Few texts, I have found, are as joyous to read as Moby-Dick. I could count them on one hand. An almost intoxicating abundance of narrative pleasure. Did Melville not know that the whale is a mammal? So far it seems he does not, though he understands they’re vertebrates like us. Astonishing that I could have forgotten this since my third reading. This is my fourth.

Melville’s use of asides and soliloquy can only be described as Shakespearean. And the speeches of Ahab, too, in his stentorian throes, remind very much of the Bard. Then the ecstatic “Midnight, Forecastle” chapter seems so close in its dark frivolity to the night-town sequence in Ulysses. I wonder if Joyce knew it? Then there’s the idea of sperm whales as aggressive, which is not at all the case; they are placid animals. Not sure of their attitude though if you try to kill them. They just might take exception to your barbs.

Chapter 55 “Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales” is funny. The author critiques a number of errant depictions of whales, among them Perseus Descending by William Hogarth. Melville complains: “The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and it’s distended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for Traitor’s Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower.” (p. 250)

Regarding Chapter 64 “Stubb’s Supper” there is something close to minstrelsy in the cook’s speech to the sharks, made at the insistence of Stubb, one of the mates. I could not help thinking it’s meant by Stubb to demean the black cook’s character. Melville gives the cook the freedom to speak his mind, and there’s no indication that he’s a slave, but rather a freeman who signed for the cruise like everyone else. Stubb puts him through his paces. It’s cruel; he’s ninety. We’re it not for the book’s general celebration of ethnic diversity—see Ishmael’s warm meeting with Queequeg, with whom he sleeps at the inn before sailing—were it not for this celebration of diversity throughout one might take offense here.

Whale killing is tragic, and an entirely worthy subject for one of our greatest writers.

“As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot holes of noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and little merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely discolored bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on his flank.

“‘A nice spot,’ cried Flask; ‘just let me prick him there once.’

“‘Avast!’ cried Starbuck, ‘there’s no need of that!’

“But humane Starbuck was too late. At that instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more than insufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury blindly darting at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s boat and marring the bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin, then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gurgling‘s the spray column lowers and lowers to the ground—so the last long dying spout of the whale.” (p. 331)

Published in 1851, it is not the most up-to-date reference work on whales. The narrator seems not to have believed that the sperm whale could in its numbers ever be driven to the edge of extinction. Moreover, the book was published before On the Origin of Species. Melville acknowledges the whale’s anatomical similarities with man, but he never sees that the whale like mankind is a mammalian. Several other mistakes of this magnitude also. But we don’t read Moby Dick for the science, do we? You read it for the prose. And that is an unalloyed joy!

Last note, I would be grateful to anyone who could explain to me Melville’s use of the semicolon in Moby Dick. There’s no rhyme or reason that I can see.

Después de terminar de leer esta monumental obra no sé muy bien que decir, de hecho me siento hasta ridícula intentando escribir una mínima reseña sobre esta lectura.
Sólo diré que Moby Dick es una de las mejores novelas que he leido en mi vida y que leerla ha sido una experiencia global, redonda, absolutamente inmersiva, profunda, inabarcable, con un final apoteósico y aunque en un principio no lo parezca, adictiva y muy entretenida.
Este es uno de esos libros que no olvidaré nunca y que seguro volveré a leer.

(sigh) okay i'll read it

Chi è veramente Moby Dick? Spesso viene interpretata come una forza della natura che l'uomo deve cercar di sottomettere. Personalmente vedo in Moby Dick il simbolo della più grande paura presente in ognuno di noi. C'è chi, come Acab, sceglie di affrontarla direttamente, sino, addirittura, a cercare lo scontro. Chi la fugge come il peggiore degli incubi. Chi, come Ismaele, si trova ad affrontarla suo malgrado: quasi senz'averla nemmeno prevista. Per quanto si possa fuggirle, come la balena bianca nel fondo dell'oceano, le nostre paure attendono nelle profondità del nostro inconscio che si trovi il coraggio d'impugnare l'arpione...

I want to quickly say that I have not (yet) reread Moby Dick, but I read a review of this recently released edition of the book illustrated by the American painter Gilbert Wilson and I ordered it from the library. Here's the review so you can see examples of his artwork:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/column...

