This is a curious and unwieldy book. At times (and too frequently) it reads like the more excruciatingly detailed scenes of Robinson Crusoe; at others the zany songs, goofy scenes, and curious characters prove Pynchon and DFW to be no pioneers in their lighthearted pursuits. The descriptive prose occasionally builds into an alliterative tornado where form, content, and raw urgency combined to leave me buzzed and page corner-bending. There’s a staggering amount of wisdom dressed up in whale-speak and ship-speak, easily justifying the frequency with which this book is taught and revisited. The dialogue and soliloquies are reminiscent of (and well-nigh the equal to) Shakespeare: the rhythm of speech, if not technically similar, certainly conjures up the Bard and, regardless of the accurateness of my observation here, offers exquisite aesthetic delights. Indeed, this is the first book I've tried reading/whispering aloud in parts since moving through Paradise Lost earlier in the year.

After a jocular commencement full of quaint homoeroticism and ominous adumbrations, the feverish intensity of the story picks up with Ahab’s declaration of his quest to find and kill the white whale. Not only does this scene kick the plot into motion, but it also signals the beginning of Melville’s flirtation with other perspectives outside of Ishmael’s semi-omniscient narration. Once I’d become familiar and comfortable with the mode of storytelling, we started bouncing from Ahab’s point-of-view back to Ishmael over to Stubb, and the story suddenly revealed a passionate and intimate aspect that would become so important with Ahab’s consuming madness as the book reached its climax.

Everything in the story feels thoughtfully-constructed, but it occasionally falls into a predictable pattern that likely gives the book its reputation for—dare I say it—boringness. When the style changes feel fresh and organic (as in the perspective switches mentioned above), the mood and flow are well-affected. Frequently, however, Melville seems to be following the modern indie rock playbook: build up tension…build…Build…BUILD... release, ahh. Except here the tension comes from subjection to the minutest of details on whales, whalers, and whaling life that often come across as more creative and artistic Wikipedia entries. But then, right when you can’t take it anymore, and you drift into reverie contemplating the risk of eye injury from excessive computer-screen exposure, Melville switches into plot/action mode and the story takes off again…for 3 pages. (There are about 150 chapters in this book, which kinda makes you wonder about the institution date of the rule that literary and genre fiction must be distinguishable by chapter length).

So is Moby-Dick the Great American Novel? I don’t think so, but it may at least be The Quintessential American Novel, in the sense that it's imperfect and it chronicles single-minded, results-driven obsession as well as the destruction of living mystery and mastery of the awe-inspiring Unknown. I couldn’t help but bring my modern day whale knowledge and sensibilities to the text (a failure on my part), and yet as soon as the brutality and glorification of whale-killing reached its peak, Melville preempted and precluded my ready protestations. Indeed, he mocks all of us who eat meat and would object to the brutal whaling he describes:

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formerly indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.

And so I must begrudge Melville his whaling apology as I simultaneously confront my life’s own pusillanimous contradictions. In any case, Melville’s position shouldn’t be oversimplified—he’s interested in portraying both the glories and horrors of war and concedes that there are, in fact, ideals (however impossible/impractical they may be to attain): in legend, the first whale attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill men's lamp-feeders.

Within a novel of such depth, where the literal nearly always represents something(s) more, such a close eco-reading is perhaps uncalled for. This book is overflowing with humor (French translation scene, anyone?), epic struggle, unhealthy human obsession (What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures), destiny, societal escapism, and good old-fashioned adventure. And never have I read a superior description of the sinusoidal curve of life; of our empty pursuits; of the fundamental patterns to which we subject ourselves (and are subjected):

Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! (i.e. soul-killing) Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from the world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when -- There she blows! -- the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.

Depressing and heartening. Life.

I hate this book so much. It is impossible to ignore the literary merit of this work though; it is, after all, a piece of innovative literature. Melville broke narrative expectations when he shed the narrator Ishmael and burst through with his infinite knowledge of all things whale. It was most creative, but then he pounded the reader with his knowledge of the whaling industry that could, quite literally, fill several textbooks. This made the book so incredibly dull. I’m not being naïve towards this book’s place in the literary cannon, but I am sharing my agony for a book that bored me half to death with its singularity of purpose and expression: it’s obsession with whales.

I’m just sick of them

I understand that this is the main motif of the book. Ahab becomes fuelled with his need to slay the leviathan, but it wasn’t Ahab who droned on for three hundred pages about the properties of whales. Despite the allegorical interpretation between the relationship, and the comparisons between man and fish, the book is unnecessarily packed out. There are passages and passages that add nothing to the meaning or merit of the work. Melville explains every aspect of the whaling industry in dry, monotone, manner. There are entire chapters devoted to describing different whale types, and even one even discussing the superiority of the sperm whale’s head:

"Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, as as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

It is just so agonising to read. This is quite possibly the most painful book I’ve ever read in my life. I’ve never hated a book more than I hate this behemoth. I just felt there was no purpose to so many of the chapters; they didn’t add to the narrative or increase Ahab’s obsession. Also, at times it wasn’t entirely clear who the narrator was. There would be the occasional glimpse of Ishmael, and his aspect of the story, and then this all knowing entity with an unfathomable depth of whaling knowledge would begin up again.

