Ishmael and Queequeg are two guys who are looking for work in 19th Century America. When they come upon a job opportunity aboard the Pequod, a whaling vessel led by Captain Ahab, they feel they've found their ideal jobs with Ishmael working as an oarsman and Queequeg as a harpooneer. Things go awry early when Ahab makes his intention known to hunt down the great white whale named Moby-Dick that severed his leg years earlier. The first half of the book as well as the ending are incredibly well written with hints of period humor. However, once the ship is at sea, Melville tends to follow each plot-line chapter with excruciatingly long chapters dedicated either to the history of whaling or the anatomy of whales. Initially, these "history" lessons are fine and dandy, but they become quite tedious after a while and you pray that the follow-up action will be worth the wait.

The content was very exciting.: Complicated to absorb into your mind as you read along, due to the expert writing of this this material. I had to reread just about everything at least 5 times for it to make any sense at all. I'm in the 9th grade. Daniel Barclay-son of Paul

I liked the story but not all the build up to the end. I didn't like that I had to read 400 pages to get to the story which occurred in just 25 pages. I only read the Moby Dick story.

It took me a long time to be able to read Moby Dick. I tried on many occasions, but I wandered away in the middle. I remembered, recently, the strategy of just plowing through. That's what I had to do with William Blake; I took a seminar where we read the complete works, chronologically, without pause or deviation. This time, I took the same strategy with Melville. I started with Typee and just forged on. I now have a much deeper appreciation of all these books.

Once attaining the "rhythm" of reading nautical romance, they just get better and better. It's like following along as a writer learns to write. At first, the reading is light and easy. It becomes over wrought and a bit meandering around Mardi, but by the time you get here-- to Redburn, in particular, it all comes together. It's a narrative that has much to offer when it comes to thoughts on colonialism and immigration. White Jacket is downright hilarious in places, and where he really gets the pace of the voyage to work for him. Moby Dick, with all it's educational digressions, is like scaling a summit of sorts, with the sprint to the top of the hill as the most rewarding.

I'm looking forward to the last volume in this series of Melville's prose, but I suspect I need to read a few other things and allow time to "breathe" in between. I don't think I've really begun to appreciate the complexity of Moby Dick yet, but I suspect I'll return to it once I've finished the reset of the novels, and perhaps Clarel.

Melville In The Library Of America

The novels of Herman Melville (1819 -- 1891) were among the first volumes published by the Library of America, a nonprofit organization devoted to presenting the best of American writing and thought in uniform hardcover editions. At the time of his death, Melville was almost forgotten. Beginning in the 1920's, he achieved belated recognition and was established as a canonical American writer. Melville wrote nine novels, together with "Billy Budd" and short stories and they are included in three large LOA volumes. In 2000, when I was beginning to review online, I reviewed the first volume, consisting of Melville's first three novels, "Typee", "Omoo", and "Mardi" in a review I titled "Growth of a Seeker". Although I have read Melville in the intervening years, I am only now turning to the second LOA volume which includes, "Redburn", "White Jacket" and the book for which the author will always be remembered, "Moby-Dick."

The five earlier novels prepare for "Moby-Dick" although this novel goes well beyond anything in its predecessors. "Mardi" captures something of the wild, searching character of the book while "Typee" and "Omoo" with their exploration of Polynesian culture foreshadow Melville's portrayal of Queequeg in ""Moby-Dick". Melville spoke disparagingly of the two subsequent novels which begin this collection, but authors frequently misjudge their own work as Melville did here. "Redburn" and "White Jacket" lack the metaphysical fire of "Moby-Dick". Both books reward reading and both offer portrayals of the United States of Melville's time.

Written in 1849, "Redburn" is Melville's most autobiographical novel. It is both a coming-of-age story and a depiction of a changing United States. The book tells the story of a young man, Wellinborough Redburn, born to a prominent family which has fallen upon hard times. Redburn enlists as a common seaman on a merchant ship where he loses some of his naivety and acquires the nickname, "Buttons". Through the development of Redburn and his loss of innocence, Melville makes a great deal of the difference between social classes, rich and poor, in the United States. Some of the best scenes in the book take place on land, as Redburn wanders the streets of New York City and, in the middle of the book, Liverpool. In Liverpool he encounters squalid misery and poverty and catches glimpses of the life of vice and gaming. This is a highly readable, accessible novel.

"White Jacket" or "The World in a Man-of War" White Jacket is a longer, more ambitious work which describes the life of a Navy sailor, known only is "White Jacket" in a voyage of about a year around Cape Horn. In his study of Melville, Melville: His World and Work, Andrew Delbanco aptly describes the novel as a "paean to American Democracy", as Melville both celebrates and criticizes American life. In the book, Melville famously criticizes the rigidity and unnecessary hierarchy of Navy life, particularly the widespread use of flogging. He also presents one of his heroes in the character of Jack Chase, to whom he would, near the end of his life, dedicate "Billy Budd". In chapter 36, titled "Flogging not Necessary", Melville writes the following famous passage about America and its promise.