Moby Dick is a story of, among SO many other things, Captain Ahab's obsession with a great white whale. Not-quite-famous and mostly forgotten painter Wilson also had an obsession: Captain Ahab's obsession, which I read inspired John Huston's film version of the novel.

The book is a coffee table size production, produced for the occasion for the occasion of Melville's 200th birthday, and while I very much liked all the introductions from editor Robert K. Elder and others, and reading Wilson's own writings about Moby Dick, and while I was interested and impressed with the paintings, I really wish the publishers Hat and Beard had gone one more step and produced full page versions of ALL the accompanying paintings. But it's a great accomplishment, and worth checking out. Now I am committed to rereading the novel this year, as I read passages throughout as they were connected to certain paintings.

Chapter 1. Call Me Daniel

Call me Daniel. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little money in my bank account, and nothing particular to interest me in the world of mortals, I thought I would pick up a classic book and see a little bit of the literary world. It is a habit I have of chasing away adulthood and the drudgery of office life. Whenever I find myself involuntarily thinking about ditching town or becoming a beach bum; whenever the temptation to live in a Winnebago by the sea grips my soul; whenever I have the temptation to smack some smug coal-suited individual for his money barbarism, it's high time for another literary adventure. This is my substitute for a gambling addiction or alcoholism -- fine gentlemanly pursuits for some weary at heart, but not for me. With a cynical yet philosophical flourish, others go into the business world, I quietly start a new literary adventure, a new book review. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards words and literary adventures as me.

Chapter 2. On the Dignity of Book Reviewers

On behalf of the dignity of book reviewing, I would advance only the facts. But after employing the facts to their best effect, what reviewer would not be tempted, when such enabled with a not unreasonable surmise, to use conjecture to further their cause.

It is well known that in the celebration of classic authors there is a process of ego-massaging that has become quite popular. The typical novice book reviewer might consult the cellar of his imagination, looking for well-oiled phrases of modesty ("Now, I don't have a grounding in the classics..." "Well, I'm no English major but..." "It's not like I'm the most knowledgeable person, but...") These salted and seasoned phrases, anointing as they do a book review, sugaring a negative comment or downplaying a good one, as the sugar-coating of such medicines are often done to help the passage of a pill from the mouth to the stomach, help to maintain the dignity of the profession and the reputation of the reviewer.

But the question remains, does a dead man or woman's ego need any massaging? And are book reviewers really so dignified as their seasoned prose would make them seem?

Having no facts at my disposal and nothing but conjecture, I surmise that many of those who use these well-oiled phrases ("Well, I'm no English major but...") might actually be English majors, may actually believe themselves giants comparable to the long-dead "Greats", and may, in fact, find greater joy in abandoning their dignity from time to time when taking up the noble-yet-vulgar art of the book review.

Such a reviewer might say: "I am an English major AND the long, ponderous prose often left me brain-dead for hours at a time. The book should be subtitled: BRAIN DAMAGE FOR READERS."

I am not such a reviewer, but let me give some vulgar praise not meant to massage any egos. My apologies in advance if the praise is lightly salted: "After living cheaply on the thrift of modern prose, I enjoyed the long, ponderous writing the way someone might enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet. And like an all-you-can-eat buffet, it often gave me diarrhea."


Chapter 3. Chasing the Literary Masterpiece

"Do you know the literary masterpiece, reader? Have you seen it? If you skinned your eyes twice daily to sharpen their focus, would you be able to see clearly a literary masterpiece in a sea of vulgar paperbacks? Are you game for the chase? Are you game to wade through detail after detail...the boring details of nineteenth-century whaling that make schoolchildren eat their desks and scorn their teachers, put M80s in their mailboxes out of spite or flaming bags of dog manure on their porches? Are you game for the game of hunting the great literary masterpiece?...Well, I am, reader. Aye, aye! and I'll chase literature round Good Hope, and round the horn, and round the Norway maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give it up. And this is what ye have shipped for, reader! to chase that fabled story on both sides of land, and over all sides of the earth, till it spouts golden prose. What say ye, reader? Will ye sharpen your eyes, hone your wit, hold fast to your pages, and have your bookmarks on ready? Are you brave enough to weather the rough pages of a thousand useless details to find that literary masterpiece? Are you game for the chase?"