Tedium defined

The writing gives new breath to the definition of mundane, monotonous and tedious. It is repetitive, expressionless and soul destroying. I became more and more annoyed the further I got into this book, as soon as some semblance of plot would come through, and some small degree of progress, I would be hit with another fifty pages or so describing the properties of whale bubbler, and even on one occasion a chapter devoted to rope. How fun. I began to hate this book with a passion that made me almost scream every time the word “whale” came up. Now, this was some tough reading.

Moreover, I could never understand how Melville could consider whaling such a noble profession. There is nothing noble about it, it may have once been a necessity, but it has always been cruel and brutal. It may have been a means for communities to survive and people to eat, but there is no honour in it. How can shoving a pole through a whale, cutting its head off, slicing away its blubber and desecrating its body be considered in any way praiseworthy? It’s an aspect of life that is comparable to man today slaughtering a cow. There is simply no glamour to be had in the deed. You’d think Melville was describing the life of a group of chivalrous knights; they were whalers not heroes.

This book is awful in every sense of the word. It has achieved literary fame, but I still personally hate it. I found everything about it completely, and utterly, detestable. Never again will I go within five feet of anything written by Herman Melville. I think a part of me died whilst reading this book; it was just that disagreeable to me.

This novel was on the syllabus of the 19th century literature course I studied when I was a second year university student, back in 1977. About half way through, I got bored. Then I fell ill and I didn’t finish reading it. Notwithstanding the fact that I hadn’t read the entire novel, I managed to write a paper about it and pass the exam thanks to very detailed lecture notes borrowed from a friend. After that, Moby Dick receded into my past and I had no intention of revisiting it.

Years later, my family was very close to a young man – a writer – whose favourite novel was Moby Dick. He and I had lots of interesting literary discussions, but as I had failed to finish the novel and was not interested in going back to it, I couldn’t debate his thesis that Moby Dick was the best and most important novel ever written. Later again, this young man died in tragic circumstances and his beloved copy of the novel was buried with him.

Until four months ago, my response to Moby Dick revolved around these two encounters with the novel: my own failure to finish reading it and my memories of a person to whom it meant everything. It felt like something incomplete but nevertheless significant in my life.

Then along came The Moby Dick Big Read and I decided it was time to finish the unfinished and see if I could discover what had made an intelligent and sensitive young man so passionate about this particular literary work. Along with countless others around the world – and with Goodreads friends Hayes, Laura and Tracey as well as others in the  Moby Dick Big Read group moderated by Vikk – I have listened to Moby Dick as a series of podcasts of one chapter a day, with each chapter read by a different narrator.

As I listened to the novel over the past four months, I discovered a number of things. One is that there is more humour in the work than I either remembered or expected. Another is that Melville wrote beautiful prose and created intensely memorable characters. Yet another is that the novel is a bit like life: sometimes there’s high drama and hustle and bustle, but there are lots of fairly dull bits in between. Although I occasionally wished that Captain Ahab and the crew of the Pequod would just hurry up and find the whale, I still enjoyed the journey I went on waiting for that moment to arrive. At least, I mostly enjoyed it. I liked Melville’s lessons in cetology quite a lot, but I can’t deny that at other times I lost focus, drifted off, and yes, became bored. Occasionally it was like my 1977 experience all over again.

Listening to Moby Dick read by different narrators was a mixed blessing. Some of the narrators were outstanding. For me, the chapters read by Tilda Swinton, Simon Callow, Stephen Fry, Fiona Shaw, Benedict Cumberbatch and Roger Allam were real highlights, reflecting my preference for audiobooks narrated by professional actors. However, there were non-actor narrators who were also excellent, including David Cameron (the British Prime Minister) and newsreader James Naughtie, as well as others whose names don’t come immediately to mind. Some narrators were significantly less impressive and a small handful were - not to mince words - rubbish. Overall, I think I may have enjoyed the experience more if I’d listened to the novel being read by one very good narrator rather than by such a mixed bunch. On the other hand, that would have taken something away from the experience that the creators of the Moby Dick Big Read wanted to achieve.

