Moby-Dick or, the Whale

It came to be, in the winter of this year, that, having finished Herbert’s Dune and seeking something new to read, though not yet ready to read Dune Messiah, I came upon an untouched paperback in my bookcase, and, willing to plunge into a nautical adventure, I began reading Moby Dick. This being so, I, prepared to read a legendary classic and unaware of the Goliathan task before me, embarked upon a thee month navigation of dense prose which, in the end, I juggled with five other books; Stoker’s gothic masterpiece Dracula, for I am subscribed for the Dracula Daily newsletter; Crummey’s Sweetland, a novel I read with utmost haste to catch its adaptation ere it departed the silver screen; the aforementioned Dune Messiah, which I began late one evening when, finding myself tucked snugly in my bed and missing my copy of Moby Dick, I reached for the nearest book I had on hand; and ultimately God’s own Holy Bible, which I began reading for the express purpose of understanding the myriad of biblical references Miller employs. Nor was my reading in any way hastened — or indeed unimpeded — by the twisting, winding sentences one must reread twice ere grasping fully; a poetic labyrinth of prose one cannot parse without losing oneself of times; and the White Whale himself more terrible, more loathsome than any mere bull-headed Minotaur that Pasiphaë could muster! Alas, humble thyself Daedalus! Thy labyrinth may house a beast of Neptune’s own twisted design, but the Minotaur could do not but flail and drown when met with his elder brother, the leviathan!

"A great meter is no mere implement, like pen or typewriter, but a keyboard a young poet learns to master, exploring its range and subtleties, stretching its capabilities of harmony and expressiveness. Merely to accept the meter as given by one's predecessors, to write one's verses “in” iambic pentameter, is to assist at the death of a metrical form and perhaps one's own poetry. The demise of iambic pentameter as the chief meter of English poetry probably owes much to its coming to be understood even by poets themselves as an available prosodic form, a meter to write poems “in,” a Roman road, rather than as a kind of heroic adventure or even a haunted house."[1]

Melville's Moby-Dick: or, the Whale is like the “Roman road” for the English novel. It's wildly inventive, riotously funny, excellently written, has an almost mystical sense of atmosphere, introduces one of the most transcendentally fascinating characters in the whole of world literature in Captain Ahab. And above all, it's simply a great joy to read.2

The greatest novels in the English language are not only excellent narratives; they enrich the language and show its beauty. They're exhilarating, they energize, they inspire. Melville's Moby-Dick certainly fits the bill, and only McCarthy's Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (1985) has recently come close to replicating said grandeur of reading, and in many ways I believe it's a worthy companion to this book. They go hand in hand, and for this reason I invoked Wright's quotation. Melville is so all-encompassing here it's difficult not to think of Moby-Dick as an emblem of creative writing. I think Joyce's Ulysses (1922) is the logical continuation of the inherent complexity of Melville's thought, something we might call modernism. In Moby-Dick there's a sermon, essayistic, encyclopedic descriptions of whaling, sudden leaps into play acting, multiple points of view in narration, soliloquies. And the feeling one has is that all of this belongs there and without which it wouldn't be Moby-Dick. That's a sign of a great novel: that there's no superfluity, everything belongs, every particular creates the essentials.[3]

And then there's Captain Ahab. “He's full of riddles”, says Stubb after being told off by the Captain, and that's exactly what so fascinates in him. Cormac McCarthy definitely modeled Judge Holden after Ahab, so alike are the two with their diabolical and mystical aura. They're mere men but still beyond the narrative. His grandness is Shakespearean[4] It's boisterous, energetic, mesmerizing.

The Penguin that I own is quite nice, it has a good introduction and some supplements at the back: a list of variants between editions, annotations as well as maps and images. The annotations at their very best give insight into Melville's writing that becomes essential in reading the novel. Such is the gloss on Ahab's “Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!”: “Melville remarked in a letter to Hawthorne (June 29, 1851) that this is the secret ‘motto' of the book.”

I have also listened to an audiobook version of the book, narrated by Frank Muller. It's one of the best audiobooks I've heard. He reads it a bit fast at times, but it's his rhythm and the voices he produces that make it so utterly enjoyable.

Endnotes:

[1] George T. Wright, Shakespeare's Metrical Art, 18.

[2] I know there are people who would rathe jump out of the window than read it, so there.

[3] Again I hear somebody trying to jump out the window.

