A review by annilane
Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale by Herman Melville

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My assessment of this book is obviously skewed by the 170 odd years of distance between us, but I am able to appreciate the quality of narrative of information in this novel. There’s a lot of information that is relevant to the story but not actually important, really, and since I read it on audiobook I found rather boring, since I think I’m print there are diagrams to accompany, for example, the chapters outlining every species of whale whose existence was known at that time. I loved Queequeg, and otherwise had a bit of a hard time telling all the men on the ship apart. Overall I would recommend, because there’s lots of information about whales which is cool, and in general if a book’s popularity has somewhat survived over 150 years, it’s probably worth noting. There were some messages throughout the story that I think a lot of people can learn from. 

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