So, how do I rate this novel? I enjoyed the experience of participating in such a literary event, even if there were times when listening to a chapter felt like a chore. I understand why a reader would be so passionate about the novel that his family would bury it with him when he died. I can appreciate the significance of Melville’s achievement. However, it hasn’t become one of my favourite books and I doubt that I’ll read it again. That said, I’ll remember the writing and the characters and I’ll reflect on the themes for some time to come. All of this makes it worth three stars for how I feel about the novel and an extra star for the Moby Dick Big Read experience.

It's about a whale eventually. Before that it's a gay romantic comedy. "In our hearts’ honeymoon," says Ishmael, "lay I and Queequeg – a cosy, loving pair." If you never made it past page 100, because you were assigned this in high school and it was boring, you might wonder where the whale even is. Where's this majestic tome everyone's yelling about?

About a quarter in, captain Ahab shows up raving about Moby-Dick and the book takes this intense lurch into legend, and it feels like a pretty radical change of direction here. Ahab completely takes over, a character of Shakespearean primal force: "Ahab never thinks; he feels, feels, feels." Melville wasn't a careful planner at the best of times, but something else happened to him as he was writing this book, and here it is:


dude's name is literally "hawt & horny"

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne, the master of metaphor himself, whose relationship with Melville happened to coincide with the writing of Moby-Dick, and whose influence was so deep that Melville dedicated the book to him. So Melville's over here writing some kind of Robinson Crusoe slash fic, he meet cutes Hawthorne, and the next thing you know...


"to produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme"

It's Hawthorne who suggests to Melville that he's onto something with the whole whale thing - Hawthorne with his towering feel for metaphors - and here we have our mighty theme. And look, I know, you're not really used to whales being scary, right? You've gone on a whole boat trip just trying to get a peek at one. It surfaced for like two seconds 100 yards away and everyone was like ooh, so majestic. Pretending like whale watches aren't boring as fuck. You might feel the same way when Melville spends seven chapters in a row talking about the physiognomy of sperm whale heads. But he's doing a Jaws here, withholding the reveal, building suspense, and by the time the whale actually appears - 30 pages before the end - you know exactly what that head is capable of. What comes next is one of the best action scenes in literature.



Anyway the thing is that you gotta remember that in 1860, nobody knew shit about whales. Here - think of the whale like the rapper Ice Cube. Back in the NWA days, he created a scary, unknowable being of immense power and danger - a thing most of us had never seen in real life. Now he's recast himself as the star of "Are We There Yet?" He's cuddly now, and whales are on bumper stickers about saving. But once upon a time, both represented the implacable unknown.


the symbol you love to hate

The implacable unknown, and obsession, and futility and mortality and - and - like all the best metaphors, the whale means anything you need him to. Including, by the way, sperm. Because while the book becomes more mighty and more weighty, it never becomes any less gay at all. “Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long," Ishmael chants: "I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it!" Did your high school English teacher tell you to grow up, it's not that kind of sperm? It is that kind of sperm.

Top Ten Metaphors
10. Tigers (Borges & Cortazar, 1900s)
9. Scylla & Charybdis (Odyssey by Homer, 1000 BCE)
8. The Stepford Wives (Ira Levin, 1972)
7. Carrie (Stephen King, 1974)
6. The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne, 1850)
5. Voltron
4. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, 1991)
3. Gregor Samsa (Metamorphosis by Kafka, 1915)
2. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)
1. Moby-Dick (Melville, 1851)

Hawthorne's influence made Moby-Dick deeper but not less gay, because Melville was in love with Hawthorne. “Whence come you, Hawthorne?" says one of his letters to him. "By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips — lo, they are yours and not mine.” And what happens next is Hawthorne moves across the state and they kindof stop talking. What happened? Did someone's wife catch them making out? Or was it just a crush? We have nothing to indicate Hawthorne's feelings; Melville burned all his letters. Maybe it was one-sided. Maybe Hawthorne was the white whale.

And that's one of the wonderful things about Moby-Dick for me: Melville has Trojan Horse'd the Great American Novel. Dude wrote DICK right on the cover of the book and no one got it. Still, to this day, my Penguin intro by Nathaniel Philbrick never once mentions how incredibly gay it is. Once again: It is that kind of sperm.

n  n

Look, you have this sense of Melville as ponderous, and he can be, but he's also funny as hell. He's like Shakespeare, who was a massive influence: if it feels like it might be wordplay, it always definitely is. Here's a thing he does right in the first chapter of the book, he goes

n
In this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim).

The Pythagorean maxim in question is "avoid beans;" Melville's making a fart joke. When he talks about squeezing sperm, how dumb do you think he'd have to be in order to not realize what he's writing? And furthermore Billy Budd, which doesn't even make sense if it isn't gay. And where I'm going here is that this isn't just a mighty book that sortof sounds gay: it's a mighty gay book. It's by a gay man. Even if we leave Hawthorne out of it, between Melville and Walt Whitman, the foundation of American literature is largely gay.