"We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people -- the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world... God has given to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark, without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls. ... Long enough have we been skeptics with regard to ourselves, and doubted whether indeed, the political Messiah had come. But he has come in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings. And let us always remember, that with ourselves --- almost for the first time in the history of earth-- national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy, for we cannot do a good to America but we give alms to the world."

Melville's extraordinary novel, "Moby-Dick" has fascinated readers while being the source of inexhaustible critical commentary. It is a passionate, romantic, enigmatic work written in an inimitable, bravado style. "Moby-Dick" is a book of many themes and styles which resists easy summary. Narrated by a wandering, enigmatic character known as Ishmael, "(Call me Ishmael.)" the book both describes the background, history, and legends of the whale and whaling, and tells the story of the search of a mad sea captain, Ahab, for a great white whale which in an earlier voyage had taken his leg. Among much else, "Moby-Dick" is about the mad passions which rule the lives of individuals, about self-understanding, and coming to terms with disappointment and loss. The book has a great deal to say about nature, the inner life, human fellowship, religion, and politics. It is a wild, long, and passionate novel, one of the great works of literature. Here is Delbanco's short summary of the character of "Moby-Dick".

" 'Moby-Dick' was not a book for a particular moment. It is a book for the ages. What gives it its psychological and moral power is that, freakish as he is, Ahab seems more part of us than apart from us. Like all great literary representations of evil, he is attractive as well as repulsive. And so Melville emerged in the twentieth century as the American Dostoevsky -- a writer who, with terrible clairvoyance, had been waiting for the world to catch up with him."

In reviewing the first LOA volume, I wrote that "Americans can learn about themselves by learning about their literature.... For those with the patience, it is worth reading [Melville's] books in order to discover the growth of a great and troubled American writer and chronicler of the inward life, as well as of sea journeys." I am thankful for the opportunity to return to Melville through the Library of America and to share some thoughts on his books with other readers.

Robin Friedman

The great American novel, on par with Dickens.

A whole new way to experience Moby Dick, this stunning volume from the Library of America contains all three of the nautical books that Melville wrote in a remarkably short three-year span (1849-51). The first two--Redburn and White Jacket--are thinly-fictionalized autobiographical accounts of Melville's personal experiences on a merchant ship and a Navy warship, respectively. Both are highly enjoyable in their own right, and they clearly helped to set the stage for Moby Dick, but just how Melville made the huge imaginative leap from those two fairly conventional accounts to one of the greatest novels of all time is still one of the great mysteries of American literature.

I always planned on reading this book but just kept putting it off until I took an Great American Novels Course. A lot of people think the novel is overrated and while I can see thier point I still have to disagree. There are just so many metaphors and different interpretations of this novel for it not to be one of the greats. You can read it in SO many ways, it is just incredible. I wroThe professor who taught this course is a freudian so you can imagine the kinds of conversations were started during class; they were very entertainging to say the least. I wrote a paper on this novel that I was quite proud of. The more open you are to the imagination and the ablility to read beyond the surface of the plot, the more you will enjoy it. The possibilities are endless in just a few hundred pages.

Most of the way through MD, I dipped into The Pale King -- a very instructive move to have made.

Read Redburn, which is a great tale of a sailor from NY across the Atlantic to Liverpool and back. This was Melville's first novel. Young Redburn was very naive and I saw a lot of a young me in him. In one moment, he becomes overwhelmed on a ferry and has a meltdown with a gun. Although no one was hurt, it sounded eerily like something that could happen in our own day with much more disastrous consequences. While Redburn has many serious moments, it also had many humorous or downright funny moments as well. As an historian, I found his comments on race and immigration interesting as a source from the late 1840s as both became issues in the wake of the Mexican War and the Irish Potato Famine.

Over a year ago, I decided that if I wanted to be considered a serious reader I would have to commit to reading some of the classics that I managed to avoid during my earlier education. I had been told that Moby Dick would surprise me and it did. I truly enjoyed it. The story itself was interesting but I loved the character sketches of the members of the crew. I found the historical asides on the whale industry and biological realities of whale fascinating. I loved the look at a period of time and industry that i had no knowledge of. It reminds me of Victor Hugo's asides in Hunchback of Notre Dame, I feel it gives a richness and context to the story. I read the book because I felt I should, I will reread it because I want to.

Moby Dick excellent, though I have to read the other two.