a challenge to read and understand; requires some pondering...

books:

	• Moby Dick (The World's best reading) Herman Melville Reader's Digest Association, 1989 - 495 pages average customer review:based on 327 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Classic for a reason

This book has the momentum of a cracking whip. The struckture, almost post-modern in its rambling complexity, moves almost sideways as it speeds up and in the last twenty-five pages suddenly snaps in a bonanza of rich, delicious action.

Nay-Sayers seem not to appreciate the substance all the slow, informative chapters give to the final actions of Ahab and his crew. I personally love this book.

a challenge to read and understand; requires some pondering...

hard book but all the more rewarding. the narration in itself is part of the melvilles point. moby dick reads as a organized history and methodology of the whaling industry and is often times drawn out and dull. but this narrations illustrates the point of mans obsession of understanding the universe. ishmael is by no means a definite resource on whaling as is shown by his constant interjections of myth and exaggeration. ishmaels narrations goes on to illustrate man's nature to intertwine emotion with reality, thus proving the futility of understanding the world.
the obsessive pursuit of something larger than what men can understand in their finite knowledge is accumulated as the arrogance of ahab. ahab shows us that we are emotional beings who cast aside all rationality for ones personal gratification. it is an allegory of mans futile pursuit of understanding and commanding the world, ultimately, ahab shows us that man cannot escape his arrogance/ignorance. Moby-Dick or, The Whale (Penguin Classics)

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masterpiece

I'm not sure where to begin reviewing. Many of you who are reading this are at least familiar with the title "Moby Dick" or "The Whale", and if you have read this incredible and penetrating book, most of you (I hope) will be in awe from its memories: fearful, heavy, and strange. For those who say the book is too "wordy", then you simply don't understand style and taste. Melville manages to go from an incredibly tight narrative at one page to something distant and spacey the next page. Indeed, it is a magical novel or as many call it a "masterpiece". Since most people - from what I have gathered here alone - review this book splendidly, I will not spend much time writing about it. In fact, it is best one digests this book arbitrarily, otherwise its weight may not be as profound. There is much speculation one may collect, I imagine, when thinking of this book in deep introspect.

"Penguin Press" did an excellent job compiling this book. The back features very detailed diagrams and sketches of equipment and atlases. There is also an appendix for those who are not very familiar with boat terminology. The introduction is engaging and very helpful for those who have not read the book.

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Entertaining, meaningful, but at times painful to read

Moby Dick is a great story but a poorly written novel. The story of Moby Dick is actually very interesting and contains great meaning and symbolism. The events occurring in the book have the perfect combination of truth and fiction to make the action gripping. Nearer to the end of the book you are overwhelmed with a sense of wonder and suspense as you try to guess how the book will end and are blown away by the events that occur.

In Moby Dick, Herman Melville proves that he is the master of descriptive language. In some parts of the book the extremely descriptive writing is an extremely positive aspect of the book but in others it makes the book unbearable to read. During the action parts of the book this excessive description makes the book a delight to read as you can see in your mind exactly what is happening. While envisioning this some amazing images come into your mind. Like the sights in the real world that would make you stop and take another look, you feel compelled to read certain passages over and over again just to keep that image in your brain. The other up side to his description is the attachment you feel with the characters. With the simple mention of a main characters name you can picture them, hear their voice, and give an attitude to the words.

The downside to all of this description is during the long down time in the book, when no action can be described in hundreds of pages. For example there is one chapter all about a man's pipe, a chapter describing a bowl of chowder and a particularly long chapter describing the masthead (top of one of the masts). These long rants about unimportant aspects of the story make up the first three quarters of the book, as Moby Dick is not even spotted until the last quarter of the book.

I would not recommend reading this book unless you can find a condensed version that only contains the details important to the plot. To just pick up Moby Dick in its original version and start reading is a painful and can be an almost impossible task. Overall however the story and the theme of the story is very entertaining and meaningful.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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 imagination 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.

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