Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Moby Dick
    Moby Dick
    Moby Dick
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    Moby Dick

    Written by Herman Melville

    Narrated by George Kennedy

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Ishmael, a sailor, recounts the ill-fated voyage of a whaling ship led by the fanatical Captain Ahab in search of the white whale that had crippled him.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAudio Holdings
    Release dateJan 1, 2009
    ISBN9781601360489
    Author

    Herman Melville

    Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet who received wide acclaim for his earliest novels, such as Typee and Redburn, but fell into relative obscurity by the end of his life. Today, Melville is hailed as one of the definitive masters of world literature for novels including Moby Dick and Billy Budd, as well as for enduringly popular short stories such as Bartleby, the Scrivener and The Bell-Tower.

    More audiobooks from Herman Melville

    Related to Moby Dick

    Related audiobooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Seven Books I’ll Never Read

      Aug 7, 2018

      Seven Books I’ll Never Read
      6 min read

    • Article

      The 40 Greatest Books To Read Before You Die

      Apr 25, 2021

      Books, books, books. They will increase your lifespan, lower your stress and boost your intelligence. They will give you fuller, thicker hair. Whatever the breathless claims about reading, one thing is certain: losing yourself in a great novel is one

      14 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2018

      Without the adventof Stockholm Syndrome,how could I havelearned to love myself so much? I’m asking Godand New York, can anyonehelp me? (An all-but-audible “or else.”) The captain’s chair:it’s beginning to smella little too much like me. Again.But the

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Close Encounter With A Lion

      May 25, 2023

      My Dear Baker Mrs Oswell and myself thoroughly enjoyed our stay with you and your charming wife in June. It was a true pleasure for us both to renew old times and friendship. We trust that your trip to India will be a pleasant one, and the ship you a

      6 min read

    • Article

      Forever Wild

      Oct 1, 2018

      When I think of the Scarborough house, I remember the wind whipping through my salt-hardened curls and my little-girl feet bare and crusted with sand as I run through its heavy wooden doors. I was four and wild as the landscape itself. My grandparent

      3 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Mar 10, 2022

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk abolishing the licence fee n. A desperate diversionary tactic during a humiliating crisis, eg. Handing out Quality Streets to everyone in the room after an audible shart. anti-waxxers n. Name given to those ladies who prefer t

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Island

      Jun 4, 2018

      The Island
      8 min read

    • Article

      Nick Laird

      Dec 15, 2017

      I was trying to write like an adult.I had children.I was at the end of something. As I waited at my table by the window for the coffee,I saw that the sirocco had depositeda scrim of dust on the sill overnight,and it was the dark red of powdered blood

      3 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Hot, Dusty Track

      Jul 12, 2023

      A Hot, Dusty Track
      4 min read

    • Article

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows

      Nov 1, 2022

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows
      11 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Jun 22, 2023

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Nov 6, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Nov 6, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      Worship On High

      Oct 18, 2021

      Worship On High
      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      It’s About Altares

      Aug 17, 2021

      It’s About Altares
      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      Donkey Business

      Jan 30, 2019

      Travels recounts Stevenson’s 12-day, 200km solo walk through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France. He often compares the terrain, with its barren rocky heather-filled hillsides, to parts of S

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2019

      “My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

      7 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2022

      1. Here there’s no rainy season.Sun scalds my forehead,yet the pool is empty. Beside it,a toppled table, its glass surface shattered.The asphalt is too hot for bare feet. 2. Far away: white hillocksand white dunes under a deepblue sky. Swirling winds

      5 min read

    • Article

      Maybe It Won’t Be That Bad

      Dec 9, 2019

      Maybe It Won’t Be That Bad
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Moby Dick

