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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
sad
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:
Complicated
A lecture on whales
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I strongly recommend listening to the librivox.org edition and going into it with an open mind. It's only slightly about Ahab's obsession with the white whale, and more about everything else plus whaling. Ishmael is one of my favorite narrators, and the early scenes between him and Queequeg are some of the sweetest love scenes I've ever read.
On first glance you can look at the story as a tragic captain that sacraficed everything to achieve his goal but the more I thought about it, Ahab is clearly the evil in this story. Abandoning his family and endangering his crew to achieve an unrealistic goal and hunt and attack an animal that is in its own habitat and merely defending itself. Also a great metaphor for imperialism/colonialism or what was going on in the united states at the time with treatment towards black people and indiginous people.
It was better than I thought it would be.
Not exactly a glowing review, but given that this is one of those "big" books, it's not negative.
I was surprised by how interesting I found it. I liked reading about what was known about whales at the time and life on a whaling ship. The characters were colorful and I liked the Shakespeare-influenced scenes and dialogue.
The thing that I didn't really buy was the omniscience of Ishmael. I felt that there were chapters that were believable as written by him at the beginning. I wish that the relationships between the characters had been explored more, but I guess that would have been a different book. (But seriously, there is practically zero dialogue between Ishmael and any characters once he boards the ship.) The passages about observations of whales and stories about whaling ships could conceivably be based on Ishmael's experience. Then there were descriptions of what Ahab was doing in his cabin, for example, that Ishmael could not have known about. So Melville lost me there. I think there might have been a way to write the whole thing openly, indicating what was Ishmael and what was another narrator, but it may be that this type of novel-writing just wasn't done at the time. I certainly think Melville was being ambitious with the design of the book but maybe he felt pressure to pretend to write this as a first-hand account given his previous books.
Overall, I found a lot to like, which outweighs any complaints.
Not exactly a glowing review, but given that this is one of those "big" books, it's not negative.
I was surprised by how interesting I found it. I liked reading about what was known about whales at the time and life on a whaling ship. The characters were colorful and I liked the Shakespeare-influenced scenes and dialogue.
The thing that I didn't really buy was the omniscience of Ishmael. I felt that there were chapters that were believable as written by him at the beginning. I wish that the relationships between the characters had been explored more, but I guess that would have been a different book. (But seriously, there is practically zero dialogue between Ishmael and any characters once he boards the ship.) The passages about observations of whales and stories about whaling ships could conceivably be based on Ishmael's experience. Then there were descriptions of what Ahab was doing in his cabin, for example, that Ishmael could not have known about. So Melville lost me there. I think there might have been a way to write the whole thing openly, indicating what was Ishmael and what was another narrator, but it may be that this type of novel-writing just wasn't done at the time. I certainly think Melville was being ambitious with the design of the book but maybe he felt pressure to pretend to write this as a first-hand account given his previous books.
Overall, I found a lot to like, which outweighs any complaints.
Well, the most I can really say about this book is, well damn, now I know a lot about whales… most of which is outdated and now almost useless. But the coffee franchise Starbucks was named after a character from this novel. That’s it. That’s all I can really say in defence of this book. The plot drags and can be simply finished in a paragraph or two. It does not need 48 hours’ worth of audio book. And half the book is only made up of foot notes about whales. Just… cool facts, and lots of death because someone is a stubborn idiot. That’s the entire plot right there - without seeming to spoil any of the actually interesting details.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No