Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Moby-Dick

A weirdly captivating book for how much of it is just straight up whale facts. Herman Melville's writing has something in it, something in the way he contructs sentences that's genuinely great. Some absolutely brilliant lines and really interesting characters (though there's a lot of the very unfortunate period-typical use of language to describe POC characters, which I think is good to be aware of before you start) and I just really love nautical fiction. And boy is this book homoerotic in some parts. Jesus. But it's really just 70% whale facts and not always (barely ever) interesting ones and I don't think I need to have any more whale information thrown at me for another decade. I'm also very interested to see what a modern cetologist would think of some of the biology in this book.
Overall though, I see why this is a classic! I just do not think it needed to be this long! And also maybe Herman Melville needs to have a think about his feelings towards men. Just saying.

Content Warnings

happysoullovesyou's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

No plot, just vibes. I would have rated this even lower if it weren’t for the fact the book is kinda gay, and it has lots of info on whales. But a lot of the info is also about hunting whales :/

Content Warnings

piahz's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Herman Melville sure liked to write. He also wants you to know that he read the Bible and all of the philosophers (all of them!) and he understood what they meant to say. A book written by a man, and you can feel it. So graphic about killing and gutting these whales, between getting tangled in all the philosophy crammed into it and being blatantly racist. When there's plot happening it's actually fast paced and interesting, but the other 250 pages draaaaaaaagged on forever. And did he already mention he read philosophy books? This made me understand why people don't like reading classics. If this discouraged you, please give one of the Brontës or Austen a go.

Content Warnings

papaveriepapere's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

kjc's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

So much funnier than I expected. So many wonderful sentences, and so many shifting moods and modes where he was either just fucking around w writing styles or really indulging his obsession w whales and whaling. It took me a long time to get bogged down because I loved the informative whale content, too, but did eventually find myself yelling at Melville to get on with it. And then he did in an extremely satisfying way.

Content Warnings

More...