    4/5

    246 ratings199 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This is it, folks--the Great American Novel. It doesn't get any better--or more experimental--than this.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I recently read about the sinking of the whaleship Essex in the book, "In the Heart of the Sea". Herman Melville was a whaler of the same time period and actually met several of the survivors of this tragedy. The Essex actually was sunk by a sperm whale. It had to give inspiration to Herman Melville in writing this classic.For a book written almost 160 years ago it reads very well, although it does take some concentration and interpretation. I read this book on my kindle fire, which makes searching for the definition of unfamiliar words a snap. It is humbling to me to learn how people from so long ago had better vocabularies than I do now.I would recommend this book, a true classic. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to reading it.
    • 5/5
      This is the best book I've ever read. An amazing adventure. I couldn't believe what I was reading at times! The way the main character delivers his humor is just exquisite. I had to look up a lot of words, a lot of Biblical references, and a lot of American history to understand parts of the book, and that was a great educational experience.
    • 4/5
      This book is about a captain that is coming for revenge named ahab. He goes to the ocean for the search of the great spearm whale named moby dick. One day he went to the ocean and he been attacked by this whale his boat was attacked and the whale bit the captains leg off. So he goes to the ocean with a sailor named Ismael. Ismeal does not know that ahab is going for revenge. Soon they found the big whale and Ismael got the big harpoon ready and he waited for the right moment. Then he had the shot and he did not shoot because he felt guilty so he let her go. Then ahab found out that he came for only that reason and he got mad. I think that this was a great book and I liked this book.
    • 4/5
      Considered an encyclopedic novel. Never heard of this before but it fits. In this story based on the author's whaling voyage in 1841, Moby Dick, or the white whale, inspired by Mocha Dick and the sinking of the whaleship Essex. The detail is very realistic and in this book you not only learn about whale hunting, you learn about whales and porpoise and ships. Chapters are dedicated to lengthy descriptions. On the ship, the reader is introduced to a cultural mixture of class and social status as well as good and evil and the existence of God. Melville used narrative prose but also songs, poetry, catalogs and other techniques from plays. The story is told through Ishmael. Plot:Ishmael meets up with Queequeg and shares a bed because the inn is overcrowded. Queegueg is a harpooner and they sign unto the Pequod. Characters:Ishmael: Queequeg:Starbuck: first mateStubb: second mateTashtego: Indian from Gay Head (harpooner)Flask: third mate,Daggoo: harpooneer from Africa. Captain Ahab: Fadallah: a harpooneer, Parse. Pip: black cabin boyThe boats: Jeroboam, Samule Enderby, the Rachel, The Delight and Pequod. These ships all have encountered Moby Dick. Ahab is obsessed with revenge against Moby Dick because of the loss of his leg which the whale bit off. There are several gams or meetings of whale boats. Ending with a tireless pursuit of the whale without regard to the dangers it exposes the sailors of Pequod. Starbuck begs Ahab to quit. Structure:narrator shapes the story by using sermons, stage plays, soliloquies and emblematic readings. The narrator is the aged Ishmael. There is also narrative architecture. There are 9 meetings with other boats.
    • 5/5
      It has been said, and must be said again, that Moby-Dick is for the large part tedious to read, and only a very small portion of the book, notable the last three chapters are full of fury, and heart-throbbing excitement.The endless succession of page-upon-page of knowledge about whaling, are like the vastness of the oceans, and the huge lapses of time that the voyage of the Pequod takes. The sparse encounters with other ships, emphasize the loneliness at sea, especially the isolation of Ahab. (It is a bit odd they never enter a port.)Early in the novel, we are told that few people understand or appreciate the whaling business, and this oversight is clearly and effectively remedied by including so much knowledge about whaling. Some of this knowledge is clearly needed to read the later chapters in the novel. This part of Melville's novel does what Hemingway's Death in the afternoon does for bull fighting.To understand why bull fighting is heroic, and what is the aesthetic value of it, you need a fair amount of knowledge and an open mind. The sincere, and easy-going friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg, which was probably odd in Melville's day, and might even be unusual in ours, shows what it means to be truly open-minded.There are several moments, when the prose takes the shape of "merry comedy", which breaks the dour seriousness of the novel. The second half of the book seems to allow for more humour, as in:The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries. p.424"What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb. "Broke it?""I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!" (...)"But what are you holding yours for?""Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, aint it?" p.442-3With chapter 132 entitled "The symphony", the next three chapters are like movements of a symphony, or acts in a ballet. The dance of the whale is splendid and graceful.The best thing about reading Moby-Dick was to get to the story first-hand, and peel or scratch away all the layers of comment and interpretation of others, that had encrusted the this story from my earliest memories. Finishing this book required some perseverance at times, but was ultimately very rewarding.
    • 1/5
      Too many details about the ships!
    • 5/5
      I took a class on this in college, and at the time I believed that it was indeed the best novel ever written (besides the Grapes of Wrath). I remember sitting on my dorm couch and exclaiming, "Oh my god! This is the most boring chapter---but it's SUPPOSED to be! Brilliant!" Now, when I think of my favorite books, it doesn't come to mind, but at a time I appreciated it as one of the most quality works of fiction of all time.