I mean, not to read too much into it. It's a book about a whale. But we should be clear that the whale is gay.

i tried.

Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensible for common safety's sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.
tBefore lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposing gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp - the rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to detail.

i tried. but any book with that passage, and thousands of passages just like it, can never get five stars from me. and probably not even four. not because i think it is shitty writing, but because when i was growing up, i was told that girls just wanna have fun, and that was not giving me any fun at all.

everyone said, "nooo, karen, you were eighteen when you read this the first time, and you just didn't give it your all - you are bound to love it now, with your years of accumulated knowledge and experience."

and that sounded valid to me, and it's like when i turned thirty, and i decided to try all the foods i had thought were "from the devil" and see if i liked them now that i was old. i thought that revisiting this book might have the same results and discoveries. but this book remains like olives to me, and not like rice pudding, which, have you tried it? is quite good.

but no.
turns out that when i was eighteen, i was already fully-formed.

and it's not that i don't understand it - i get the biblical allusions, i understand the bitter humor of fast fish loose fish, i am aware of the foreshadowing and symbolism - i went to school, i learned my theory and my close-reading, but there are passages, like the one above, that i could not see the glory in. all i could see was the dull.

and the bitch of it is that it started out fine - good, even. i was really getting into the description of the docks and the nantuckters, and it was giving me good new-england-y feelings. and then came that first chapter about whale-anatomy, and i was laughing, remembering encountering it during my first reading and being really angry that this chapter was jaggedly cutting in on the action. and, honestly, it was really good at the end, too. but the whole middle of this book is pretty much a wash. a sea of boredom with occasionally interesting icebergs.

at the beginning, he claims that no one has ever written the definitive book about whales and whaling, so - kudos on that, because this is pretty damn definitive. it's just no fun. maybe i would like it better if it had been about sharks?? i like sharks.

i know you wouldn't know it to look at me, but i don't have a problem with challenging books. i prefer a well-told story, sure, and i am mostly just a pleasure-reader, not one that needs to be all snooty-pants about everything i read, but i've done the proust thing, and while he can be wordy at times (hahaahah) his words will, eventually, move me, i understand them, and i appreciate being submerged into his character's thought-soup. viginia woolf - dense writing, but it is gorgeous writing that shines a light into the corners of human experience and is astonishing, breathtaking. thomas hardy has pages and pages of descriptive nature-writing, but manages to make it matter.

i just wasn't feeling that here. the chapter on the way we perceive white animals, the whale through various artistic representations, rigging, four different chapters on whale anatomy; it's just too much description, not enough story; it seemed all digressive interlude.

and you would think that a book so full of semen and dick and men holding hands while squeezing sperm and grinning at each other would have been enough, but i remain unconverted, and sad of it.

maybe if i had read this one, it would have been different:



oh, no, i have opened the GIS-door:



i am only including this one because i totally have that shark stuffie:



maybe i am just a frivolous person, unable to appreciate the descriptive bludgeoning of one man's quest to detail every inch of the giant whale. or maybe all y'all are wrong and deluded.

heh. dick.

come to my blog!

I read this during the time I spent at a science conference in Cuba back in the last century.

I think if I hadn't been so lacking diversion - isolated in the hotel by the extortionate price of tourist taxis - I would never have made it through the book. There are certainly passages written with considerable literary power:

“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.”

And the story is certainly not without interest: the 'mad' captain hunting his nemesis across the seas, his obsession driving his crew into extremis.

But none of that can expunge the memory of what felt like literally a hundred pages of dry, mechanical exposition about the mechanics of whaling and the minutiae of the whaling industry.

It was, I have to say, a slog that I wouldn't encourage anyone else to undertake without good reason. I have read many 19th century classics that I found far more appealing.


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Dude, let it go already!

Massachusetts, 1830s. Ishmael is a young mariner spending time at a local inn, resting from his last sea voyage. When the lure of the seas calls again he signs up to join the crew of the Pequod, a whaler ship leaving dock soon. In charge of the expedition, the implacable Ahab, an old sea captain with a prosthetic leg, lost recently ago in a whaling accident while trying to hunt the infamous Moby Dick, the dreaded white whale of the Pacific seas. Ahab holds a deep grudge against the whale, and is always looking for his chance to enact his revenge.

What a classic! The novel is narrated through the eyes of Ishmael, while he relates the ill-fated events that followed the journey of the Pequod in its relentless search to hunt Moby Dick. Ishmael was an honest and reliable narrator. LOVED the developing camaraderie and affection between Ishmael and the cannibal Queequeg; it was both touching and funny on several occasions, and the most vivid recollection I take from this book. Captain Ahab an iconic antagonist and a flawless dark representation of grief, and the tormentous resentful side of human nature. And Moby Dick, well, you have to love and respect nature.

