Herman Melville: Moby Dick (Paperback, 1998, Oxford University Press)
Paperback, 602 pages
English language
Published Nov. 3, 1998 by Oxford University Press.
"Command the murderous chalices! Drink ye harpooners! Drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow -- Death to Moby Dick!" So Captain Ahab binds his crew to fulfil his obsession -- the destruction of the great white whale. Under his lordly but maniacal command the Pequod's commercial mission is perverted to one of vengeance. To Ahab, the monster that destroyed his body is not a creature, but the symbol of "some unknown but still reasoning thing." Uncowed by natural disasters, ill omens, even death, Ahab urges his ship towards "the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale." Key letters from Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne are printed at the end of this volume. - Back cover.
A round-the-world quest full of whaling lore, 1850s marine biology, Old Testament allusion and allegory, philosophy, humor, adventure, and struggles with destiny, all written with mastery of the English language. It very well could be my favorite novel. Lower your boat and read it!
Not what I expected. It's a mixture of Shakespeare, bible and a normal novel.
it's different from anything I've read before.
Goodreads allows 20,000 characters for book reviews: Is it possible to provide an acceptable review of [b:Moby-Dick|2388|Moby-Dick|Jan Needle|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388729715s/2388.jpg|40862486] in so few bytes? I suspect not, so this is not a review so much as some memorable moments.
The tale begins with a plentitude of clippings from and references to historical sources about whales, giving the story a sense of depth that can only be described anachronistically as decidedly Tolkienian. I confess I did not read them all, and I don't believe it was strictly necessary to have done so. Upon recognizing, not merely intellectually but emotionally as well ("Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that"), that there exists more recorded history and lore about whales than you ever realized before, you have fully entered the Faërie which Melville has prepared for you. …
Goodreads allows 20,000 characters for book reviews: Is it possible to provide an acceptable review of [b:Moby-Dick|2388|Moby-Dick|Jan Needle|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388729715s/2388.jpg|40862486] in so few bytes? I suspect not, so this is not a review so much as some memorable moments.
The tale begins with a plentitude of clippings from and references to historical sources about whales, giving the story a sense of depth that can only be described anachronistically as decidedly Tolkienian. I confess I did not read them all, and I don't believe it was strictly necessary to have done so. Upon recognizing, not merely intellectually but emotionally as well ("Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that"), that there exists more recorded history and lore about whales than you ever realized before, you have fully entered the Faërie which Melville has prepared for you. For make no doubt: Moby-Dick is, above all, the story of man's journey into the Perilous Realm.
I was unprepared for how existential and atheistic (or at least deistic) the story is. In particular, the ending of the story proper, ignoring the requisite closing frame of the epilogue, could have swapped places with the last paragraph in [b:A Canticle for Leibowitz|164154|A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1)|Walter M. Miller Jr.|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329408540s/164154.jpg|250975]: “Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.” — I half-expected Melville to have added, "He was very hungry that season."
Forgive me if I don't try to describe the entirety of the text between that opening barrage and the closing swell.
Really 4 1/2 stars and I'll tell you why in a minute.
When I was about half way done with this tome I came upon this quote "... For there is no folly of the beast which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men." (Or something close to that i dont have the book in front of me at this second). And that pretty much sums up Moby Dick in a few words.
This is a very good book, some might even say an excellent book but damn it's a long book, sometimes a tedious book, sometimes an almost intolerable book. This story is told by that long winded friend we all have who just can't give you the abbreviated version of a story but the kind who has to give you every single littlest detail, backtrack, add asides, explanations, puts you on hold while she takes another …
Really 4 1/2 stars and I'll tell you why in a minute.
When I was about half way done with this tome I came upon this quote "... For there is no folly of the beast which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men." (Or something close to that i dont have the book in front of me at this second). And that pretty much sums up Moby Dick in a few words.
This is a very good book, some might even say an excellent book but damn it's a long book, sometimes a tedious book, sometimes an almost intolerable book. This story is told by that long winded friend we all have who just can't give you the abbreviated version of a story but the kind who has to give you every single littlest detail, backtrack, add asides, explanations, puts you on hold while she takes another call, on and on, but dang it, she tells excellent stories and you can't help but be drawn in and try to be patient when she goes into an extranious explanation. That is Melville. He has a leviathan of a story to tell you of a leviathan and he's not taking any shortcuts. So board the whale ship, sit back and be prepared for an extended journey (and ahem, sometimes those guys were out at sea for 3 years or more, lol).
