Moby Dick

The book is sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, the work's genre classifications range from late Romantic to early Symbolist. Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written the book himself,^[1] and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".^[2] Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.^[3]“Moby-Dick.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick.

This is a ubiquitous text in the West.  We reference it.  We talk about Ahab.  Everyone is familiar with the first line, "Call me Ishmael."  We even visit a coffee chain named after the first mate, Starbuck; but I find that many have not read this text.  I was never required to in secondary or university studies.  Therefore, in keeping with my drive to read books people talk about but haven't read, I read Moby-Dick.

This was a long book.   Herman Melville wrote two books in one from my view.  He wrote an excellent tale with foreshadowing, symbology, and unique language that included a dry and dull text of the details of whaling.  This structure reminded me very much of The Hunchback of Norte Dame.  The clear example of the unrelenting pursuit of a prize regardless the cost is clear.

Had Melville had an editor, I believe he would have sold more books in his lifetime, and his fame may have existed before his death.  The sheer volume of this text likely discouraged many from purchasing.  A book of 135 chapters must have had quite a price tag in the mid 19th century.  My brother told me when I first began reading it that it would remind me of Hugo in the mixture of story and banal information.  It did.

I actually didn't visually read the text.  Since I knew the book to be in the public domain, I first went to Project Gutenberg to download a Kindle version.  While on the site, I saw that an audio version was available.  Rather than loading up my Kindle, I downloaded the audio version which was actually produced by LibriVox.  The version I listened to was read by Stewart Wills.  His reading rivals any professional audiobook I have ever listened to.  Very high quality.

Moby Dick is a book worthy of the respect that it receives.