Moby-Dick ***** – I originally picked up this book to read Redburn, which I’d never read. But the coming of age story – a young boy trying to survive in a strange world – seemed rather depressing and I just wasn’t in the mood for it. Then I happened to turn to Moby-Dick and started reading it.

And I noticed it’s funny – I mean truly laugh-out-loud funny. Starting with Ishmael’s misanthropical rant about going to sea, the novel unfolds one unlikely and humorous scene after another. So I kept reading it. I’ve read it several times before, and I knew it had some humorous parts, but I suppose that I used to think the humor was just a part of the melodrama to set up the tragic ending. This time, though, I approached it with a different mindset, more receptive to – and more observant of – the humor.

There’s not much I can add to the tomes written about this great American novel. Here are my thoughts as I read through it.

Chapter 1-25 – What a funny book! The narrator’s wry observations, his introduction to Queequeg, their odd-couple friendship, finding the Pequod, meeting Captains Bildad and Peleg – the first quarter of the book is fantastic. Melville beautifully sets up a clash of cultures – Polynesian vs American, sea vs land, Christian vs pagan, etc.

I wonder what our British cousins made of this strange and wild novel, coming out shortly after Dickens’ David Copperfield.

Chapter 26-50 – In these chapters, the book takes a sharp turn. The humor drops off precipitously and Ishmael as an active character in the action disappears for several chapters at time. But what a wonderful turn it takes toward the dark, the strange and the foreboding. (01/16)

Chapt. 36 The Quarter-Deck, which introduces Moby Dick, Chapt. 37 Sunset, featuring Ahab’s soliloquy, Chapt. 38, Starbuck’s soliloquy, Chapt. 39, Stubb’s soliloquy, Chapt. 40, men on the boat, Chapt. 41 on the history of Moby Dick and Chapt. 42, the Whiteness of the Whale are all wonderfully weird, sprawling, winding chapters, unlike anything written before. His influence by Shakespeare shines through the writing. (08/16)


Chapters 48-71 – This stretch of the oceanic novel mixes ominous chapters (such as the Town-Ho and Jeroboam) with commonplaces of the whaler’s life and fun facts about whales. What to make of these latter – what shall I call these? – supplementary chapters. There’s fierce disagreement. Doctoral students have leveled many a forest justifying these chapters; nay, arguing vehemently for their primary importance without which the novel would not stand. Chapters on pictures of whales, whale skin, whale classifications, etc. abound. One can argue their value to the overall novel, my gripe is that they are not written with the same verve and power of those around them. I sense Melville going through the motions of paraphrasing passages from other book. (Or stealing from them?) There is a feeling of padding. Following chapters of bizarre, chilling, uplifting and down-putting prose, these supplementary chapters pale. Almost always, though, they end with a dynamic final sentence or paragraph. (05/18)

Chapters 72-99 – These chapters highlight more of Melville’s sly humor with a phrenological study of the whale’s head (chapters 79 and 80), the squeezing of the sperm (chapter 94) and the whale’s special tool (chapter 95). There are, of course, the unusually detailed examinations of the process to remove the oil, an extended examination of the sperm whale and how it compares to a right whale, an a dubious history of the whale. In between, the Dutch Jungfrau visits the Pequod looking for oil, a there are a couple of horrible whale deaths.

Melville’s narrative experiments continue with chapter 99, The Doubloon. The other outstanding chapters include chapter 96, The Try-Works, and the story of Pip in chapter 93, The Castaway.

Some memorable lines:

- “I try all things. I achieve what I can.” Chapter 79, page 291
- “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.” Chapter 82, pg. 304
- “Look not too long in the face of the fire, o man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm!” Chapter 96, page 354
- “There is a wisdom that is woe, but there is a woe that is madness.” Chapter 96, page 355
(10/18)


Chapters 100-135 (and Epilogue) – What wonderfully disturbing writing. These last 35 chapters are what secure Moby-Dick’s position as one of the best novels ever written. The prose is rambling, maddening and deeply weird, with no regard for narrative consistency or form. The novel becomes a play becomes a soliloquy becomes memoir.