Chapter 4. The Old Used Bookstore

Entering that gable-ended used bookstore, you found yourself in a narrow room, crowded with bookshelves, book stacks, boxes of books, more a place for discarded paper than a repository of knowledge. Such unaccountable masses of paper, must, mold, it seemed the nostalgic creation of some book-loving-or-hating Damien Hirst. But what confounds you the most in this bookstore is the heavy weight of unread and unloved things in the world, an orphanage for the dreams of liberal arts majors, and the used bookstore owner, some dreary soul, burdened with the lumpy, soggy, blotchy forms of the world's unloved.

Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that you find yourself marveling before.

"Buy something?"

"Huh?"

"Do you intend to buy something?"

You stare at the man, deaf and dumb at his question. Of course, you don't intend to buy anything. That's not the purpose of the used bookstore. Instead, you intend to stare, sympathetically at this monument to human failure...as one would a Damien Hirst exhibit.

"Buy something?"

Isn't your sympathy enough? And when the winter comes and the flowers freeze and die, the bookshop-keeper too will pass away, and another, equally old and pitiable sapling will spring forth to take its place.

The old man holds up an old, moldy copy of Moby Dick. "How about this one?"

You hold up your e-Reader, and as you do, the old bookstore keeper appears to you suspended perpendicular, dissected into three pieces, in three adjacent boxes with his mouth open, as if to be saying perpetually into a void, "Buy something?"

Chapter 5. 30 Years to the Chase!

"Oh, reader! It is a mild, mild day. On such a day, I did write my first short story. An elementary student, yes, an elementary student. Thirty, yes, thirty years ago! Thirty years of continual writing! Thirty years of privation, peril, and solitary penmanship! Thirty years of making war on the mysteries of the human condition! Since then I have not spent one week without a short something being written. How for thirty years I have feasted upon nothing but concise prose and weary, used pages of long abandoned books. Ah, ah, Daniel has furiously, foamingly chased his prey -- the literary masterpiece -- more a demon than a man. A fool--fool--old fool Daniel has been. Why the chase? Why palsy the hands with this foolish chase? Behold, reader, locks of grey in the hair and nothing to show for it but tears and rejection slips. I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though every rejection had seeped into my bones. Stand close to me, reader! Look into these eyes. Do you see the imaginary worlds waiting to get out? Branded, I am with such imaginary world! And thusly, do I give chase to the great literary masterpiece!"

"Oh weary writer, grand old soul, after all your toil, why do you still give chase to the literary masterpiece? Away with me! Let us fly to a pub or some other diversion to get your mind off of this foolish chase! Away! let us away!—this instant let us go for a pint or a snack, some delirious debauch to sooth the savage writer's soul."

But the writer's glance averted. Like a palm tree in a hurricane, he shook.

"What nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing drives me forward; what hidden lord and master; that against all inclinations to just chill and share a beer with a bro or take time away to play some X-box, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself toward that far off creature -- literary masterpiece? Aye, thirty years to the chase...and thirty years more if need be!"

Chapter 6. Post-Review Interview

Interviewer: So, how do you feel about this book review? Do you feel you nailed it?

Daniel: Perhaps...I think the review was fine. The book at times was a slog, so it was nice to do a creative review that mixed some of the elements from various chapters...and doing it in five or six sections helped keep me fresh throughout.

Interviewer: Was it a good book? Anything lacking?

Daniel: More Ishmael and Queequeg, please! I wish I had gotten a bit more of them at the end. The book started off strong with these characters, so I was disappointed that it was more of Ahab and Starbuck's story at the end. I also wish someone had listed all the chapters that were just about whaling that I cold cut out and still enjoy the book.

Interviewer: Are you going to do another long review like this soon or do you plan to take some time off?

Daniel: I think before I take on another long book review like this, I'm going to do a training montage, Rocky 4 style, in a very cold place. I'm going to play the song "Hearts on Fire" continuously while staring down a copy of "War and Peace" and doing sit-ups. At the end of my training montage, I'll run up a mountain and yell at the top of my lungs..."Tolstoy!...Tolstoy!"

n  All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.n

I don’t think the world needs my amateur analysis of Moby Dick, so I’ll just use this space to record the fact that I don’t know why it took me so long to read this classic; Moby Dick turned out to be funnier, less dry, and more entertaining than I had imagined. Using a wide variety of tones (ironic, philosophical, swashbuckling), a variety of formats (straight storytelling, scientific interludes, theatrical dialogue with asides and stage directions), Herman Melville threw everything he knew about whales, whaling, and writing into this behemoth and the result (although a flop in its day) endures as a true classic of American Literature. Let this paragraph stand as my “review”; the remainder are the bits I've collected for myself.

