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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
3.5/5
This is one of those books with a reputation for being intimidating. I'm glad to say I found it much more enjoyable than I was expecting to.
It is a book about obsession: Ahab's, Ishmael's, and Melville's. Through Ishamel, Melville gives a detailed exploration of the whale as a species and whaling as an industry. Rather than finding that tedious, I found it interesting, particularly in light of what we now know about whales, and current ecological work to preserve marine species. Through Ahab, Melville explores the danger and futility of obsession. It's quite a heartbreaking story, especially because, through Ishmael, we meet all the sailors who sail with Ahab on his ill-advised voyage.
The characters are very interesting. Ahab is by turns mad and unyielding, by turns sympathetic and generous. Starbuck, his first mate, is both moral and somewhat weak willed. Ishmael himself is more of a shadowy figure (we don't even know if Ishmael is really his name), a wanderer who tells stories and has an open mindedness that's refreshing. His friendship with the 'savage' Queequeg was my favourite part of the story. Here, Melville reveals an acceptance of difference that would probably have been rare enough in his time.
I did find the book began to drag once they got out to sea. It got a bit repetitive, and I found myself wondering when the encounter with the white whale would finally happen. You have to wait quite a long time for that, and what disappointed me most about the book is how anti-climactic that all was. I was expecting much more on Ahab's grudge agains the whale, and much more on the chase and the aftermath.
I'm really glad I read this. It's really interesting as a novel, and there are some great characters. I think everyone should read it, but I don't think it's one I'd reread.
This is one of those books with a reputation for being intimidating. I'm glad to say I found it much more enjoyable than I was expecting to.
It is a book about obsession: Ahab's, Ishmael's, and Melville's. Through Ishamel, Melville gives a detailed exploration of the whale as a species and whaling as an industry. Rather than finding that tedious, I found it interesting, particularly in light of what we now know about whales, and current ecological work to preserve marine species. Through Ahab, Melville explores the danger and futility of obsession. It's quite a heartbreaking story, especially because, through Ishmael, we meet all the sailors who sail with Ahab on his ill-advised voyage.
The characters are very interesting. Ahab is by turns mad and unyielding, by turns sympathetic and generous. Starbuck, his first mate, is both moral and somewhat weak willed. Ishmael himself is more of a shadowy figure (we don't even know if Ishmael is really his name), a wanderer who tells stories and has an open mindedness that's refreshing. His friendship with the 'savage' Queequeg was my favourite part of the story. Here, Melville reveals an acceptance of difference that would probably have been rare enough in his time.
I did find the book began to drag once they got out to sea. It got a bit repetitive, and I found myself wondering when the encounter with the white whale would finally happen. You have to wait quite a long time for that, and what disappointed me most about the book is how anti-climactic that all was. I was expecting much more on Ahab's grudge agains the whale, and much more on the chase and the aftermath.
I'm really glad I read this. It's really interesting as a novel, and there are some great characters. I think everyone should read it, but I don't think it's one I'd reread.
Herman Melville pretty much narrates this story himself, thinly disguised as Ishmael. It often veers off into long philosophical musings or technical descriptions of the business of whaling, particularly in the middle of the book. It can tend to drag down some in those instances. Yet all of this explanation serves to convey the author's obvious passion for this unique way of life. It's written with such enthusiasm that I couldn't bring myself to do anything but indulge him. I feel now as if I probably know more about that lost vocation than anyone save historians, and my fellow Moby Dick readers. And when he does return to his story, it's worth the wait as the characters are astoundingly real and simple yet powerful. There's something there that drew me in, even when struggling through the most ponderous and antiquated phrasings. Melville's writing isn't always easy to swallow, but it is deep, and at times in its own way as elemental as the sea he writes about. Paragraph by paragraph it seeps into you, and even when you don't follow him completely on one of his discourses, his passion and eloquence elevate the experience of reading to the point where it becomes difficult to stop yourself from diving into the next short chapter. This is a novel that will stick with me awhile; bits and pieces of it kicking around in the back of my head for probably years as I digest them. I'll probably go back years from now and read it again, just to see if I glean anything new from it.
Hate this book! I was definitely rooting for the whale. I think Melville is highly overrated!
adventurous
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting, though very slow. Don't think I could have finished if I had been reading rather than listening
Wow. Just...wow. What an amazing, mesmerizing book. I could see this as a tv series, with the narrator constantly breaking the 4th wall while sharing insights via impossible floating visuals, a la the hitchhikers guide. Amazing that Melville put something like this together so long ago. It will never happen, but that would be something...
Really an incredible book, not just for the story, which, like A Christmas Carol, we've all probably heard or at least vaguely know about its ending, but for it intricate details about whaling, the hardships and the techniques. Melville provides a amateur's POV in the narrator ("Call me Ishmael"). The diversity of characters and their internal conflicts provide a cross-section of the types of men who spent years at sea with the hopes of bringing home whale oil and ambergris. The specter of the white whale, who really only physically shows up at the very end of the book, broods over the entire novel. What surprised me most was the hints by Ishmael that he was not entirely pleased with the whaling trade. I didn't expect that at all. Evidently, Moby Dick is experiencing a resurgence in interest. Who knew?
this book was truly something else. and not what I was expecting. as much a crude education on whaling as it is a compelling narrative of madness. but Melville's passion for the whole mish mash saves it. a deeply weird and personal book that I had a hard time putting down especially in the final 3 chapters as they chased the titular whale. sometimes I read a "classic" and don't really get what all the fuss was about but w/ Moby Dick I get it and am kind of amazed something this funny, tricky, graphic, and epic has somehow landed in the canon.
Lots of filler but I was absorbed the whole time. I learned tons about whales if nothing else!
I feel good that I finished this 'whale' of a book, but I can't say I felt great during the reading of it. I respected its wild obsessive insanity; its shifting POVs; its tremendous accounting of details; it's magnificent use of semicolons. I liked that Ishmael was like, no dudes, whales are definitely fish not mammals. But good lord, I do not (usually/mostly) care about masculine stories, nor hunting, even if I can respect them, even if in reading them I learn/gain something, and I definitely learned/gained things from this novel, from its treatise on capitalism; from looking at it as an environmental/climate change text; from thinking about the capaciousness of the novel's form. But I will never read this damn book again.
"Is Moby Dick a metaphor for the struggle of trying to read Moby Dick?" -Stephen Colbert