I Read Books: Moby Dick
Moby Dick
Herman Melville wrote a book about whaling. Ishmael joins a whaling ship to discover that the captain, Ahab, lost a leg to an especially vicious white whale, known as Moby Dick. As well as the commercial aspects of the voyage Ahab also draws the crew more or less reluctantly into his quest for revenge.
Along the way Melville, in the person of Ishmael, explains all about whaling, creating an idiosyncratic natural history classification, as well as using the make-up of whaling crews as a metaphor. Nantucket whalers are dominated by the people of the island – Ahab and his first mate are from there, the other two mates from nearby in New England. Yet the three harpooneers are Queequeg, Ishmael’s friend from Polynesia, a native American and an African. Melville is meditating on tyranny and freedom, on leadership and rebellion.
The language and structure takes several forms, sometimes straightforward (for nineteenth century prose) sometimes becoming poetic, or in the form of a sermon or a play or a dry textbook, occasionally haranguing the reader. If you are willing to take this on, a giant chunk of old-fashioned text in several of the genres of the time, then it is very rewarding.
Read This: A magnificent work of 19th century
literature, layered with meaning and language, as well as being the best work
on how whaling took place at the time
Don’t Read This: It’s long and meandering and about a guy
obsessed with hunting a whale (who may be hunting him)
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