up in my time oh need. Send it to me, oh, touched by the grace of chaos and good! Oh albatros, oh heavenly messenger in my time of mundane peril. Speak to me, and let me question what I know. Because, I've read books, but I haven't gone whaling.