Beyond the awful subject of whale hunting, or any kind of animal for that matter, you have to admire the excellence and depth in Melville’s magnificent depiction of sea navigation and the life and restless spirit of the born sailor, who suffers the earth and lives the seas. Not for nothing it’s considered one of the best nautical novels ever written. A sea adventure and a maritime encyclopedia all by itself. And not widely known, the story partly based on true events; on the tragic sinking of the ‘Essex’ whale-ship, around 1820.

One of the best picks I ever found in the dusty shelves of my family’s bookcase. It was a condensed edition sadly, realized much later, but still highly memorable and enjoyable, possibly easier to tackle than the original. One of the greatest classics of all time, and THE timeless masterpiece of Nautical Fiction.

Recommendable, for the right audience. Just mind the abundant nautical terminology, which can be sometimes quite overwhelming for the unfamiliar; and that it hits you like a classical bludgeon.

It’s public domain, you can find it HERE.

*** In the Heart of the Sea (2015). By far the most visually stunning and impressive depiction of whaling catastrophe. Yet it’s not an adaptation of Moby Dick but a fictional recreation of the sinking of the ‘Essex’ whaler ship, the true story behind Moby Dick that inspired Melville’s work. Thor was there, his powers were not. Still worth it. (6/10)

*** Moby Dick (1998). A two-episode miniseries starring Patrick Stewart as Ahab, so with him you know you can expect a superb dramatic performance as Captain of the Enterprise Pequod. I barely remember anything else. I think there was a bit of singing, which always annoys me. I think it was faithful to the book, but since I read an abridged version I can’t be sure. (6/10)

*** Moby Dick (1956). I don’t remember a single thing about this film, but I rated it (6/10) on my IMDB account so I guess it is at very least an acceptable adaptation, yet sadly apparently also very forgettable. Also must note my memory is as consistent as a half eaten slice of swiss cheese, so never mind forgettable.



-----------------------------------------------
n  PERSONAL NOTEn:
[1851] [654p] [Classics] [3.5] [Conditional Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------

★★★☆☆  Moby-Dick or, The Whale.  [3.5]
★★★☆☆  Billy Budd, Sailor.
★★☆☆☆  The Lightning-Rod Man.

-----------------------------------------------

Flaco, ¡cortala!

Massachusetts, 1830. Ismael es un joven marinero pasando el rato en una taberna local, descansando de su último viaje de mar. Cuando el llamado de los océanos golpea otra vez se enlista para unirse a la tripulación del Pequod, una nave ballenera que partirá de los puertos pronto. A cargo de la expedición, el implacable Ahab, un viejo capitán de mar con una pierna prostética, perdida recientemente en un accidente ballenero mientras trataba de cazar a la infame Moby Dick, la temida ballena blanca del océano Pacífico. Ahab guarda un profundo rencor contra la ballena, y siempre busca la oportunidad de concretar su venganza.

¡Qué clásico! Esta novela está narrada desde la perspectiva de Ismael, mientras relata los fatídicos eventos que siguieron al viaje del Pequod en su incansable búsqueda para la caza de Moby Dick. Ismael fue un honesto y confiable narrador. AME el progresivo afecto y camaradería entre Ismael y el caníbal Queequeg; fue en igual medida conmovedora y graciosa en repetidas ocasiones, y el recuerdo más vívido que guardo de esta obra. El Capitán Ahab un icónico antagonista y una impecable oscura representación del dolor, y del tormentoso resentimiento de la naturaleza humana. Y Moby Dick, bueno, uno tiene que respetar y amar la naturaleza.

Más allá de la horrible temática de la caza de ballenas, o de cualquier animal dicho sea de paso, uno tiene que admirar la excelencia y profundidad en la magnífica representación de Melville de la navegación marítima y de la vida y agitado espíritu del marinero innato, que sufre la tierra y vive el mar. No por nada es considerada una de las mejores novelas náuticas jamás escritas. Una aventura de mar y una enciclopedia marítima por sí sola. Y no extensamente conocido, parcialmente basado en eventos reales; en el trágico hundimiento del ballenero ‘Essex’, cerca de 1820.

Una de las mejores selecciones que alguna vez encontré en los polvorientos estantes de la biblioteca familiar. Fue una versión condensada lamentablemente, me di cuenta mucho más tarde, pero aun así altamente memorable y disfrutable, tal vez más fácil de encarar que el original. Uno de los más grandes clásicos de todos los tiempos, y LA obra maestra inmortal de la Ficción Náutica.

Recomendable, para la audiencia correcta. Sólo estén atentos de la abundante terminología marítima, que puede ser sobre abrumadora a veces para el no familiarizado; y que te pega como un mazazo clásico.

Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.

*** En el Corazón del Mar (2015). Por lejos la más visualmente impactante e impresionante representación de la catástrofe ballenera. Pero no es una adaptación de Moby Dick sino una recreación ficcional del hundimiento del barco ballenero ‘Essex’, la historia real detrás de Moby Dick que inspiró la obra de Melville. Thor estuvo ahí, sus poderes no. Igual lo valió. (6/10)

*** Moby Dick (1998). Una miniserie de dos episodios con Patrick Stewart como Ahab, así que con él podés esperar una sobresaliente dramática actuación como Capitán del Enterprise Pequod. No recuerdo casi nada más. Creo que hubo un poco de canto, lo cual siempre me molesta. Creo que fue fiel a la obra, pero como leí una versión resumida no puedo estar seguro. (6/10)

*** Moby Dick (1956). No recuerdo absolutamente nada de esta película, pero la califiqué (6/10) en mi cuenta de IMDB así que supongo que cuando menos es una adaptación aceptable, pero lamentablemente creo que también aparentemente muy olvidable. Debo aclarar acá que mi memoria es tan consistente como una rebanada podrida de queso suizo, así que no me hagan caso con olvidable.



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n  NOTA PERSONALn:
[1851] [654p] [Clásicos] [3.5] [Recomendable Condicional]
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I have tried to read this umpteen times. I have never completed it. I will now try listening to the unabridged audiobook version read by Anthony Heald, a narrator whose performances I highly admire.

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I am halfway through this and I am s-u-f-f-e-r-i-n-g. It is tedious. It is boring. OK, if you are a cetologist, you may enjoy the details more than I do. There is a line or two of humor, but for the most part the language is wordy and often unclear. A whole chapter on the inaccuracy of whale paintings was just too much for me! It was the final straw. n  IFn Melville was attempting to say something profound, he does not succeeded in getting his message across to me. n  IFn he was trying to say something philosophical and deep, he should have been more clear.

The audiobook narration is good. Heald enhances the good lines, but fails to make the tedious ones better.

Shall I dump this again?


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Yep, I have dumped this again! I do not like it, so I am going to have to give it one star. I have tried very hard to like it; I have asked those who do to explain to me what I am missing. Please see the messages below. Many thanks to those who have taken the time to help me, but the book still fails me!

I adore everything about Nantucket, but I do not adore this book. I recommend Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer (5 stars) instead. Or these:

*Nantucket Island 5 stars
*Nantucket: Seasons on the Island 5 stars
*Nantucket: Images of the Island 5 stars
*Nantucket a Camera Impression by Samuel Chamberlain 5 stars
*The Nantucket Way 4 stars
*Nantucket: Gardens and Houses 4 stars

Video review

I ship Queeshmael.

Herman Melville's Moby Dick Or The Whale may be viewed by many as a classic whale tale but in fact it hardly qualifies as a novel; rather, it seems to exist as an encyclopedic exposition of whaling culture, a literary research compendium on cetology, or the study of whales & similar sea-going mammals, including the sociology of those men who take to the seas, the anatomy & physiology of a sperm whale, the psychological depths of one's man's obsession & its impact on an entire ship.



Added to all of that, Melville inserts voluminous detail about "the watery part of the world", including the colors, wave patterns & ever-changing, dynamic nature of the oceans, the sky above + what I would term periodic "God-questions", a far-reaching attempt at a spiritual definition of man's relationship to the universe. For many if not most, Moby Dick is not the book they envision, not by a long shot!

I am completely sympathetic with those who set aside or even forcefully toss aside this epic book, for it is almost designed to defeat the reader. Assimilating Moby Dick is almost like climbing a monumental mountain, needing to be taken one step at a time, with frequent pauses to catch one's breath, including an occasional halt to ask...Why? It might have been a 300 page novel depicting Captain Ahab's vengeful confrontation with the enormous white sperm whale that had earlier taken his leg & far more importantly, grievously wounded his psyche.



The reader has to settle in slowly & savor all that Melville wishes to share with us because it takes 150 pages before we finally leave Nantucket on board the whale ship Pequod and 300 pages before a whale is sighted. But as the author phrases it, "No more blubbering now, we are going a whaling"...

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse & nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little & see the watery part of the world. Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. If they but knew it, almost all men at some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

This is a shortened preamble to Moby Dick and to my mind, one of the most memorable openings in all of literature. And while we may not be interested in knowing about the kind of sermon preached at the Old Seaman's Church in New Bedford or the sort of chowder served at the inn where Ishmael shelters in Nantucket prior to signing on to the Pequod.