      I believe that I presented to my class that the whale represents "women", as Moby Dick is the only female presence in the whole million pages.
    • 2/5
      I've tried to finish this book at least four times and have gotten to just before the whale comes into the story (over a third, almost a half through) and given up. I like the protestant angle to this tale, but I have always found the overwhelming male vision hard to relate to as a reader, it just doesn't pull me in.
    • 4/5
      The difficulty in reading Moby-Dick is sometimes akin to Captain Ahab's pursuit of the White Whale, but the effort is worth it. Herman Melville mixes science, history and literary genres in his masterpiece. It is indeed among the Great American Novels.
    • 3/5
      While I am no stranger at all to the digressions and slow pace of 19th century literature, much of which I love, I am unwilling at the moment to read any more of this after reaching the 40% mark. The basic theme of Captain Ahab's monomanic revenge against the sperm whale that cost him his leg is fair enough, and some of the characters are vividly described, but there is just too much information dumping on the history of the whaling industry, different types of whales, and other digressions, and very many (mercifully) short chapters which seem opaque and purposeless. A pity as the novel started well, and the first few chapters, in particular Ishmael's first meeting with Queequeg, were humorous. I may return to this some day, but there are just too many other books to read and enjoy.
    • 3/5
      Call me Ishmael.

      So begins one of the so-called greatest American classics, Herman Melville's behemoth, Moby Dick. It is perhaps one of the most effective and simplest opening lines in literature, and as a writer, I’m jealous.

      I’ve read Melville before — Typee — which is a book where he discusses his time ship-wrecked on a small Polynesian island. The writing was antiquated and sounded like it came right out of a curio box, but I read on anyway. So I came to Moby Dick with the understanding that Melville was something of a nerd and loved the sea more than most men loved their children.

      The first 25% of Moby Dick read like a classic adventure tale. We had our protagonist, Ishmael, the tabula rasa to be written on by life’s experience. We had the wonderful Queequeg, experienced in the ways of whaling and a stick for all other men to measure themselves against. Queequeg is one of the best-written characters I’ve read in a long time because Ishmael regularly checks himself and his privilege when speaking of the harpooner, and it’s the two of them against the world.

      Ishmael and Queequeg are in love. I will die on that hill.

      But Lydia, I hear you protest, there’s no mention of ‘gay’ or anything of that sort in the book. Indeed, there is not. However, identifying as ‘gay’ wasn’t really a thing back then. There were gay / queer / homosexual acts but not necessarily people who identified as such. There were only relationships, and the two of them did indeed have a relationship.

      Where is the evidence? I hear, from the stands.

      Here, I present to you, my receipts.

      Ishmael and Queequeg spend the night together, sharing a bed because there is no more room at the inn.

      "Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife.”

      Upon seeing Queequeg smoking his pipe by the fire:

      "I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it.”

      "Our own hearts' honeymoon, a cosy, loving pair.”

      Along with a whole chapter dedicated entirely to how Queequeg holds him at night and keeps him warm and how delightful that is, I rest my case. Ishmael is as queer as the day is long.

      Unfortunately, in terms of positive representation, Queequeg is decidedly where it ends. Melville demonstrates the power of ignorance and stereotype and the effect it has on his writing with characters like Tashtego and Dagoo, First Nations and African respectively. Where Melville had experience with Polynesian people he created a fully-formed, interesting, compelling character. In others, where he had no experience, the characters are but hollow shells, racist and a product of their time.

      Racism and ignorance make your writing shit, Melville. This is why we need sensitivity readers and to research, to ask questions and most importantly for marginalised people to tell their own stories, with their own voices.

      I digress. On with the rest of the review.

      In order to teach a man how to sail, you must first teach him to long for the sea.

      Meville loves the sea, and that is clearly evident in some of the passages and paragraphs. His poetic love for the sea knows no bounds. I adored reading those passages because even when the sea was at its most destructive and totally wrought with a typhoon, the book was still such a beautiful read.

      "With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.”

      "Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God’s throne.”

      I loved the sea as Herman did. I soaked it up. I could’ve read pages and pages and pages of him talking about the sea.

      As a writer, sometimes it is difficult to describe the same thing many times, because it can feel same-y, stale, but Melville’s writing never did.

      … until the whales.

      Melville needs a PhD in whales.

