Reviews with content warning for Racism - Moby Dick

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

97 reviews

captahab's review against another edition

5.0

dark funny informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I love this book. Obsession with an unknowable thing and the desire to understand what can’t be understood!

Content Warnings

msjenne's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging funny informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

thewintersings's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

niche070's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous informative reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

It only took me 5 weeks, but I was finally able to get through this book. I genuinely think Moby Dick is a good book, but geez the tedium! I found it extremely difficult to get through, not only because of the encyclopaedia-like chapters on everything cetology, but also because it's written in an archaic style with archaic language and lots of references to Western culture that makes it hard to follow. We don't see much of the narrator, Ishmael once the actual whaling voyage begins, except when he pops in to lecture the reader about whales and other whaling-related topics. There are several good bits in this book, but most of the time I found myself struggling to understand what was going on in each scene.

Content Warnings

sherbertwells's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The sole survivor of a shipwreck immortalizes its ill-fated final voyage: its crew, its prey and its captain’s monomaniacal obsession with the titular white whale. Verbose and glorious, and if Melville is not quite the American Shakespeare he is something deeper altogether.

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?” (283)

Content Warnings