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A review by limaruku
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Manga Classic
4.0
It was better than I thought it would be.
Not exactly a glowing review, but given that this is one of those "big" books, it's not negative.
I was surprised by how interesting I found it. I liked reading about what was known about whales at the time and life on a whaling ship. The characters were colorful and I liked the Shakespeare-influenced scenes and dialogue.
The thing that I didn't really buy was the omniscience of Ishmael. I felt that there were chapters that were believable as written by him at the beginning. I wish that the relationships between the characters had been explored more, but I guess that would have been a different book. (But seriously, there is practically zero dialogue between Ishmael and any characters once he boards the ship.) The passages about observations of whales and stories about whaling ships could conceivably be based on Ishmael's experience. Then there were descriptions of what Ahab was doing in his cabin, for example, that Ishmael could not have known about. So Melville lost me there. I think there might have been a way to write the whole thing openly, indicating what was Ishmael and what was another narrator, but it may be that this type of novel-writing just wasn't done at the time. I certainly think Melville was being ambitious with the design of the book but maybe he felt pressure to pretend to write this as a first-hand account given his previous books.
Overall, I found a lot to like, which outweighs any complaints.
Not exactly a glowing review, but given that this is one of those "big" books, it's not negative.
I was surprised by how interesting I found it. I liked reading about what was known about whales at the time and life on a whaling ship. The characters were colorful and I liked the Shakespeare-influenced scenes and dialogue.
The thing that I didn't really buy was the omniscience of Ishmael. I felt that there were chapters that were believable as written by him at the beginning. I wish that the relationships between the characters had been explored more, but I guess that would have been a different book. (But seriously, there is practically zero dialogue between Ishmael and any characters once he boards the ship.) The passages about observations of whales and stories about whaling ships could conceivably be based on Ishmael's experience. Then there were descriptions of what Ahab was doing in his cabin, for example, that Ishmael could not have known about. So Melville lost me there. I think there might have been a way to write the whole thing openly, indicating what was Ishmael and what was another narrator, but it may be that this type of novel-writing just wasn't done at the time. I certainly think Melville was being ambitious with the design of the book but maybe he felt pressure to pretend to write this as a first-hand account given his previous books.
Overall, I found a lot to like, which outweighs any complaints.