And damn if I didn't learn a lot about whales. Mostly because I had to keep googling whales and wow and holy cow, I never did much consider whales. Never really cared all that much being more practical minded and caught up in the everyday world, which face it, doesn't have much to do with whales. But never mind, I now know more than I ever wanted about whales, sperm oil, baleen, whale boats, you name it. I even watched one video on YouTube where a humpbacked whale was caught up in a fishing net and I was moved to tears as the rescuers raced to save her life. Good lord.
And really all the explanations about whales I found interesting enough, life aboard the ship, okay, vignettes on certain characters and personalities fine, but it was the hunt itself, the more action packed parts of the story when most readers say "fuck yeah, finally!" where I balked. I just couldn't stand the slaughter. I HATED all the plumes of blood spewing from the blowhole churning water and death throes and all that. In one part they come across a pod of whales where one mama whale gives birth to baby whale, and well, I don't know because I skipped that part!
The last quarter of the book seemed to drag on for me. Yes, okay we get it Ahab is batshit crazy. Evil omens and tidings of great calamities everywhere, dear god just get on with it already. So that kind of did me in hence the subtraction of a half star. But that's just me. Symbolism, allegory, God and fate all that and a whale of a tale.
A dangerously intelligent mutant sea mammal plays manipulative mind games with a disabled ship Captain in this dark and fatalistic retelling of the Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale.
Told from the perspective of the Captain's best friend and closest confidante, this is the perfect beach novel for anyone who loves heavily descriptive encyclopedia entries and harpoons.
Recommended.
It's trite to call this a tour-de-force, an epic, the paragon of all that's good in American novels, the apotheosis of the obsessive, independent, profit-driven, reflective, maddening American psyche. It's trite, but it's also true. I know I've read a better book: the Commedia, certainly, but I don't know if I read it as possessed by the language.
So laden with metaphor and consequence, Moby Dick is an intense and purposeful drag. There's a lot of real tension mixed in with extensive philosophizing (hemming and hawing), lecturing, and worrying. There are also a lot of beautiful passages and genuine forehead-slapping moments to make you consider larger points like fate and reason.
Moby Dick is also a challenge to get through. It was the hardest I have fought not to abandon a work in a couple of years and I think I was rewarded for it. If Ahab is the stand-in for mankind, here, in his struggle with Fate, the experience of reading this novel might be a personal metaphor for the same thing. Or perhaps it mirrors the life of these whalers - rare peaks of tension, panic, and striving to break up the 99% flat gray sea, flat gray gruel, flat gray routine.
What separates this from …
So laden with metaphor and consequence, Moby Dick is an intense and purposeful drag. There's a lot of real tension mixed in with extensive philosophizing (hemming and hawing), lecturing, and worrying. There are also a lot of beautiful passages and genuine forehead-slapping moments to make you consider larger points like fate and reason.
Moby Dick is also a challenge to get through. It was the hardest I have fought not to abandon a work in a couple of years and I think I was rewarded for it. If Ahab is the stand-in for mankind, here, in his struggle with Fate, the experience of reading this novel might be a personal metaphor for the same thing. Or perhaps it mirrors the life of these whalers - rare peaks of tension, panic, and striving to break up the 99% flat gray sea, flat gray gruel, flat gray routine.
What separates this from something like, say, 1Q84 as a heavy and challenging novel? I don't know if I should construct an answer for that or just leave it open. I think we all know how Moby Dick ends and we read it anyway - knowing that the book is supposed to mean something we invest in the quest to find out what it is. It's not about the narrative payoff so much as the journey and what we learn on the way. Melville scores points for making me care about a cast of characters. While I complain about how authors treat their creations sometimes, and these characters are poorly treated (no doubt), the suffering of Melville's sailors serves a larger purpose than punching me in the gut for an emotional reaction (and critical kudos).
I'll be thinking on this for longer than I ought, most likely. Perhaps I'll come back and edit for clarity or changing opinions in a week.
Not really sure what the hype was about. While I definitely felt fully immersed in the whaler life, I really got tired of hearing about whales being described by someone whom considers himself an authority without having actually been a whaler before.
KNEEL..KNEEL..
ich sollte wirklich das buch lesen. dieses hörbuch war grottig.
1) ''Then tossing both arms, with measureless implications he shouted out: 'Aye, aye! And I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.'''
2) ''All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.''
3) ''The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden …
1) ''Then tossing both arms, with measureless implications he shouted out: 'Aye, aye! And I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.'''
2) ''All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.''
3) ''The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of Quebec.''
4) ''Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; 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.''
Ugh. How long can one person go on about the size of whale bones and teeth.