As the Pequod nears its tragic end, the crew meets a series of boats starting with the Samuel Enderby in chapter 100. Then the novel has several chapters on the size of the whale. Then, starting with Ahab’s Leg (chapter 106) and going through The Carpenter (chapter 107) and Ahab and the Carpenter (chapter 108), there are several chapters on replacing Ahab’s ivory leg which are wickedly weird and philosophical. Queequeg becomes so ill they make a coffin for him, but he recovers. Witless Pip commands more attention and becomes like Lear’s Fool to Ahab. Bad omens pile up. They meet the happy Bachelor, spurn the Rachel, and look on the Delight’s sad crew. Until finally, chapter 133, the White Whale is seen. The novel moves rapidly toward its ordained conclusion, Ahab sinking twice, and the third time not rising. Ending, of course, with the great words, “from hell’s heart I stab at thee” spoken by Khan Noonien Singh – I mean Ahab.

Among the best of many great chapters in this section are A Bower in the Arascide, chapter 102, Ahab’s Leg chapter 106, The Carpenter chapter 107, Ahab and the Carpenter chapter 108, and The Cabin chapter 129.

Some memorable lines:
- “Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.” Page 375
- “But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing – at least what untattooed parts might remain – I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.” Page 376
- “… the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.” Page 386
- “… Let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.” Page 394
- "Omen? omen?--the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honourably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint.-- Begone!” page 452
- “To the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same — the same!” page 468
(04/19)

It's a work of great erudition; it has extraordinary moments of prose and plotting that reveal Melville's genius, but it taxed me so much that it took most of the pleasure from reading it. Ahab is such an unsympathetic character. He seems never to have had a relationship with any human being, so it's hard to even hate him because he seems so inhuman. Starbuck, Queequeg, Pip, and Stubbs much more fully engaged my attention, but I think Melville's effort to have us enter into the dark soul (does he have one?) of Ahab and the mysterious actions of the whale, while it makes us contemplate the twin horrors of being disconnected from other humans and their needs as well as the truly awesome power of nature against which humans have so little control, leaves us as stranded and wrecked as Ishmael in the novel's conclusion. Melville's "Bartleby" is so much more satisfying because of its brevity while retaining the sense of mystery in man's condition on this earth. In the novel's final chapters, he sees the need for compassion for both Starbuck and Pip, but I just didn't believe the momentary change or why Ahab was so murderously destructive. I resist the five stars rating because Melville in this work fails to reveal more of the human in his protagonist while diving into the depths of his darkness.

This volume contains three novels - Redburn, White-Jacket, and Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick. All three include a great deal of nineteenth century sea lore. Aspiring writers are told to "show, don't tell." Melville, on the other hand, did quite a bit of "telling" in these chapters. The story of Redburn is at its core a hackneyed nineteenth-century tale of a young man's first venture into the world. Whitejacket - the story of a cruise from the Pacific around Cape Horn and home to New England in a mid-nineteenth century naval frigate - is a bit better. Moby-Dick, of course, is magnificent, with new layers making themselves apparent with every reading.

Moby Dick was way cool. Well, it had a LOT of scientific information and a lot of philosophy. I liked it very much. I can see people in the 1850s (who had never seen the Discovery Channel) poring over it for whale details. On the other hand, it was a bit too much detail for a novel... and not enough for a scientific treatise. I'm glad he explained how whales had been represented in literature in the past; it made my wading through his scientific details that much easier. I saw the need for his detailing.

In these days, when people in general are more likely to have actually seen footage of whales and to have learned somewhat about them, the book _Moby Dick_ could be cut in half easily and not lose much philosophically.

I found the psychological conflict compelling. Where would you draw the line if your commander lost his mental ballast? I felt for Starbuck, but I don't know if I would have chosen any differently. He had to determine whether to follow to Ahab's doom or perhaps doom the ship by mutiny. I wonder that he did not speak with other crewmembers about it; then again, if Stubbs wouldn't support him (he indicated that Stubbs would keep smiling to the end regardless of what happened), who would he confide in? And wouldn't the very act of confiding undermine his purpose or constitute mutiny against Ahab?

It seemed miraculous to me that the ship should be stove in and sink, as it were, instantly. After wading through so many pages of little or no dramatic action, the end was sudden. And yet it suited the tale. It fit, and I'm glad that Melville stopped there, not continuing to philosophize after Ishmael was picked up.

One of the most boring and annoying reads EVER! I'm so glad I gave up on the bulk of the American canon long ago!

Moby-Dick, a strange and ponderous novel. Still want to read the others.