      The author describes whales in meticulous detail. Their types, their migration patterns, their size, how they swim, how they breed, their teeth, jaws, heads, foreheads, spines, flukes and tails. At length he describes them, adding footnotes to elaborate further. He mentions engravings, historical writings, papers, museums, paintings and other sculptures that feature whales as if he’s desperate to prove that he did the research and that his research matters. At times, while reading, I was like, Ahab isn’t the one obsessed with whales, Melville is.

      And then there’s the whaling.

      Once again, Melville describes in meticulous detail the technology, the ships and the weapons in order to go whaling.

      And you’d think that would be enough, but no. Melville continues to describe in detail, the slaughter, skinning and gathering of whale oil for chapter after chapter.

      I almost put down the book at a few points because I was so tired of Whale Facts (TM). I didn’t wanna go to whale school anymore.

      But then, like all great books, something compelling would happen in the next chapter and so I would read on.

      And, this is partly conformation bias speaking, but it was a good book.

      This book is biblical in all senses of the word. Its size is biblical, its scope is biblical, its characters are biblical.

      "There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own."
    • 3/5
      Moby Dick is a deeply weird book, not what I expected from a 19th Century classic, and my rating expresses my mixture of admiration, boredom and outright irritation at Melville's wretched self-indulgence and excesses. I know that's nigh to sacrilegious. Introductions to this book call it "the greatest American novel ever written" and the "greatest sea book ever written." I certainly recommend trying it on the grounds of cultural literacy and if you have any interest in modern literature or the art of writing. But as presumptuous as it might be to say so, I could wish Melville had a much more ruthless editor. He fronts the book with an extensive etymology and 78 "extracts" (ie quotations) on the whale from Genesis to Darwin where a selection of a few would more than do. Of the 135 chapters, over two dozen are essays on different aspects of whales and whaling that have nothing to do with the story of the White Whale Moby Dick, the Nantucket whaling ship Pequod or its obsessed Captain Ahab or the purported narrator Ismael. One in five chapters are completely taken up with describing the different species of whales, historical encounters, whaling equipment and methods, whaling products, every anatomical part you could imagine (every part, one chapter is devoted to describing the whale's penis alone), myth, maritime law--and three whole chapters devoted to whales in art. Mine eyes they glazeth over. Melville, instead of studding the book with bits on the theme, or letting it speak for itself, spends an entire chapter on "The Whiteness of the Whale." All to my mind absolutely skipable, skimable and yawn-inducing except to academics and literary critics. That's not all. This purports to be a first person narrative by Ismael. The novel famously starts, "Call me Ismael" as if the novel is spoken by Ismael into the reader's ear. Yet about a third way through Ismael disappears as a character--no matter how many "I" statements may still be embedded throughout--and becomes in effect the omniscient narrator, telling us of thoughts, acts and speeches of others he had no way of knowing. A character is named early on, Bulkington, in a way that should signal his importance to the story, then dropped without explanation. Much of Moby Dick reads like a sloppy first draft. Then there's the just plain trippy. As mentioned above, loads of chapters that are essays. Others that are prose poems or what seem to be displaced random snatches of Huh??? (see, Chapter 122) and more than one chapter in the midst of the novel that are in stage play format (See,, in particular, "Midnight, Forecastle.") Characters--especially Captain Ahab--speak not like 19th Century Americans, but Elizabethians spouting blank verse complete with "Hark!" and "Methinks." One of the introductions I read called Moby Dick "proto-post-modern," and it does at times read more like something James Joyce or Faulkner or their many followers like DeLillo might have written (not a compliment coming from me) than Hawthorne or Dickens. So why don't I give this a half-star and be done with it? Well, some of Ahab's Shakespearean language is striking and resonant. Hey, it's where Star Trek's Khan cribbed his best lines! ("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." "He tasks me." "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.") There are gorgeous descriptions of the sea--of sunlight against the horizon like a finger, of the wake churning the sea like butter and so much prose with music in it. There's biting social commentary, irreverent observations about religion, irony, glints of humor (especially regarding the Polynesian Harpooner Queequeg, the co-owners of the ship, and Second Mate Stubb.) A lot of the characters are memorable, beyond just Ahab. Pip, the Carpenter and the Blacksmith, the three officers, Starbuck, Stubb and Flask. Cut away all the digressions, there's a epic mythic story at the core--if you can keep yourself awake.
    • 5/5
      I've read Moby Dick 5 times now, and each time, I come away with something new. This latest time, I was struck by its near post-modern structure and techniques: entire sections of non-fiction, songs and lyrics, prose poetry, and other types of writing all pulled together into a propulsive plot of senseless obsession and certain doom.