n  Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.n

Everyone knows that opening line: “Call me Ishmael” feels almost Biblical in its gravity, so I was immediately amused by the paragraph that follows those weighty words; who knew that Ishmael (if that is his real name…) would go to sea every time a fit came over him that made him want to step out in traffic or knock off strangers’ hats? The scenes that follow, leading up to Ishmael meeting the curiously tattooed Queequog, were by turns engagingly lyrical (poor Lazarus stranded on the curbstone before the door of the rich man Dives, “who only drinks the tepid tears of orphans”) and weirdly slapstick (Peter Coffin grinningly planing down a bench for Ishmael to sleep on). The shifting tone had me constantly backfooted, and I liked that. When Ishmael and Queequog eventually share a bed (apparently not uncommon at the time) and Ishmael wakes up in Queequog’s warm embrace (surely more uncommon?), I was hooked (harpooned?). From their initial meeting, I was intrigued by Melville’s (or Ishmael’s, at any rate) apparently nonracist attitudes, and was floored by, “What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself — the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.” And when the pair travel together to Nantucket to find a whaling ship to sign on with, I was further intrigued by, “For some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro.” But eventually, this book does display the prejudices of its time, as when Melville tries to explain why people are inherently afraid of white things (like Moby Dick) but argues in favour of the colour, “This pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe.” “Every dusky tribe” appears to be represented on the Pequod (with correspondingly cringe-worthy dialects), and when Ahab’s secret boat crew appears, Ishmael describes them thusly:

n  

The companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas; a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.

n
So, while I was impressed at first, I had to eventually mark Melville down as just another man of his time. Plus ça change.

The following is an example of Melville’s humour:

n  Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also all Pirates and Man-of-War’s men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.n

And the following is an example of Melville’s lyricism:

n  The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.n

I came into this knowing that Melville had worked on whaling ships, and I had read somewhere that he based his novel on both an actual white whale of ill repute (Mocha Dick, apparently) and the real life sinking of a whaling ship (the n  Essexn), so I expected Moby Dick to be a credible, and hopefully exciting, account of the 19th century whaling industry. And I think it’s common knowledge that Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal quest to hunt down the white whale that took his leg — even at the risk of his ship and crew — is used as the prime example of the man vs nature conflict when discussing literature; you pretty much know from pop culture how this plot plays out. What I hadn’t known is just how many literary references Melville would fit in here — from the Bible and the Ancient Greeks, poets and philosophers, Shakespeare and scientists; I can now picture Melville, by the light of a bright-burning spermaceti candle, combing through countless volumes, hunting down rare references to the leviathans of the deep until, thar she blows!, he had found some cetological allusion to make use of. In an early chapter, I was quite enchanted by a chaplain (a former whaler who now ascended his prow-shaped pulpit via retractable rope ladder) as he outlined the story of Jonah from the perspective of the sailors who unwittingly aided in the prophet’s flight from God; what a vivid and thrilling tale he made of that short Old Testament book. The frequent informational chapters (on a whale’s physiology or how to coil rope or harvest sperm) are apparently boring to some readers (or at any rate, are found to interrupt the flow of the narrative for them), but I found it all fascinating and necessary; I can totally understand why Melville wanted to stuff in everything he discovered from his research. If I could point to a misstep it would be making Ahab’s fate too similar to Macbeth’s; the reader of Shakespeare knows not to interpret literally the details surrounding one’s death, whether foreseen by three witches or a “Parsee” in a turban. But I still appreciated Melville invoking Shakespeare.

In the end, Moby Dick was so much more than I expected — and so much more readable than I expected — and I am pleased to have now made it a part of me.

n  

"Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!—that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost though seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now.

nA month before this review was written, the video of what was described as "the first-ever footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat" was aired on television. This is the year 2013, 162 years after the publishing of Moby Dick, and we still do not have the fullest grasp of these monsters. Kraken. Leviathan. These creatures, capable of diving to depths that would crush our skulls in an instant, growing to such sizes that reduce anything land has ever conjured up to playthings. If any being was worthy of an entire book devoted to its existence, it would be found amongst these.

