Moby Dick has a reputation with just about anyone who grew up in the US. It's that book you read in English class that's long, boring, and full of whale facts, and that's what I was expecting going in. 

What I didn't realize, however, was that this book was also relatively easy to read, surprisingly funny, and full of dick jokes. While it was certainly not a breeze to get through, the prose was relatively modern and uncomplicated and is often written in a dialogue-heavy, almost script-like style that makes it feel fast paced. 

So what's the book actually about? A schoolteacher takes a break from teaching to satisfy his wanderlust by joining a whaling crew (as one does). He signs onboard the Pequod, captained by the mysterious Ahab, who seems bent on capturing Moby Dick, the mysterious white whale, at all costs. Vengeance, he claims, for the leg that Moby Dick took from him years ago. What follows is an epic tale (over seven hundred pages!) of vignettes, character studies and, yes, whale facts, all building toward the confrontation at the heart of this quest. 

Although I started this review by talking up how much easier this book was than I thought it would be, that doesn't mean it was painless to get through. Moby Dick is heavy on the literary references, allusions, and implications, meaning that it's hardly turn-your-brain-off literature. While I do enjoy something to sink my teeth into, at some point it just got to be way too much, as the endless stream of prose didn't seem to be going anywhere or building to anything, to the point that when the white whale did finally show his face, my reaction wasn't awe so much as an exasperated "finally!". 

Was the book worth a read? Absolutely, both from a historical and literature standpoint and as an exercise in appreciating this style of writing. Will I ever read it again? Probably not. I had more fun with Moby Dick than I expected, but ultimately it's just too much of a good thing. 

From the beginning to the end of this book I went from think Captain Ahab was the main character, to Ishmael, to Moby Dick, to Nature, and, finally, to Whaling itself and also God. The story of Ahab and his white whale does not seem to me to be the real plot of the story. Nor is it, as I thought for a while, Ishmael himself, a snapshot of his greater memoirs. No, the whaling tangents are not tangents at all, but seem to be really the meet of the book itself. Like Victor Hugo wrote Notre-Dame de Paris about the building rather than the characters, Melville wrote Moby Dick to be about "the Whale," whichever whale that may be.

This book is so dense that I feel as I've only scratched the surface of it, though I read every single page and did not skim over a single tangent. How is it, that Ishmael so obviously adores the animal he is nevertheless determined to kill. The animals whose killers he ranks as higher even than kings and emperors? How is it that Ahab seems to be aware of his fate, and yet frantically chases it, hoping it seems again hope that he will succeed, and being unsurprised when he doesn't? How is it that the whale is both God and Satanic, dragging sailors to the hell of the depths of the ocean while being one of the most majestic of Nature and Providence's creations? Are we supposed to even have answers to these questions? Are there even? Or, like the sea, are all of these things true at once in a book with unfathomable depths?

I hope to read Moby Dick again someday and better understand what this book has to tell. It has really changed my opinion on the necessity of a storyline in a book, or even what a book can be. Its tangents are its essence, and I love that for it. This book truly changed me and I'm so glad to have read it.

For someone who’s favourite animal is a whale, this boon was not the best choice to read for me. I have to admit though, besides all the cruelties done to these majestic creatures, Herman Melville is a skilful author.

This book made me realize that I don't care about whaling the slightest bit.

It is drawn out, mostly very boring, and jumps from genre to genre. The language is so archaic it desperately needs modernization.

I do not need to sing the praises of this classic, and certainly I believe it deserves that title. Instead, I will offer some advice: this is probably one of the stranger books that I have read. There will be tangents on whale taxonomy. Tangents on chowder. And in-between? Yes, an epic about the ways vengeance and hate will destroy you. My advice is to embrace this strangeness; it is all Moby Dick. 

This was a book club read, that is a classic that I wanted to take a look at for a while.  I find it hard to review because it's a gigantic piece of work, it's written over a hundred years ago, and it's a complex mess of merits and flaws.