    • 2/5
      I read this book, all of this book, in college. I was utterly sickened at the amount of gross details in regards to even the minute details of whaling. Still, I am glad that I read the entire book. It provides endless material for metaphors and similes in my own writing. I once compared a writer's decision to come against the powers that be to the decision Starbuck had to make, whether to kill Ahab or let the entire crew die.
    • 5/5
      Probably the best book I've ever read. Truly a classic in every sense of the word.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. I've read it twice in the past few years, and both times took something new and exciting from the text. The characters are wonderful, the prose gorgeous (I'm continually sucked in by the imagery Melville conjures). I would definitely recommend doing at least some reading on the Transcendentalist and Anti-Transcendentalist movements before picking this up, for some context.
    • 1/5
      This could have been a shorter book. Melville created multiple chapters explaining and discussing the sperm whale’s head, right whale’s head, different kinds of whale and their classifications. It was like reading an encyclopedia rather than a story.
    • 2/5
      Everything you ever wanted to know about whaling, but were afraid to ask. My advice is get "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's the story of the whaler Essex. The Essex was the ship sunk by a whale which inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. Same story but alot shorter.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite American novel. I have read it every Fall for the past 18 years ... Each time I read it I find new layers of symbolism within ... Truly the Great American Literary Masterpiece!
    • 5/5
      On my should read list list but avoided successfully for 45 years. Between the Philbrick recommendation and the lauds to Hootkins' narration, I finally succumbed and spent nearly a month of commutes taking the big story in, and the next month thinking about the story. SO glad I listened rather than skimmed as a reader. It has everything;. Agree with Floyd 3345 re fiction and nonfiction shelving
    • 5/5
      'There she blows! There she blows!', as the sailors cry when whales are on sight, and the sleeping ship sparks: down the whale boats, ready with the harpoons, chase the whales (or only one whale, Moby Dick the White Whale). FIRST BLOW: Beyond the symbolic / religious meanings of this book, there are the men (Ahab, the captain; Ishmael, the witness), and the Nature (the sea and the whales), and the journey (the first teacher of humankind). Ahab says: 'but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor brains beat too much for that.' (p. 806-7) SECOND BLOW: The Sea and the Life. 'There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.' (p. 329) 'At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; ... and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, ... these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw conceals a remorseless fang.' (p. 703) LAST BLOW: At the end Starbuck (Ahab's ship mate) begs Ahab: 'Oh, my Captain, my Captain - noble heart - got not! - got not' (p. 810); but fate is made, and Walt Whitman's written: 'O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done! (from Leaves of Grass).
    • 5/5
      Sublime. In this day and age it is awesome to slow down to the speed of this story and remember what it was like before the internet, before even radio, to be out upon the vast sea for years awhaling.
    • 4/5
      Digital audiobook performed by Anthony HealdThis is a re-read … sort of. The first time I attempted this book I was only 11 years old, in 7th grade, and participating in a “great books” discussion group. I gave up and relied on the Cliff’s notes and watching the movie with Gregory Peck as Ahab. Some years ago, I read Nathaniel Philbrick’s excellent In the Heart Of the Sea, a nonfiction account of the whaleship Essex, which was the inspiration for Melville’s tale. I found it fascinating and commented “Almost makes me want to read Moby Dick.” Well I didn’t forget that urge and decided to give the audiobook a try. I’m glad I did.Yes, Melville writes in great detail – ad nauseum – about the intricacies of whaling, the various species of aquatic mammals, the arduous and dirty (even disgusting) job of butchering the carcass. But he also explores the relationships developed among the crew, the sights of new ports, the weeks of tedious boredom broken by a day or two of exhilarating chase. And then there is the psychology of Ahab. A man tortured by his own obsession and need for revenge. That was the most interesting part of the book for me and I wanted much more of it. I struggled with my rating and ultimately decided on 4 stars for the enduring quality of the work; despite its flaws and the things I disliked about it it’s a work that will stay with me. Anthony Heald was the narrator of the audio book I got from my library. He did a fine job of the narration. He read at a good pace and brought some life to a work that frequently bogs down in minutia.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorites! The opening paragraph pretty much sums up why I read it.
    • 2/5
      The author writes in long sentances that drip with poetry. Personally I think they sound/feel a bit like shakespear. There appear to be more words than are needed, but at the same time they have a musical quality that forgives the excess.

      Chapter 42: The Whiteness of the Whale: Oh golly, I can't believe how this chapter drags as the author spends 9-10 pages making an argument for why the color/hue white should be menacing versus calming (assuming you thought it was calming in the first place).

      Chapter 43-44: Really nice writing that continue to build the sense of menace and foreshadowing of the plot. As much as I was dragged through chapter 42, I really like the pacing of these chapters which refresh me and keep me in the story.

      There is quite a bit of foreshadowing, lots of references to dark and dangerous things he will need to tell you in the future.

    • 2/5
      Long one, from right after I first read it: Um? By the time I got into higher school, I wasn't like, literary (I was obsessed with Dune, and Richard Brautigan, okay?), and in college the extent of how much I cared for non SF canon and sub-canon pretty much began and ended with personal interpretations of Shakespeare and believing that Sonnet 18 was a eulogy. In other words, less than nought. So, other than the basic ideas needed to remain culturally literate and a fondness for the name "Ishmael", Moby Dick passed me by. It's a long book, and I'm not like, an analyser, so this'll be quick. Basically, I guess it's supposed to be a descent into madness/inescapable obsession? But for me, the whole feeling of this book was endearing whimsy and fey humour (with a morbid sense of life, but that's what makes it great). It's like listening to some old guy recount something that is really important to him, but he knows that serious things are most safely treated with soft mockery. Anyway, the sneaking increase of Shakespearean language styling is nice as a clear clue to the crazy, as is (my) eventual realisation that the excessive text-bookery of whale and whaling education chapters is the thumbprint of Ishmael's madness. It's why the book is so damn long and descriptive. He is attempting to catalogue all the impressions of the events of the Pequod in his mind. Like, have you ever sat down to write something, beginning with a short description of the set and staging and realised pages later that you are still singing the praises of the wallpaper and softly lit curtains and shit? Anyway, that's how I picture it.
    • 1/5
      to say this was the most boring book i have ever come across would be an understatement. it was torture. so why did i finish listening, because i have always wanted to read Moby Dick, and now i have.
    • 5/5
      Herman Melville, the adventure-seeker and literary extraordinaire, had insight into the human psyche that most average thinking people overlook. The conviviality of the crew mates on the Pequod and their willingness to follow Captain Ahab to the fatal end speak of behavior patterns that typify normal propensities. Throughout his apprenticeship as a whaler, Melville observed the microcosm of humanity on a cargo ship, rubbing elbows with hardened ethnic groups. He recognized how the isolation and exhaustion from the whaling industry could fling the kind-hearted into a mindset of ruthlessness and irrationality. The narrator Ishmael gives a full account of the destructive nature of Ahab as well as the sailors' who are blown on the whirlwind to find the blow hole that will ultimately plunge them into their watery grave. Through overconfidence and over-the-top arrogance, all members of the Pequod--ironically except Ishmael--become extinct, as the name of the whaling ship suggests, having the title of the Native American tribe that succumbed to Western European domination. The subtle allusions and symbols, not to mention the heightened imagery, give the reader a round trip, ending in the Sea of Japan. The White Whale, which has many representations, serves to remind human beings of their mortal frailties. Although the sentence style is bogged down at times with semicolons, the plot structure is free-flowing to make the tour understandable. Interpretable on multiple levels, the novel Moby Dick is a triumph of fiction that persistent readers can enjoy and glean imbibing wisdom.
    • 4/5
      I'm grateful I was never required to read this for school, because it's such a crazy dense chaotic euphoria of complex symbolism, that the reader needs to be voluntarily engaged with the insanity on every level. In reality the story of Ahab and Moby Dick is a frame story; I could easily believe that most of the text was written without the story or those characters explicity in mind. Melville's nuts and obviously has Shakespeare whirling in his brain as he writes -- many passages are sylistically straight out of Macbeth or King Lear. The narrator -- or the author -- seems as monomaniacally obsessed with whales and whaling as Ahab is with the White Whale. If you're not willing to be drawn into that obsession, it's probably not going to be a successful text. There's something Italo Calvino says, about the longing for the naive reading experience -- that books are spoiled by coming to them with expectations. Nothing creates expectations like "The Great American Novel", or "You Must Read This and Love it Or You Get An F", or many of the other accretions which spoil the way we approach literature. Moby-Dick, in particular, I think, requires the naive and willing engagement of the reader.