This is not merely a book, though. This is an obsession, an all-encompassing addiction. The reader will follow Ishmael following Ahab following the White Whale following Melville in his effort to pen down the Leviathan. Blood, bone, breadth, how it lives, how it dies, the physical prowess of its form, the seeming defiance of the laws of time and space, how it is classified and crucified and deified by man in an endless hunt through the ages. For Melville does deify it, this monstrous beast that inspired the tale of Jonah, a man who thought to escape divinity by fleeing to the sea. He sets Ahab as his Jonah, a man who has dared to slay multitudes of these gods of the sea, and sends out the White Whale. Ahab's body escapes, but his mind never emerges from the swallowing.

But it would be too simple to stop there, an allegory for a biblical text that holds meaning for only a fraction of the earth's population. The true power lies in its battle with the questions concerning the capability of thought.

n  Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides the higher truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!n

Thoughts are the neverending cascades of an ocean, and the mind is a sailor. True, the ocean is scattered with islands where one may rest in peace, sticking to simple lines of thought that adhere to the strictest principles for maintaining said peace. But for much of its breadth it is a roiling and dangerous frontier, and that is what keen minds crave. To go beyond the safety and chase down the great Leviathans of its waters, to strip these great carcasses down and drag their useful bits and pieces back to the calm and quiet mainland, to carve the bones into houses and burn the fat as fuel. To remain sated until the next urge springs it forth on the next great hunt. And each and every time there is the mortal danger of utter annihilation of ship and crew. Each and every time there are the insidious workings of a threat far worse than simple death, for the mind caught in an obsession that drives it to denounce everything else is a ship that is cursed.

n  "...as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastedly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul."n

It is the internal Flying Dutchman of a single soul to which nothing is sacred, least of all the obsessive addiction that drives it on. For in the end what drives the mind on is the thought of killing the obsession once and for all. The thought for survival be damned.

This was the first CLASSIC I ever read strictly for pleasure...

And I really, really enjoyed it...for the most part (see below).

While recognizing its hallowed place among the canon of world literature, I was still surprised, pleasantly so, at how captivated I became with the novel from the very beginning. Instantly, I loved the character of Ishmael and was amused by his unconventional introduction in the novel. Forced for economic reasons to share a room at in inn with a complete stranger, described by Melville in a manner that completely takes for granted the normality of the situation, was wonderful. It really sucked me into the story.

From that unusual beginning, I was lost in the narrative. Of course, Ahab is our central focus. Larger than life, focused beyond the point of madness, single-mindedly bent on tracking and killing Moby Dick. Ahab is the personification of the destructive obsession. I was awed reading about the reckless, casual manner in which Ahab used his men and risked their lives in his relentless pursuit of his "white whale." it was chilling and I found the final resolution of the quest to be amazingly well done.

On the downside, the descriptions of whaling and the day-to-day drudgery of the ship board activities did get a little tiresome and I found chunks of the book a bit of a difficult slog. However, I would gladly wade through some of the detritus to get to the gold, which this has aplenty.

In sum, a true classic, worthy of its reputation and its mystique. Memorable characters, amazing language and an unforgettable story of madness and obsession.

4.0 stars. Highly Recommended!!!

Ishmael,
as now we finally got to know each other I allowed myself to scribble some words to you. At first, I wanted to thank you for your fascinating report from your voyage. I had heard, always from second hand, many accounts about that what happened to you and your companions. Some claimed that it was stupidity and unbelievable bravado to chase after that Moby Dick. Others maintained that it was manful adventure and none landlubber would ever be able to understand that. Anyway, I’m glad that I eventually could form my own opinion about it.

Man, you really can write. I still hear roaring of the ocean in my ears, my skin is as sunburned and covered with salt. I'm walking with a stagger like on the rocking deck of Pequod and that climbing to the crow's nest ... gosh, it was real challenge to me because, you know, I’m scared of heights. Your attention to even minor detail, your masterly narration, I’m truly impressed. I admire your meticulousness, pedantry even in precise description of each and every wave, each sea creature, all colours and scents of the sea, all the good sides and the bad ones of sailor's life.

