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A review by ste3ve_b1rd
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
4.0
This was not a book that I'd considered reading except when it was recommended to me by two very different members of my extended community of friends. It took a concerted effort on my part to keep going with this novel; it took me about eight months to finish this book. Although I eventually found the style to be accessible, at least in the context of 19th century writers (for instance, I once attempted to read "Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches", an author whose writing style I found to be more complex than that of his friend Melville's -- but I never finished it; the entire experience was just too dense, too baroque for me to complete). At around page 455 of "Moby Dick", I chose to put it down to read Dan Brown's "Inferno", a mere cartoon of a novel by comparison, that took me about one week to finish.
On the one hand -- "Moby Dick" is man's man type of book; it's all about teamwork and hierarchy; female characters appear only as cameos in the early part of the novel -- in the context of preparations for the voyage. The nautical aspect of the book was difficult for me to grasp; it was a foreign language to me. The subject matter also deals with the grossness of life; for example the visceral descriptions of the innards of the slaughtered whales. On the other hand, this work contains poetic and metaphoric richness as well. Because the subtext, especially via the character studies / analyses, does speak to the broader notion of human experience ..... Through Ahab's actions, we learn that the greater the risk, the greater the chances for failure; conversely, "No Guts -- No Glory". Ultimately, the quest is ill-advised; Ahab does as he wants; he's willing to defy Nature; it's a fight to the death. His pursuit is the only thing that makes him feel alive. He succumbs to his death wish; he's gripped by his obsession; there's no turning back. And he convinces his crew to follow him to the bitter end ..... Towards the end of this novel, and especially once I'd finished the book, I realized that it was thought provoking; I reflected upon this work for days afterward,
And there's no question that it's well-written; as the footnotes indicate, Melville was obviously a learned man. But I probably won't ever read "Moby Dick" again. What gave me the most difficulty in this novel was the intermittent descriptions of the various types of whales -- which for me interrupted the momentum of the story line. That being said -- I do see how Melville's encyclopedic research was ultimately necessary to bring cohesion to the project as a whole; Melville sought to immerse the reader within a world. Thus "Moby Dick" is the experience of a world, as much as it is of a story. A world that I'm much more comfortable viewing from a distance.
On the one hand -- "Moby Dick" is man's man type of book; it's all about teamwork and hierarchy; female characters appear only as cameos in the early part of the novel -- in the context of preparations for the voyage. The nautical aspect of the book was difficult for me to grasp; it was a foreign language to me. The subject matter also deals with the grossness of life; for example the visceral descriptions of the innards of the slaughtered whales. On the other hand, this work contains poetic and metaphoric richness as well. Because the subtext, especially via the character studies / analyses, does speak to the broader notion of human experience ..... Through Ahab's actions, we learn that the greater the risk, the greater the chances for failure; conversely, "No Guts -- No Glory". Ultimately, the quest is ill-advised; Ahab does as he wants; he's willing to defy Nature; it's a fight to the death. His pursuit is the only thing that makes him feel alive. He succumbs to his death wish; he's gripped by his obsession; there's no turning back. And he convinces his crew to follow him to the bitter end ..... Towards the end of this novel, and especially once I'd finished the book, I realized that it was thought provoking; I reflected upon this work for days afterward,
And there's no question that it's well-written; as the footnotes indicate, Melville was obviously a learned man. But I probably won't ever read "Moby Dick" again. What gave me the most difficulty in this novel was the intermittent descriptions of the various types of whales -- which for me interrupted the momentum of the story line. That being said -- I do see how Melville's encyclopedic research was ultimately necessary to bring cohesion to the project as a whole; Melville sought to immerse the reader within a world. Thus "Moby Dick" is the experience of a world, as much as it is of a story. A world that I'm much more comfortable viewing from a distance.