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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
God bless it. To finish this book takes the effort of an entire whaling ship. To not get lost in the endless side trails of whaling history, whale biology, ship architecture, and navigation minutia takes the determination of a hundred harpooners. To stick with Ishmael and Queequeg and Ahab alongside their fated journey is to give up all hope of making it out alive yourself.
But readers, I have finished it. The tale is done. I have voyaged into the inky waters of the ocean and looked into the leviathan’s eye.
And I’ll never do it again. At this point I’m not even sure if I’m better for having taken the journey. I will, at a point at which I’ve recovered from these rope burns and sea sickness, read some more forgiving review or critical essay extolling this book’s virtues that may make me feel differently about this rough voyage I’ve just survived but right now I want firm land and plain speak and not a single mention of a whale ever again.
But readers, I have finished it. The tale is done. I have voyaged into the inky waters of the ocean and looked into the leviathan’s eye.
And I’ll never do it again. At this point I’m not even sure if I’m better for having taken the journey. I will, at a point at which I’ve recovered from these rope burns and sea sickness, read some more forgiving review or critical essay extolling this book’s virtues that may make me feel differently about this rough voyage I’ve just survived but right now I want firm land and plain speak and not a single mention of a whale ever again.
A masterpiece in overwriting and purple prose.
No, Herman Melville, I do not care about every facet of whale anatomy.
No, Herman Melville, I do not care about every facet of whale anatomy.
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I DID IT!! I finished Moby-Dick!! Only took me twenty-six days to read this 750 page dense beast of a book. And I really enjoyed it! I have a lot of half-baked thoughts about this book, so I'll share what I can, but it won't be comprehensive.
First, I can see why a lot of people would hate this book. It's extremely dense, full of random ramblings on whale biology, the pacing and tone is odd and takes a sharp turn midway through the book, and on top of that it is full of weird (period-typical perhaps) racism.
The racism I think is the one factor that kept me from fully being INTO Moby-Dick for the full experience. Though I think Melville is more sympathetic towards natives and other races than would be common for a man living in the 1850s, when slavery was still very much around and defended, it did leer on the uncomfortable for me personally--the phonetically written dialects of Queequeg, Tashtego and Pip come to mind, and the references to phrenology (which I think Melville was poking fun at, but still). The dialects were a representation of the way these characters spoke (and is still done in modern fiction as well) and I don't think it was wrong (or "problematic") for Melville to write in that way in the literal 1850s, but to a modern reader it does make one cringe a bit. I also think the treatment of Fedallah was... not good. The idea that a race is specifically bent towards violence is not great, I don't really get how Melville can see the depths of Queequeg's humanity but not Fedallah's.
But, barring that, I loved everything else that would make this book awful for others. The ramblings about whales I found amusing and charming, the density of the book allowed for some truly beautiful sentences. The odd pacing and turning of the plot was humorously wacky.
Which is another thing for me to note--Moby-Dick is funny! I came into reading this book with a lot of preconceived expectations, but I did not expect it to be full of wit and humor. I was under the assumption that the book is extremely serious. And it was at times, but for the most part it was full of jokes and innuendos. It made me smile more than a few times, which I think is great for a book written in the 1850s.
On the topic of innuendos as well... the homoeroticism in this book was wonderful. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael is intensely loving in the beginning of the novel (gotta love that Herman Melville invented the "oh no, there's only one bed and we have to share it!" trope). And Chapter 94, A Squeeze of the Hand, being a thinly veiled metaphor for masturbating with your shipmates... I'm in awe. Absolutely loved it.
And the heart of the story, Ahab's monomaniacal quest to kill Moby Dick, was really stunning. His spurning of God and humanity, his single minded quest and monologues were some of the best-written parts of this book. The ending was spectacular, some of the best quotes and scenes were near the end--the scene of the white whale coming up from the depths mouth-first was really evocative, the part where the Pequod meets the Rachel and Ahab refuses to help find the captain's missing son, the literal end of the book where the hawk gets "folded into the flag of Ahab, went down with this ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it." Honestly some of the best writing I've ever read.
As for the major themes in Moby-Dick, those I am still teasing apart in my brain. I liked the sort of existential horror-lens that Melville uses to describe the sea. The immense nothingness of the sea is well-evoked in this novel--the scene where Pip loses his mind is particularly great at getting that theme across. But there's also the scenes of great beauty and kindness in the sea, like the descriptions of calm days, and the scene where the whalers rowed among the Sperm Whale pod and saw the mothers and calves. The great carelessness of nature is really present, and the beauty and terror of the sea. It made me want to become a lighthouse keeper and stare at the sea until I slowly went insane.
