Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13204 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Arguably Herman Melville's greatest work, and hailed as a classic American novel, Moby Dick tells the tale of one man's fatal obsession and his willingness to sacrifice his life and that of his crew to achieve his goal. The story follows the fortunes of Captain Ahab and the culturally and spiritually diverse crew of the Pequod, a 19th century whaling ship. The Pequod is on its last voyage out of New Bedford, Mass, in pursuit of Moby Dick, the great white whale which has been Ahab's obsessional quarry and bitter adversary for many years. Narrated by sole survivor Ishmael, the tale forms a complex fictional fusion, combining a wealth of literary symbolism, hidden meaning and philosophical debate with adventure narrative and a detailed historical account of the 19th century whaling trade. --Emily Lowson

About the Author
Herman Melville was born on August 1, 1819, in New York City, the son of a merchant. Only twelve when his father died bankrupt, young Herman tried work as a bank clerk, as a cabin-boy on a trip to Liverpool, and as an elementary schoolteacher, before shipping in January 1841 on the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific. Deserting ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as ordinary seaman on the frigate United States to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures won him immediate success. By 1850 he was married, had acquired a farm near Pittsfield, Massachussetts (where he was the impetuous friend and neighbor of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and was hard at work on his masterpiece Moby-Dick. Literary success soon faded; his complexity increasingly alienated readers. After a visit to the Holy Land in January 1857, he turned from writing prose fiction to poetry. In 1863, during the Civil War, he moved back to New York City, where from 1866-1885 he was a deputy inspector in the Custom House, and where, in 1891, he died. A draft of a final prose work, Billy Budd, Sailor, was left unfinished and uncollated, packed tidily away by his widow, where it remained until its rediscovery and publication in 1924.

Customer Reviews

Too nautical for me
The prose is so vivid that the only comparison that comes to mind is Shakespeare. Some sentences or paragraphs are so finely wrought as to hit you between the eyes, and as such I can say that I am glad I have read it, and if life were longer I might even read it again. However, I have to concede that the book is very hard work. What story there is all takes place in the last 25 pages and is an action tour-de-force, but the previous 400 or so pages are lengthy and wordy digressions on whales, whaling and all conceivable ancillary topics, which at their worst are maddeningly garrulous. The characterisation is poor, unsurprisingly given that so little of the text is devoted to the players. Ishmael, the narrator is virtually a disembodied observer who brings little of himself to the action. Ahab is the tortured megalomaniac for whom we are given no opportunity for sympathy or empathy. All the other human characters, namely the ship's crew, are mere automata. Those of a nautical bent might get excited about the details of the ship, the Pequod, which is more lovingly written than the humans or the whales, but I'm not that way inclined.

I can see this book being truly relished by hardcore literature buffs with a love of ships and the sea, but I can't help but feel that just about anyone else would find it very heavy going.

A constant companion
I read Moby-Dick for the first time when I was about 18, and have re-read it at least three or four times since. It is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most impressive books in Western literature, about ever so much more than the mere chase for a white whale.

It's about friendship, love, hubris, passion, the search for the meaning of life, etc. etc. Longwinded at times? Yes, definitely. Obscure? That too. Unless you're intimately acquainted with the Old Testament, Shakespeare, classical Greek drama and just about everything else in Western art it's a good idea to buy an edition that comes with ample footnotes.

But if you then take the time and effort this book deserves, it might very well be a life-changing experience as it was for me, that will sometimes make you stop and think for years afterwards.

Why don't you come a-whaling?
It's a classic allegory, but Moby-Dick is an arduous experience. I once read a summary that this book is only truly capable of being judged when read all the way through to its climax. The fact is, this book holds true to it, and even if when reading it you feel yourself slipping: keep at it, there is some superb English and some superb thought hidden in this book.


There are two faults with this book. First, and the biggest one, is the many many chapters on the technical aspects of Whaling and Cetology. Although interesting at first, they descend into Minutiae, and even I as a person who loved the book from cover to cover skipped a few chapters of this nature, scanning for any truly important passages. Secondly, in a few scenes the dialogue can get confusing, but these are generally not key scenes- so do not worry. Just remember that nearly everyone refers to themselves in the Third-Person, and Melville's lack of "said -" becomes less vexing and confusing.

The book does, however, contain some of the best prose I have ever read- and I've read a lot of it. Poetic, almost Shakespearean, and above all soaked in atmosphere, there are times when this book just astounds you with the vividness and tenacity of its language. With phrases like "made appalling battle" it sweeps away the less complex and incredibly simple modern bestsellers like The Da Vinci Code.

At the heart of the book is an intense symbolism that would sound ludicrous to those who have not read the book, the fact that one white whale could represent so plausibly so so many things does sound far fetched, but when you read it you find so many different answers. Fate, Providence, Nature, Madness, Death, Predestination- all these things run as Ahab and the Pequod's brave and diligent crew assail Moby-Dick.

Sure to be remembered as one of the greatest books ever written even in the far far future, this novel is an experience like no other- and an incredibly individual and personally driven one too, perhaps why it is the source of so much praise and so much perplexity. This book teaches you the art of writing, and the art of allegory.