This amazing tome contains everything you didn't think you needed to know about the whaling industry, the whale anatomy, cetology ("the science of whales") and, of course, the extracting of whale spermaceti (not spermatozoa, though the hand squeezing might leave some wondering...)! What's not to love? ( )

Una obra cabdal de la literatura del segle XIX d'aventures. Moby Dick narra les peripècies del balener Pequod al capdavant del qual s'hi troba el vell capità Ahab. En la seva obsessiva persecució del catxalot blanc (Moby Dick) portarà a la seva tripulació fins a límits vitals, en una travessa intensa que contextualitza formidablement la dura vida dels baleners en aquesta època. ( )

Like Ahab himself, this novel is not as fearsome as I had imagined. Its downside is easy to spot - dense language strange to the modern ear and a laggard's pace. It tested my patience somewhere abouts page 500, so it did. On the other hand, never have I wanted to highlight so many passages in a novel; the highlights section on my ebook edition is impressively long. It's a mental feast. And then Ishmael is a jovial, intelligent and likable companion carrying us through. Sure you wish he would shut up already about the minute details of harpoon line and whatnot sometimes and get on with his story, but you have to give him his allowances.

As for the central character of Ahab, what a rich and incredibly useful symbol he is. Most remarkable to me, at the moment, is that he is not the tyrannical autocrat ruling his domain by fear as I had previously believed. He rather bent men to his desire through charisma and force of will channeled through a position of authority, so that the majority of those under him believed in his mission themselves, as unwise as it might logically appear. He is obsessed, and dangerous, but sympathetic! Those few who resisted and remained unmoved, and felt moral objections to the enterprise, such as the first mate Starbuck, were ineffectual and limp in opposition.

How very American. Ahab is not Saddam Hussein, he is George W. Bush! Or insert your favorite murderous tyrant/wrongheaded American President contrast here... ( )

So.

Wow.

This is just a fantastic novel. And it fails so badly.

As I made my way through this, I began to get the drift of the novel when it took 23 chapters for Ishmael and Queequeg to even get out to sea. Then it was four chapters of info dump. I don't even think there was a mention of a white whale until the 32 chapter? And then, more info dumps.

I tried to get a handle on this novel and this is the best I can come up with...imagine the voice of Rod Serling as he says,

Imagine, if you will, a timeless place, where the strange and impossible can happen.

A place where Frank Herbert, still heady with the excitement of having finished his novel DUNE, looks to write a similar, yet opposite novel, a bigger, better version of both THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA and JAWS. He finds himself swapping sand for saltwater, sandworms for whales, Stilgar for Queequeg, and Baron Harkonnen for Captain Ahab.

When he finishes it, he hands it off to HOUSE OF LEAVES author Mark Z. Danielewski to add some completely unnecessary interjections that have nothing to do with the plot, as he knows Mark is very good at this.

Mark, then wishing to add some verisimilitude to the burgeoning novel, then hands it off to a writer for the Enclyclopidia Brittanica to add facts on whales, the whaling industry, the significance of "white", facts about rope, more facts about whales, and any other minutiae that may have been mentioned in the dwindling story.

Finally, once that's completed and the novel is now about 40% story, 40% facts, and 20% author's opinions, then Cormac McCarthy is brought in (under strict instructions to leave the damn apostrophes and quotation marks alone) to wordsmith the hell out of the entire thing with the aim of making it prettier, but far more dense.

They'll all agree to slap the name "Herman Melville" on as the author, dust their hands off, and congratulate each other on a job well done.

No one will ever accuse Stephen King of writing too much ever again.

Reader, you've just entered the White Whale Zone.

Okay, so maybe that's a little bit of a crazy scenario, but it's as close as I can come.

At its heart, the main storyline is a good one, and it's actually very gorgeously written. There's a part of me that wants to read the basic, 200-ish page story of Ahab stalking his white whale, without all the side stories, opinion pieces, and informative asides.

Still, the writing... Even the completely unnecessary side trips to get far too much information on some of the crew, eating whale steak, and the difference in crow's nests do come across as interesting, again because the writing is good.

But the points where Melville kills all wind and lets the sails hang limply, his plot dead in the water as he hammers the reader mercilessly with the cetology of various species of whale, etc...they were, while informative in the extreme, were as interesting for the most part as being offered a hearty mug of sea water to drink.

Overall, the combined effect of all of these various passages do serve to make the reader feel each day of the Pequod's long three-year journey, so the novel does sell the journey.

And Ahab? I have to say he's as unlikable a character as I've ever met in fiction.

Overall, while I'd never dive into this novel again, I must say, I'm glad I experienced it. I'm glad I got to revel in Melville's gorgeous prose, and I'm glad I met Ishmael and Queequeg and Starbuck and, yes, even Moby Dick himself. I am richer for having read this novel.

And for that reason, while it's deeply flawed, I have to give this book four solid stars. ( )

We had some giggles over this one. There's great humor in the first several chapters. It's a bit of a drone with the listing of whale types and such. ( )