The book is a whale of a tome. It's much more heavy on information, philosophy, history, and poetic prose than it is in plot. It takes a long time for anything to happen and we first have to wade through treatises on whales in art, whales in myth, the art of whaling, the cetology and nomenclature, how to live in boats, the status of whalers, the uses of whale bodies and the reliance of society on those resources, the runnings of ship-board politics, the phrenology of whales, legal precedent in the matters of whale ownership, and the gorier bits of how whales are processed after their demise. More than half the book is the "kernel of truth" around which the story is told, interwoven to make it seem realistic (we could use the word "verisimilitude" - Melville did; in fact it's best to bring a dictionary on your voyage with the Piquod).

As a historical classic (published in 1851) this entire account is peppered with things that I found affronting. The most personable character in the book is a Polynesian from an un-named archipelago, whose name is Queequeg. (Right there that breaks my belief in the narrative because there's no way that's a Polynesian name.) When we first encounter him he is selling desiccated Māori heads. This is distressing to me, as my family is descended from White seal and whale boat people in New Zealand / Aotearoa, so this depiction of brutality against the indigenous Māori, the indifference to selling sacred parts of the body to people in other countries, is a somber affair. This is obviously part of a portrayal to make Queequeg seem, dichotomously, the barbaric, cannibal heathen, but also an affectionate, devout and gracefully capable man. All the characters in the tale seem similarly profiled, and caricatures of Race and age. The labels used are all indicative of the prevailing attitude of White people, and of a sense of racial superiority. It's "a  sign of it's time".. and it's horrible. 

There are musings on mono-mania and infatuation.. or what today we would call obsession, compulsivity, hyper-focus.. and prepossessing passion. This book could aptly be described as an exploration of the madness of whalers. I can't help but correspond this single-mindedness of purpose with that of the author who pens an 800-page adventure novel about whaling. The tale of obsession is clearly allegorical, being an extreme to which most men wouldn't go (going to sea for 3 years at a stint to hunt giant sea-game, in a high-risk high-reward endeavour), that hyperbolically illustrates the bravery, and folly, of being prepared to go to great lengths in pursuit of a goal (while leaving your women and children to their own matters). Cowardice and the desire to remove oneself from shame are also portrayed by way of dark comedy. The description of phantom-limb experiences in amputees is interesting and one of the more relevant observations I noticed, as are the accommodations made for those with missing limbs on a ship.  

Whales. *deep sigh* Just.. 
I found some of the narrative about the hunting of whales to be very distressing. Melville states that he does not consider whales to be anything but big fish, and he denies that the actions of whalers are diminishing whale populations, saying that they just move on, and always have more places to hide; that seeing fewer of them just means that they escaped that area. The ignorance makes me angry, but he didn't have the facts. I think that some of the narrative is designed to be very unsettling; there are poetic musings about how the fat of whales is used as fuel for the ovens that render the fat, or cook whale flesh; that whales are used to consume themselves. Likewise, there is no scruple when recounting the hunting of nursing mother whales, or utilising the skin of a whale's dork to make a butcher's coat. Rather, these musings are incorporated into darkly humorous stories, but I am not sold on this humour. It's clever, but vile.

The cutest parts of the book are dialogues that are written in the form of plays. These allow the characters to be developed and fluff around with some interesting wordplay. It provides some levity and gravity that might be otherwise lost in between rants. I feel like it also humanised characters who otherwise would not be fleshed out. I don't know that the characters are particularly loveable, but you at least get to know them a bit as people.

In all, I feel somewhat whelmed by the sheer scope of the book. It's huge, and wordy and uses archaic turns of phrase. I can see why reading this is an ordeal that people sometimes brag about, but at the same time, I didn't find it entertaining. The "science" as it was has been surpassed wholly, and so this is entirely a historical snapshot of the understanding of whales in times gone by. It calls into stark detail my position in the world.. as the Privileged daughter of a conquering culture. It informs my understanding of the importance of fossil fuels in replacing oils that were once acquired by hazardous oceanic hunting. All in all, it leaves me feeling a little sick.

no one fucking cares