Anyway, I'm going to read more Moby-Dick scholarship because I feel like there's still a lot I need to unpack from this book. Would highly recommend this book if you like whale info-dumping, homoeroticism, really well-written dense lines of prose, and ruminations on the perils and beauty of the sea. Because I sure did like all of that stuff.
First, I can see why a lot of people would hate this book. It's extremely dense, full of random ramblings on whale biology, the pacing and tone is odd and takes a sharp turn midway through the book, and on top of that it is full of weird (period-typical perhaps) racism.
The racism I think is the one factor that kept me from fully being INTO Moby-Dick for the full experience. Though I think Melville is more sympathetic towards natives and other races than would be common for a man living in the 1850s, when slavery was still very much around and defended, it did leer on the uncomfortable for me personally--the phonetically written dialects of Queequeg, Tashtego and Pip come to mind, and the references to phrenology (which I think Melville was poking fun at, but still). The dialects were a representation of the way these characters spoke (and is still done in modern fiction as well) and I don't think it was wrong (or "problematic") for Melville to write in that way in the literal 1850s, but to a modern reader it does make one cringe a bit. I also think the treatment of Fedallah was... not good. The idea that a race is specifically bent towards violence is not great, I don't really get how Melville can see the depths of Queequeg's humanity but not Fedallah's.
But, barring that, I loved everything else that would make this book awful for others. The ramblings about whales I found amusing and charming, the density of the book allowed for some truly beautiful sentences. The odd pacing and turning of the plot was humorously wacky.
Which is another thing for me to note--Moby-Dick is funny! I came into reading this book with a lot of preconceived expectations, but I did not expect it to be full of wit and humor. I was under the assumption that the book is extremely serious. And it was at times, but for the most part it was full of jokes and innuendos. It made me smile more than a few times, which I think is great for a book written in the 1850s.
On the topic of innuendos as well... the homoeroticism in this book was wonderful. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael is intensely loving in the beginning of the novel (gotta love that Herman Melville invented the "oh no, there's only one bed and we have to share it!" trope). And Chapter 94, A Squeeze of the Hand, being a thinly veiled metaphor for masturbating with your shipmates... I'm in awe. Absolutely loved it.
And the heart of the story, Ahab's monomaniacal quest to kill Moby Dick, was really stunning. His spurning of God and humanity, his single minded quest and monologues were some of the best-written parts of this book. The ending was spectacular, some of the best quotes and scenes were near the end--the scene of the white whale coming up from the depths mouth-first was really evocative, the part where the Pequod meets the Rachel and Ahab refuses to help find the captain's missing son, the literal end of the book where the hawk gets "folded into the flag of Ahab, went down with this ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it." Honestly some of the best writing I've ever read.
As for the major themes in Moby-Dick, those I am still teasing apart in my brain. I liked the sort of existential horror-lens that Melville uses to describe the sea. The immense nothingness of the sea is well-evoked in this novel--the scene where Pip loses his mind is particularly great at getting that theme across. But there's also the scenes of great beauty and kindness in the sea, like the descriptions of calm days, and the scene where the whalers rowed among the Sperm Whale pod and saw the mothers and calves. The great carelessness of nature is really present, and the beauty and terror of the sea. It made me want to become a lighthouse keeper and stare at the sea until I slowly went insane.
Anyway, I'm going to read more Moby-Dick scholarship because I feel like there's still a lot I need to unpack from this book. Would highly recommend this book if you like whale info-dumping, homoeroticism, really well-written dense lines of prose, and ruminations on the perils and beauty of the sea. Because I sure did like all of that stuff.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
'I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.'
3.5/5.
3.5/5.
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Impossible to sum up this book in a short review. Suffice to say it is far more than a madman's pursuit of a white whale. It says something about the human condition, it is a detailed history of whaling and all mixed with philosophy ahead of it's time. Definitely one of the great American novels.
Such a perfect, unique, american, poetic, heroic, muscularly robust, unbearably intense work. I fell in love with the sea, sailing, life, land, Nantuckett, cannibals, sadly even whale hunting. This book will never leave me.