Also included is the etymology of the word "Whale", including Cetus in Latin, Ballena in Spanish & Pekee-Nuee-Nuee in Fegee (Fijian) and the 15+ pages of "Extracts" on whales from revered folks like Captain Cook, Thomas Jefferson & Charles Darwin, with these details all seeming to add something very palpable to the oversized Melville novel. The most important thing is to begin by proceeding slowly...

The intersection of two very dissimilar seamen, Ishmael & Queequeg, as they share a room & even the same bed in the overbooked inn, initiating a lasting bond between them, is extremely well-cast, with the much-tattooed Queequeg, said to be a son of the king of a cannibalistic tribe, consulting his little black fetish-god,"Yojo" for advice. On the brief sea transit from New Bedford to Nantucket, Queequeg has already demonstrated his inner strength when he unhesitatingly jumps overboard to save a drowning man & he carries his harpoon with him everywhere prior to boarding the whale ship with Ishmael.



We are also introduced to the Nantucket Quaker culture of the day, except that these are often said paradoxically to be "fighting Quakers" or "Quakers with a sense of vengeance", Ahab among them, while one of the owners of the Pequod is spoken of as a man of deeply held "insular prejudices".

One of the qualities that Melville conveys is what might be called the "sociology of the whale ship", detailing its "pecking order", including the mention that a harpooner is paid a considerable sum more than a common seaman or the ship's cook or its carpenter or sail-maker or blacksmith. We learn of Starbuck, the first mate on board the Pequod, who is said to be "a telling pantomime of action, not a tame chapter of sounds"; next, the 2nd mate, a good humored, pipe-smoking fellow called "Stubb"; finally, the 3rd mate "Flask", a very short, stout, pugnacious man, with each of them in charge of a whale boat that has an assigned harpooner.

All of the principal mates are Christian while all of their harpooners are said to be "pagans", i.e. not from Quaker, Nantucket or Hyannis stock. Like "Gothic knights of old, each had a squire to serve as his harpooner. Queequeg serves as Starbuck's "squire" while the other harpooners have names like "Tashtego", an "unmixed Indian with the blood of a proud warrior" and "Daggoo", "a gigantic black Negro savage from Africa with a lion-like head."

There is however a 4th whale boat, the one commanded by Captain Ahab, an enigmatic, sulking man with a quenchless feud who speaks of demons, destiny & madness, with all on board bound to all of these component manifestations of Mr. Ahab. His harpooner is called "Fedallah", said to be "an oriental man, a Parsee, a dream-like creature, a turbaned phantom."

Beyond that, there is a mixed chorus of cacophonous, often bawdy & suggestive voices of seamen who hail from Holland, France, Malta, Sicily, Tahiti, Iceland & East India, each with different points of origin, backgrounds & reasons for being on board the Pequod. They quickly blend together, though most are solitary figures, not at home except when at sea.

Long exile from Christendom & civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owing no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals (Ahab), and ready at any moment to to rebel against him.

Amidst the savagery of slaying a whale while at sea in always unpredictable weather, Melville speaks of the fraternity of life at sea, the honor & glory of being a whale man. And he distinguishes between kinds of whales, portraying "a Right Whale as a Stoic, while the Sperm Whale is a Platonian who might have taken up Spinoza in later years."

At times, Melville acts as a kind of lecturer on "whale culture" for his readers, declaring: "My dear sir, in this world, it is not easy to settle all of these plain things", for only by actually observing whales at sea can one fully appreciate the nature of a whale or the life of a whale man.



To be sure, slaughtering a whale is a grizzly business! I was wholly sympathetic with the whale & kept hoping for a contingent from Greenpeace to arrive in an attempt to even the score a bit, hearing the whale's plaintive cry & attempting to salvage one or more of the leviathans being so brutally captured & killed for their oil, especially when Melville indicates that just before the whale dies, it appears to roll over to face the sun. As the whale is dissected & its oil salvaged, sharks hover below feasting on the remnants of the whale. There is a scene when a man on board dines on some of the whale's meat, while using oil from the newly-deceased whale to light his lamp as he dines.

Obviously, much of the tale is allegorical, with the juxtaposition of good vs. evil and with the whiteness of the whale, the seemingly white ship, Ahab's white prosthetic leg, all posed against what the author contends is the inherent dark side of humanity. And yet, there is a surprising, unexpected amount of humor, language that is often very inventive, even at times almost Joycean and while occasionally florid, the prose is more often uplifting, colorful, vividly expressive & even eloquent.

Here are just a few samples:

In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of the whale's flukes. But if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, the whole bulk of the Leviathan is knit with a warp & woof of muscular fibers & filaments, that insensibly blend with them, contributing might, so that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.

In ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of life immortal on them, would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven with storms, a storm for every calm. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Our souls are like orphans whose unwedded mothers died in bearing them; the secret of our paternity lies in their grave and we must there to learn it. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down & do believe.

