Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Sadly the word classic nowadays seems to turn people off books automatically, it suggests difficult reading, a struggle, a study rather than an enjoyable story. For the most part i discourage this, many classics I have encountered i have found enjoyable, some even page turners, worthy of their term classic as an appraisal, a suggeston that these novels will never go out of fashion, they will always have a place in readers hearts. However i do find it very difficult to count Moby Dick in this category, it epitimses the first suggestion, it is dull, difficult to read and incredibly academic based. the story itself i found readable, vaguely exciting but the ...  Read the complete review

Overview Regarded as one of the finest works of western literature ever committed to page Moby Dick is, on the surface at least, the tale of Ishmael and his voyage upon the whaling ship the Prequod, captained by Ahab and seemingly bound for oblivion. There is much more to this book than what floats on the surface of the page however, as almost everything portrayed is densely laced with additional symbolistic meaning. Review I did not want to read this book. It seemed a precipitous and overall unpleasent prospect. A dry, old out-dated tome about whales. And it seems that this is a fairly common conception. Any doubts I had were soon allayed once I ...  Read the complete review

Penned in the mid 1800s, American author Herman Melville's classic novel is about Ahab, the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship the Pequod, who puts the lives of himself and his crew jeopardy in a crazed attempt to kill a vast, albino whale who mauled him many years ago on a previous hunt, leaving him with an ivory stump for a leg. As a huge fan of the 1956 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck, I thought I would give the original novel a go, and though it took some getting through I'm really glad I did. Told from the perspective of a sailor known only as Ishmael, the story documents their voyage around the world chasing after the the much-feared and ...  Read the complete review

'Moby Dick' is neither as fat as 'War and Peace' nor as dense as 'Ulysses', but it is probably, like them, one of the great unread books. I know at least two people who were supposed to have studied it at university at the same time as me, who still cling to copies with uncracked spines. I think it's a love it hate it situation. The book's opening consideration of why men are drawn to sea is enough to put you off if what you want is a finely wrought story. 'Call me Ishmael' couldn't be a more different opening to a novel than the one you get in 'Pride and Prejudice', say, where you're instantly launched ...  Read the complete review

Moby Dick is a novel which doesn't have the best of reputations, I know of many people who found it to be dull. Unfortunately I have to join with them and say this is not a particularly good book. Melville is a skilled writer, his prose is descriptive and often evocative, but his narrative is weak and he takes too many asides. Frequently I wished he'd make up his mind as to whether this was a novel about a man's confrontation with the full force of nature, or an outline to the practises of whalers. Obviously a book about whaling will go some length to describe whaling practises, but Melville takes this to a near obsessive level. The novel follows the ...  Read the complete review