I’ve learned quite a lot about whaling now (I’m not saying I needed that but it was very informative, though, now and then, well … a bit fatiguing ?). Like you, I sometimes dangerously fall in too, as I say, autumnal moods or as you put it growing grim about the mouth , I’ll borrow that phrase, hope you don’t mind, so am I supposed to set off to the sea ? Probably not, woman at my age … With all my imagination I can’t visualize myself even as a deckhand not to say a harpooner ( though I can perfectly imagine myself knocking people’s hats off; fortunately, nowadays people, at least in my country, do not often wear hats ).

Of course what interested me the most was your boss, captain Ahab and his motives for all that mad escapade. Did I say mad ? With due respect, but there was something wrong with him. Mind you I’m not saying about his leg now. His bloodlust, his need for revenge, his arrogance, his I’d strike the sun if it insulted me attitude – it was quite out of this world, I think. I can understand his anger, his despair because of lost health, I can feel how his ambition had suffered, how his self-love was harmed but I'm afraid I can not fully comprehend his fixation about that whale. And though the psychological portrait of the captain you painted to me was truly prominent and convincing I still can’t get it why you all let yourself in for it. Moby Dick was Ahab's nemesis, his destiny, his obsession and curse, I see it that way but you … His officer for instance, Starbuck, that one who advised Ahab to beware of Ahab, he seemed to be so reasonable man. And brave, because prudence doesn’t exclude courage, does it ?

To finish this longish letter I wanted to mention your pal, Queequeg. I had such a fun reading about your first encounter and growing friendship. That was really something to see how your attitude developed and how you rooted for this cannibal . I felt truly heartened especially now when people are so negative and disrespectful to each other. It makes me think that everyone needs savage on own side to learn from each other some kindness and respect.

So long, Ishmael or as you sailors say, happy boating .

Yours,
A.

PS.
I would love to know something about Ahab’s wife, you barely mentioned her. Don’t you know, by any chance, how I could contact her ?

Did you know that the famous coffee chain, Starbucks, is named after the first mate in Moby Dick?

Apparently, the founder of Starbucks initially suggested The Pequod, but it didn’t really conjure up the image they were aiming for.

But the truth is this book could bore anyone stiff.

To be fair the first 1/3 and the last 20% are riveting. There are such memorable characters: Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg, and Starbucks. The slow reveal of Ahab, creating a God-like persona is expertly crafted. The moment of Queequeg and Ismael eating world-famous chowder is laugh-out-loud funny, and Queequeg’s heroism is unforgettable.

Then…..

Melville decides to abruptly shove every single fact about whales into the middle of the book, and it is B-O-R-I-N-G.

It is the classic case of an author conducting research who just doesn’t want to part with any source materials.

Melville should have fed the middle part of this book to Moby Dick.

In The Last Chairlift by John Irving, one of the characters dies while reading Moby Dick. And the main character is desperate to discover where the deceased character left off. She probably had trouble sleeping and decided to pick up Moby Dick. Perhaps it was so boring it killed her.

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Electronic Text – $0.99 on Amazon
Audiobook – Free through Audible
Softcover text - $13.66 through Blackwell’s (Penguin Classic)

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“And God created great whales.” —Genesis.

And Melville created a great American novel!
What a classic of American literature. I was postponing this review because at the same time there so too much to be said about this complex work and yet I feel it’s quite hard to grasp the core of its brilliance.

First of all, this book was so unevenly written that I was wondering at times a) am I reading the same author b) is this the same book. In its versatility, it is the most unique book I’ve ever read, and Melville made his point - he plays around throughout different literary genres, but proves he can write stupendously in most of them. This book can be characterized as fiction, but also scientific and historical text, with sparks of poetry and some chapters that read like a stage play. This doesn’t even feel like a novel, rather a prose-epic. At times, the constant change in writing styles can be conflicting as you don’t really know what kind of book you are reading. Writing style is somewhat simple yet it gets more convoluted and dense, especially towards the end. Melville can write ironically, humorously, seriously, profoundly, tenderly, violently - as a writer he is insanely talented. Ishmael's voice is particularly appealing, with a charming mix of skepticism and hope, seeing the light and funny side in the darkest of events. I was sad his voice faded through the novel, and through the whole novel he is an odd narrator - sometimes describing events he couldn’t possibly see. At times the writing can be dry, especially in the famous encyclopedic sections about cetology, but I wasn’t bothered with it at all because of both literal and metaphorical meaning of the chapters, and the structure of this book really beautifully describes how the mind of a person that obsesses over the topic work. I was a little bored on, what at times seemed endless, descriptions of ship and whaling. There is a disproportion between the experimental parts and parts focused on plot and characters (it seems there is more plot in the first 100 pages than in the rest of the book) and one could say that this is a poorly constructed novel. But in a way, Moby Dick can get a pass because I got a sense that like Frankenstein's monster, the novel took life for itself, independent of Melville, as it is almost uncontrollable. The novel is insane as Ahab himself!