[4] “I'd strike the sun if it insulted me” in chapter 36; “What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer” in chapter 37.

2 October, 2011

This book. I'm not quite sure what to say. I started this book out thinking this was going to be fun. After 140 pages or so, I was glad I found a very well done audiobook (solo recorded) on librivox.org –> Moby Dick read by Stewart Wills

There were quite a few beautiful passages. Perhaps my favourite ones were Chapter 94 - A Squeeze of the hand and the ones about the anatomy of the Sperm and Right Whale. Throughout the book I've been interested by the large mammals and sea life in general. It has inspired me to look up a multitude of stuff.

For the rest of it though. It is dense, terse and does not move along at all. The story is hardly the most interesting part of the book, but it's what keeps coming back. It sometimes feels as if Melville was really trying to show everyone how much he really knows about stuff.

I'm not sure I will ever muster up the courage to reread this ever again.

4.5 bordering on 5

total masterpiece. can't be understated how important this is as a foundation for the postmodern canon. Almost all of my favorite books are all indebted to Moby Dick in some way, ESPECIALLY Pynchon's work and House of Leaves

score may jump up as i listen to lectures and continue exploring this tome ☺️

This is such a beautifully written book. The beginning is wonderfully entertaining and fun to read. The middle of the book seems to really drag it becomes very aggressive. I found this book very educational but also very long. It is a book I would recommend reading in several small bites it would be challenging to read in one setting or even over a few days.

I couldn't get into this book at various times when I've tried to read it. This time, I listened to the audiobook and I'm glad I did.

I'm not quite sure what to say about it, though. It's very long. It has some aspects to it that I would consider pretty serious flaws in other books.

And yet I found it incredibly tense and thought-provoking.

I'm glad I gave it another try.

When people hate this, I totally see why. When people love this, I see why. So it's right in the middle for me.

But damn. Herman never learned a fact he didn't tell you, never recalled an anecdote he didn't spring on you, never used one word when five would do. Ishmael is one overly verbose mofo.

You could read Moby Dick, or you could take a crackhead sailing, and it would be mostly the same experience.

I read Moby Dick: 10 Minute Classics, retold by Philip Edwards and illustrated by Adam Horsepool. It's a picture book version of Moby Dick, to be sure, much condensed, thirty-two pages versus the complete 655, but it's a nice abridgment, with all the key happenings, and enlivened by the clever caricatures of Ahab and Ismael and Queequeg drawn by the illustrator.

I was surprised by some of the negative reviews here but after some reflection, I guess I might have reacted that way when I was younger - maybe even worse, since I read only the Cliff Notes. But years later, I found in Moby Dick a fascinating first-hand account of mid-19th Century life (It's fiction, I know, but Melville wrote using his personal experiences.) From the streets of New Bedford to Nantucket to the Seven Seas, this is an intimate account that puts the reader in the experience.

Melville excels at bringing his characters to life with all their quirks and idiosyncrasies, making them fully three dimensional in their humanity with both sincerity and humor.

There's also a powerful spiritual undercurrent that weaves throughout the story involving prophecy, human potential and symbolism that makes this book a great classic.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. But if you're on the fence about reading it, I recommend reading another work by Melville first: Bartleby the Scrivener is i think, more relatable to the 21st Century reader and a good way to ease into Melville's world.

This was my father’s favorite book. I have a vivid memory of him coming into my bedroom when I was about 6, and my brother 10, years of age insisting that we read it. However, upon seeing the depth of the book, I was immediately intimidated. It was only after my father’s death a couple years ago that I felt compelled to carry out my father’s wish of about three decades prior.

I am very conflicted. As a book it feels very disjointed; one part story, the other part academic, mashed together and related by theme but otherwise seemingly separate. I like both parts independently, but not together.

Additionally, I find Melville’s writing to be redundant, and not in a “oral storytelling tradition” sort of way, but rather in that he used multiple synonyms to describe the same thing. This seems highly inefficient, despite the actual prose being wonderfully poetic.

The characters are incredibly memorable, and well fleshed out. I was connected to each one, my favorite being the kind and loyal cannibal, Queequeg.

I am sure that once I dive deeper into understanding the symbolism and themes present in the book I will grow a deeper appreciation and respect for it, but currently I can not fathom someone reading this for leisure in 2024.