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it, hidden lord & master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings & longings, I so keep pushing & crowding & jamming myself on all the time. Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who that lifts this arm? By heaven, man, we are turned round & round in this world, and Fate is the handspike.

All of the countless words within Moby Dick form Melville's testament to his ongoing, ever-expanding consideration of the nature of man, with Captain Ahab's tireless crusade on board the Pequod against the great white sperm whale just a vehicle, the one the author understood best, as being on board a whale ship had been Herman Melville's Yale College & his Harvard.



Moby Dick is a mammoth, (one might say "whale-sized"), cumbersome, frustrating, potentially exhausting but exceedingly wonderful novel! At one point in the book, Melville informs his reader: "to produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." Amen to that. One might think of it as a large jigsaw puzzle where the various component pieces only gradually begin to crystallize.

The novel is probably not best received by those who wish to take a short sail on a stable vessel in perfect weather but by the reader who is willing to have his or her imagination nurtured & even taken captive as a part of a long, adventurous, literary voyage.

*I found the included sketches by Rockwell Kent quite enhancing. **Within my review are images of: Herman Melville; Nantucket in the 19th Century; quotes from Moby Dick; a whaling ship in full battle mode.

one time a guy i went on a date with told me that moby dick was his favorite book. this was a red flag, not because of the content of the book, but just the fact that this was his favorite meant that he was so mind-numbingly boring. which he was.

case in point.

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read this my sophomore year of high school because my English teacher told me this was the one classic she could not finish and i wanted to boost my ego just by proving that i could.

i did, and now i'll never get those hours back.

(Book 896 from 1001 books) - Moby-Dick = The Whale, Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance.

Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale that on the previous whaling voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee.

The novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, but during the 20th century, its reputation as a Great American Novel was established.

William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written it himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world", and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". "Call me Ishmael" is among world literature's most famous opening sentences.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «مابی دیک نهنگ سفید»، «موبی‌دیک (نهنگ سفید)» - هرمان ملویل (امیرکبیر) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه دسامبر سال 2002میلادی

مترجمها خانمها و آقایان: «صالح حسینی در 776ص»؛ «پرویز داریوش در 422ص»؛ «ایاز خدادادی در 324ص»؛ «علی فاطمیان در240ص»؛ «پروین ادیب در 209ص»؛ «رضا روزبه در 200ص»، «محمد شاطرلو در 183ص»؛ «علی اصغر محمدزاده سال 1335؛ در168ص»؛ «نوشین ابراهیمی در 157ص»؛ «خسرو شایسته در 133ص»، «سهیلا احمدی در 120ص»؛ «نفیسه دربهشتی در 120ص»، «محمد طلوعی در 113ص»؛ «مجید ریاحی در 113ص»؛ «راضیه ابراهیمی در 111ص»؛ «الهام دانش نژاد در 80ص»؛ «کوثر محمود محمد در 72ص»؛ «محمد همت خواه در 59ص»؛ «نعیمه ظاهری در 48ص»؛ «محمدرضا جعفری در 32ص»، «سیدرضا مرتضوی در28ص»؛

راوی که خود را «اسماعیل» می‌نامد، از «منهتن» برای پیوستن به کشتی شکار نهنگ، به «نیوبدفورد» آمده‌ است؛ مهمان‌خانه‌ ای ک�� او به آن مراجعه می‌کند بسیار شلوغ است، و او مجبور می‌شود، یک تخت را با مردی خالکوبی‌ شده، به نام «کویکوئگ» از «پلی‌ نزی» شریک شود؛ این مرد یک زوبین‌ انداز است، و پدرش پادشاه جزیره ی «روکوووکو» است؛ صبح روز بعد «اسماعیل» و «کویکوئگ» به خطبه ی «پدر ماپل»، درباره ی «یونس» گوش فرا می‌دهند، و سپس راهی «نانتاکت» می‌شوند؛ «اسماعیل» با صاحبان کشتی «پکوئود»، «بیلداد» و «پلگ»، قرارداد امضا می‌کند؛ «پلگ» درباره ی ناخدا «ایهب» می‌گوید: «احساسات انسانی خود را دارد»؛ صبح روز بعد آن‌ها با «کویکوئگ» نیز قرارداد امضا میکنند؛ مردی به نام «الیاس» پیشگویی می‌کند، که اگر «اسماعیل» و «کویکوئگ» به «ایهب» بپیوندند، به سرنوشتی وخیم دچار می‌شوند؛ در حالی‌که مایحتاج، در کشتی بارگیری می‌شوند، چهره‌ هایی سایه‌ وار سوار کشتی می‌شوند؛ در یک روز سرد «کریسمس»، «پکوئود» بندر را ترک می‌کند؛ و ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 23/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 24/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی