MOBY DICK (ANNOTATED)
Book Details
Author(s)Herman Melville
ISBN / ASINB01KBTEKVE
ISBN-13978B01KBTEKV9
Sales Rank1,019,121
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
What can you say about this great American novel that hasn’t already been said by generations of readers and academics?
"It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers.
A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."
So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imaginations in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
Moby-Dick is as mammoth, mysterious and elusive as the enormous white whale that gives the book its name. The opening line (“Call me Ishmael”) is one of the most famous in all literature. And even people who’ve never read it are familiar with the peg-legged, vengeance-seeking Captain Ahab, the archetype for any maniacally obsessed leader.
What makes the novel so fascinating is how modern it feels. It’s an adventure tale about a man who’s driven to hunt down the beast who maimed him, but it’s also a treatise on whales and the whaling industry, a sharp look at class and culture (the sailors hail from all around the world), and a bold literary experiment, for 1851 or even today.
It’s hugely digressive, contains dialogue that at times sounds Shakespearean, and there’s not really much action until the end. But somehow it’s still very entertaining. Melville (who, of course, knew all about whaling) is such a clever, genial writer, that you’ll be smiling and chuckling throughout and gasping at his powers of description and observation. You’ll smell the salty air, feel the churning waves and your heart will beat a little faster when one of the crew cries “There she blows!”. Question you must ask yourself, ‘Why didn't I read this book sooner?’
"It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers.
A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."
So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imaginations in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
Moby-Dick is as mammoth, mysterious and elusive as the enormous white whale that gives the book its name. The opening line (“Call me Ishmael”) is one of the most famous in all literature. And even people who’ve never read it are familiar with the peg-legged, vengeance-seeking Captain Ahab, the archetype for any maniacally obsessed leader.
What makes the novel so fascinating is how modern it feels. It’s an adventure tale about a man who’s driven to hunt down the beast who maimed him, but it’s also a treatise on whales and the whaling industry, a sharp look at class and culture (the sailors hail from all around the world), and a bold literary experiment, for 1851 or even today.
It’s hugely digressive, contains dialogue that at times sounds Shakespearean, and there’s not really much action until the end. But somehow it’s still very entertaining. Melville (who, of course, knew all about whaling) is such a clever, genial writer, that you’ll be smiling and chuckling throughout and gasping at his powers of description and observation. You’ll smell the salty air, feel the churning waves and your heart will beat a little faster when one of the crew cries “There she blows!”. Question you must ask yourself, ‘Why didn't I read this book sooner?’
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