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A review by loyaultemelie
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
From the beginning to the end of this book I went from think Captain Ahab was the main character, to Ishmael, to Moby Dick, to Nature, and, finally, to Whaling itself and also God. The story of Ahab and his white whale does not seem to me to be the real plot of the story. Nor is it, as I thought for a while, Ishmael himself, a snapshot of his greater memoirs. No, the whaling tangents are not tangents at all, but seem to be really the meet of the book itself. Like Victor Hugo wrote Notre-Dame de Paris about the building rather than the characters, Melville wrote Moby Dick to be about "the Whale," whichever whale that may be.
This book is so dense that I feel as I've only scratched the surface of it, though I read every single page and did not skim over a single tangent. How is it, that Ishmael so obviously adores the animal he is nevertheless determined to kill. The animals whose killers he ranks as higher even than kings and emperors? How is it that Ahab seems to be aware of his fate, and yet frantically chases it, hoping it seems again hope that he will succeed, and being unsurprised when he doesn't? How is it that the whale is both God and Satanic, dragging sailors to the hell of the depths of the ocean while being one of the most majestic of Nature and Providence's creations? Are we supposed to even have answers to these questions? Are there even? Or, like the sea, are all of these things true at once in a book with unfathomable depths?
I hope to read Moby Dick again someday and better understand what this book has to tell. It has really changed my opinion on the necessity of a storyline in a book, or even what a book can be. Its tangents are its essence, and I love that for it. This book truly changed me and I'm so glad to have read it.
This book is so dense that I feel as I've only scratched the surface of it, though I read every single page and did not skim over a single tangent. How is it, that Ishmael so obviously adores the animal he is nevertheless determined to kill. The animals whose killers he ranks as higher even than kings and emperors? How is it that Ahab seems to be aware of his fate, and yet frantically chases it, hoping it seems again hope that he will succeed, and being unsurprised when he doesn't? How is it that the whale is both God and Satanic, dragging sailors to the hell of the depths of the ocean while being one of the most majestic of Nature and Providence's creations? Are we supposed to even have answers to these questions? Are there even? Or, like the sea, are all of these things true at once in a book with unfathomable depths?
I hope to read Moby Dick again someday and better understand what this book has to tell. It has really changed my opinion on the necessity of a storyline in a book, or even what a book can be. Its tangents are its essence, and I love that for it. This book truly changed me and I'm so glad to have read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Racism