Лучшая книга всех времен и народов. Продублирую сюда свой обзор из ЖЖ:

«Киты.

Зовите меня Измаил.

Киты.

Ахуенная книга.

Киты.

Но я ее, сука, ненавижу.

Киты.

И как же я ее, сука, обажаю.

Киты.

Вот идут страницы сюжета. Вот они ни с того ни с сего прерываются описанием ВСЕГО что есть в китах. А давайте о нервной системе. А давайте об окраске. А давайте о спаривании. А давайте, сука, об одиночестве.

Киты.

Вы возненавидете эту книгу. Но что-то невероятно глубокое в вас, что-то метафизическое будет толкать дочитать ее. Главное ощущение от этой книги у меня сформировалось только сейчас, спустя несколько месяцев (сразу после прочтения я чувствовал ничего и все одновременно. Я просто не мог сказать чего-либо). Эта книга как-будто вовсе и не претендует на то, чтобы ее читали. Она не пытается увлечь вас. Ей плевать, стоит она у вас на полке или нет. Автору плевать, знаете вы о ней, или нет. Если все книги на земле сожгут — останется только она. Не в результате какого-то чуда или всеобщего голосования, а потому что она так решила. Она вне времени и пространства.

Киты.

Сюжет странный. Ее чтение как путешествие по пещере. По странной пещере. По пещере, которая знает все тайны вселенной, но не хочет рассказывать. Не из-за злого умысла. Не чтобы мы сами догадались. Ей просто это не интересно.

Киты.

Книга магическая.

Киты.

Ну и “Проклятие Моби Дика” сработало на мне. Теперь иногда, уже перед сном, на меня нападает аномальное желание срочно ее перечитать.


История безумного Ахава надолго в моей голове.».

Who's the monster? Is there a monster at the end of the book?  It kind of seems like Ishmael couldn't make up his mind, and didn't want to leave the reader too certain either. 
Despite the prevalence of horror movie motifs:
- mystery wacky character warns you off cryptically
-a zealot giving you bad vibes
-at some point it becomes clear based on the actions of your companions and the danger just faced that chances are slim you'll all make it out alive
-foreboding, fatal tales told about previous encounters with ‘the monster'
While so much of this book is framed as ‘let me tell you ALL about whales so you know what we're up against', and veers into nauseating anatomy textbook like passages of harvesting ‘by-products' from the whale and much more charming National Geographic like passages on cetology, and the whaling industry (hazardous for hunter and hunted), it does pause infrequently to reassure you yet again that the revenge obsessed captain is suffering from an incurable madness whose singular focus is destructive to himself and all around him. We have characters who seem to exist solely to entreat Ahab to abandon this path, which only ends in reaffirming his murderous resolve. 
Whales depicted as monsters, unvirtuous enemies, by a whaleman, a narrator ostensibly making a living from killing whales and thus eager to justify such actions, is a craven kind of logic, but Ishmael's fascination with whales doesn't leave things in such a black and white, us and them space. 
To that end, Ishmael seems to end each of the more positive passages on whales contrasting them with the more barbaric and corrupt aspects of humanity.
Ahab's mission then becomes not simply vengeance but a place for all the anger and hate that Melville states as endemic to man, and makes Moby Dick the age old story of prejudice against the Other (living being). 
Lot of biblical references, so not that surprising that Melville is moralizing. 
On the less overt side, observations: 
The ocean is scary, we don't know all that's in it, and it often produces both creatures and storms that can kill us - funny how that mindset hasn't actually gone out of style.
I appreciated the pagan/mythological references because I understood a lot more of those than the Bible ones!
While I was actually highly amused by the extensive pseudo-non-fiction digressions by ‘Ishmael', I can't help but wonder, especially based on the handful of chapters that were set up like a stage play might be (set the scene, stage directions, monologue/dialogue), what this story would be like if it took the tidbits of philosophy based on a contrast between humanity's actions and observances of the natural world, the explorations of Ahab's inner landscape, the comic relief of the capering crew, and the conflict between Starbuck (basically the angel on Ahab's shoulder) and Ahab, and condensed it down to focus primarily on the ‘we're on the boat, we're hot on the trail of Moby Dick' portion.  I would go to that play. 

⚠️RACISM (holy fuck it's blatant and it's never ending), xenophobia, classism, colonialism, details of whaling industry: hunting and harvesting by-products 🤢, ableism