I have a theory - the book can be read as Ishamel’s internal adventure in the psychic realm - characters can be read as his internal representation of archetypes and the whale as the representation of ultimate invincible nature, inscrutability of the universe, that man can’t understand or conquer. The dichotomy of land and ocean is important here - the ocean is chaotic, undefined, and boundless while the land is solid, material and defined. Land symbolizes the static knowledge, while ocean ever-changing and evolving process of meditation and thinking. And the ocean seems to be superior in significance to the path of our protagonist.
Ishmael's ultimate quest for meaning and Ahab chase for the whale both contain a universal journey for the ungraspable phantom of life. The whale can also be a symbolic representation of what man perceives as cruel God, and Ahab the figure of a disobedient idolatry king that thinks he can defeat the force of God. Still, I think the book would be misinterpreted if read only in an allegorical sense, in the end, I feel Melville wanted to write a book about whales. But he made a strong philosophical point in the process - even a physical creature of a Moby Dick can be endlessly ruminated upon and explored, so how can any philosophy or religion claim to have ultimate truth about something as abstract as the meaning of life.
The book seems to be imaginative protest against monolithic monotheism - there is no right way to draw or describe Moby Dick so the author has to go to all the perspectives he can to grasp particles of truth, and throughout the process broadens the perspective on different cultures, gods and taboos and sets you in the peculiar game of interpretations. And in the end, there is no ultimate meaning or comfort from the interpretations - at the same time, the answer is to reject and accept everything.

'’Indefinite is God’’

That is what I experienced as Melville’s world-view - meaning that could not be found in only one perspective, and you have to be brave enough to explore every possible stance on whatever subject in an attempt to understand it but there is no definite answer. Most men try to find the truth and impose on it its own meaning as Ahab did - his obsession with a personal interpretation of Moby Dick with oblivion to whale’s totality was his fatal flaw of the character. But the narrator, Ishmael, or Melville himself, who is brave enough to go to every possible source of knowledge without any prejudice - is the only one who survives the attack of Moby Dick. Ahab is forcing the universe to an answer, which leads to disaster, while Ishmael is an authentic truth seeker and he confronts the indefinite head-on, and survives. Melville also shows a strong stance on determinism. Fate is already written in the stone, the premonitions announce the destiny of the ship and its passengers, and free will can’t change its course. Characters also seem to be out of control of themselves - Ishmael goes on the sea because he feels like it as he is completely dominated by urges and emotions, and even Ahab who seems strong-willed admits in the end that he is not in the jurisdiction of his actions, he knows he is destructive to himself and everyone around him but still has to pursue the path of destruction. But Melville seems to praise the joyous acceptance of tragic fate as his quote says: "Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing."

This book will have something for every reader - a parable of religious-moralistic character, political allegory, a study on the ethical distinction, American imperialism and colonialism, individualism, democracy, transcendentalism, existentialism, madness, all displayed while describing whale hunting. Whale hunting is described humanely and you really get a grip on violence and sorrow that fill this business, not shying away from its terrible nature. I feel that there is not one field that this book doesn’t touch while writing about whales - myth, science, history, religion, ethics, metaphysics. I don’t think that a similar book was ever written or I will be written in the history of mankind. And I honestly, only Melville can pull this one.

This is the kind of book I want to ruminate upon in my older age, and I feel I will appreciate it much more at a later time. But even now I think it is unforgettable work that will linger in my mind long after first read. It took me some time to read the book, some passages are one’s you have to read several times to fully grasp. And I want to give credit, some of my reflections were influenced by Hubert Dreyfus brilliant lecture on Moby Dick that can be found on youtube. If you’ve read the book I highly recommend it.

The book itself has also the highest recommendation, but only for the brave readers open to the indefinite mysteriousness of the world!