The first time through, “Moby-Dick” can seem like a slog. Certainly the pages of what Melville calls “Extracts” at the beginning can be skipped, and chapters stuffed with history in the first third of the novel can drag. The thing is, everyone knows what happens in “Moby-Dick” whether they’ve read it or not. So it’s easy to think, “let’s get to the chase!” (literally in Moby-Dick’s case, given that’s what the final chapters are called).
But all readers also know Achilles kills Hector and a Shakespearean stage will be littered with corpses at the end, but that doesn’t stop one from reading, and being astonished by, “The Iliad” or “Hamlet.” The same is true for “Moby-Dick.”
What’s more, Melville has so many wonderful, funny lines speckled throughout. I think I missed some of the jokes on a first reading, which, cover-to-cover, probably happened a decade ago. I’ve got a beat-up Norton Critical Edition that I’ve owned since at least 1979, and it’s a great companion, if you will. I highly recommend it for the notes and other information packed in there, or along with the Library of America volume (they both use the same text).
Even in early chapters, Melville delivers great passages, such as this where he’s talking about Nantucket whalers and it’s the only port for him:
“The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home; there lies his business, which a Noah’s flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps…With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is nestled to sleep between billows, so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.”
There is something Biblical about “Moby-Dick,” and it’s not just Ahab’s speech or the presence of about two million useless commas and semi-colons. The novel’s immense sweep, its incredible originality - all of it amazes and all of it is on a scale matched only by a handful of books, such as the Bible.
And as for Shakespeare - Starbuck’s soliloquy in “Dusk,” Chapter 38, is as profound as any uttered by Macbeth. And here is Ahab, musing as he looks over the Pequod’s side at the dangling head of the first sperm whale they’ve killed:
“Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home…Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed - while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
Superb.
And for those who claim “Moby-Dick” is too “old-fashioned” or “dated” I say, that’s a dodge. It’s fascinating to see how different things were in Melville’s day, even to a brilliant man like him. For example, he concludes whales are fish, even though he knows they have lungs and warm blood. Was the classification of “mammal” after 1850? I can’t believe it was, yet Melville doesn’t make that connection.
The time gap often reflects well on Melville. Consider this line, where he is talking about the sperm whale’s vast, tough, flat front in a chapter called “Battering Ram” where he foreshadows the Pequod’s end and chastens those who doubt his descriptions:
“...and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow.”
If only the men digging the Panama Canal had had a few sperm whales to go with the mosquitoes!
Let’s be honest: breathtaking is what you’re looking for when you read “Moby-Dick” (well, that and unforgettable characters like Ahab, Queequeg, Stubb, Flask, Fedallah and Moby-Dick), and Melville delivers in heaps. “Moby-Dick” is packed with action, and all of it filtered through not only Melville’s extraordinary talent but also his profound love of and respect for the sea. Like Conrad, Melville is a poet when it comes to the ocean.
“Moby-Dick” has a thousand gorgeous sentences like this:
“And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.”
His scene-setting is terrific, too. I’ll offer one, which comes from the first time they lower boats from the Pequod and take off after whales:
“It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurring and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down the other side; - all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooners, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; - all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the first unknown phantom in the other world; - neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.”
All of this comes before the famous chase - as does a race against pirates in the South Seas, Melville’s humorous asides about Lima, and the great psychological war between Ahab and Starbuck, Ahab and The Whale, and the Pequod and its crew against the ocean.
I’m hardly the first to say it, but, please, if you love great novels, read “Moby-Dick.”

the sweet time has come . ah, melville ...

Holy crap. A couple of funny, light, technically-focused travel diary-type stories; and then Moby Dick. Redburn and White Jacket make great entrances into the world of sailing ships and Melville's eyes, ears, and particular sense of humor. I strongly recommend this edition, as it has good notes on the texts, a nice introduction to Melville and his life, and you can just read them continuously without having to pick up different books if you were interested in sitting down to read these three consecutively without stopping and wanted to conserve energy.

My favourite novel. The Library of America edition is beautiful.

White-Jacket - finished 08.06.11

Moby Dick is my favorite book of all time--there is nothing like it except for James Joyce's Ulysses which came 70+ years later. Melville is a true visionary and many including me consider this one of the earliest modern novels. It is about so much more than a man and a whale as its often ridiculously simplied. It is about the most important elements of being human: finding purpose, the meaning of mortality, the power of deep connection and loss in driving our choices, and the impact of one person's life.