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.