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Title: Moby-Dick or, The Whale (Penguin Classics)
ISBN: 0142437247
Author:
Herman Melville
Publicate Date: 2002-12-31
Publish: 2002-12-31
List Price: $13.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.00
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.47
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.40
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| Customer Review: |
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1: 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.
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2: Very Deep
I read the book in about two weeks on and off. I liked the book and enjoyed all the interesting information about whaling in it. Because it tended to go off into just information chapters I read it rather slowly. Most of the book I read in two days in the two weeks. While reading it I found it a little strange, but I now have this insane desire to read it again and maybe even buy it. Most classics are like that, the writing is so deep that you find yourself rereading them. The plot was very good and original, I recommend that anyone who reads it does it in one sitting. I love the book now!
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3: The worst book ever written
Before reading "Moby Dick" I considered "War and Peace" the worst book I had ever read, but compared to "Moby Dick" "War and Peace" is a light, fun read where your eyes just fly across the page. It's almost impossible to acurately descibe how bad of a book "Moby Dick" is. First of all, classiflying it as fiction is a mistake. Probably a good 60% of the book is non-fiction - chapter after chapter dedicated to every imaginable detail of the biology of the whale and every imaginable nuance of whaling. These non-fiction chapters are made all the more unbearable by the style of writing, which is so pretentious, poetic and over the top that at times it actually made me laugh out loud. Almost every sentence is 100 words long with 10 commas. And the over the top writing is not confined to the book's non-fiction chapters, it's just the opposite - it gets even worse when Melville switches over to the fiction. Especially in the many and endless soliloquies. The ridiculous writing style completely crushes any chance the book might have had of actually telling a story. Finishing the entire book is something that I'm proud of myself for having done, which is never the mark of a good read. I would suggest that unless a person wants to torture themself, read something else. Although I do think there is some value in setting your mind to reading the worst book ever written from cover to cover, and acomplishing that goal. It's the ultimate test of patience and courage, and succeeding will make you a better person, which is maybe what Herman Melville had in mind when he wrote this piece of junk.
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4: 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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5: Get back to the Pequad please!
My title might imply that I didn't enjoy this... certainly Moby Dick is a daunting book to pick up, and it's very easy to catch your eyes skimming rather than reading... but I would have to say, once read, it is easy to figure out why this book is a classic.
Sure it took me a while to get past my knowledge of whales, the fact that they aren't fish and that they are intelligent animals. And having been out of school for several years now, it took a bit to knock the cobwebs out of the brain to read the writing style of the time. But in reality this is a fantastic story on so many levels. The meaning and the subtext are brilliant. For those of you who have spent your life under a rock...
Moby Dick is the tale of Ishmael, a teacher turned whaler who joins the ship the Pequod to sail in search of whales for the oils, blubber and meat they contain. If you are not sure how whaling works, don't worry - Ishmael is going to give you an entire tutorial on the topic. You will also learn the history of the whale, and all about it's anatomy... or what they perceived these things to be at the time the book was written. So Ishmael sets sail to learn that his new captain - Ahab, is a little bit on the OCD side... you see he's recently lost a leg to this huge white sperm whale the sailors call "Moby Dick." And well, Ahab took this as a personal slight so he's out to capture and kill Moby Dick.
Because this is a review and not a term paper I am not going to go into the deeper meaning of everything, instead I'll just say that yes, this is a daunting book to pick up, but it is also a wonderful read.
So why not 5 stars? Well mainly from personal taste... I liked the story of Ahab, the ship, and the hunt... but Ishmael won't stay on topic and keeps going on and on about the size of a whale's jaw or how the Kracken was actually a whale, or that St. George actually killed a whale and called it a dragon. I found myself wanting to shake Ishmael and tell him "Enough of this, get back to the STORY!" But as I said... this was just personal taste, egged on by the fact that I REALLY liked the story part of the book. Now I had read the childrens version of this back in the 3rd grade, and it was my favorite classic for years. I had always dreaded reading the full version, but in reality it didn't take me more than a week, and I wasn't trying all that hard. I would highly recommend that any avid reader at least give this a try. It is truly a classic for a reason.
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