Moby Dick by Herman Melville

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville; narrated by Pete Cross | 2018; originally published 1851 | Dreamscape Media | Audiobook $ 30

Widely considered one of the great American novels, Herman Melville’s masterpiece went largely unread during his lifetime and was out of print at the time of his death in 1891. Called the greatest book about the sea ever written by D.H. Lawrence, Moby Dick features detailed descriptions of whale hunting and whale oil extraction as well as beautiful, incisive writing on race, class, religion, art, and society. The story, loosely based on a real whaling shipwreck, features the unforgettable, vengeful Captain Ahab, who obsessively hunts a great white whale who bit his leg off below the knee.

Here’s another title to check off my list for Classics Club!

I rather feel like this book needs no introduction; who hasn’t heard of Moby Dick? It’s the story of a mad ship captain’s hunt for a white whale. Of course, it’s rather more than that — the book includes all kinds of themes that have been analyzed to kingdom come and back — but the mad captain and the white whale are the central players in the story.

I’m so, so, so glad I decided to listen to this one on audiobook, particularly this version of it narrated by Pete Cross. I have to be honest and confess that I don’t think I could have powered through all the infodumping about whaling equipment and blubber processing on my own; having somebody else read it to me while I was driving to and from work was really the only way. But more than that, the narration was perfection. Hearing a full cast of characters with distinct voices coming out of the mouth of a single person was an entire delight.

Funny thing is, there’s an ongoing newsletter that shares the story in a serialized version, called Whale Weekly. I bring this up because that means there’s a bunch of other people out there who are also reading this story for the first time, which means… memes. Yes, there exists a small but growing bounty of real quality memes about Moby Dick.

Anyway, Moby Dick was surprisingly funny to me, even in the midst of its phase as the Encyclopedia of Whale Murder. Of course the prose is spectacular generally and the action is described magnificently, when you can get to it.

Despite several jarring instances of racist nonsense, which one must generally expect from a nineteenth-century novel after all, I feel comfortable recommending it to just about anybody who’s brave enough to tackle it — but, take my advice and listen to the audiobook if you can.

Links:

Publication information: Melville, Hermann. Moby Dick. Holland, Ohio: Dreamscape Media, 2018. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Hoopla.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.

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