“Call me Ishmael.” So begins the famous opening chapter of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Young sailor Ishmael is hired as a crew member of a whaler named Pequod, captained by a man named Ahab. In between lengthy chapters on whale biology and descriptions of the crew and the whaling trade, readers are slowly introduced to a captivating tale. Ahab is out for revenge on the great white whale that stole his leg, leaving him with a whale-bone prosthesis and a withering hatred for the beast. Known as Moby Dick, the whale is infamous for his encounters and escapes with whale ships, and Ahab offers a gold coin, nailed to the Pequod’s mast, as a reward for whoever sights him first. Beginning on a cold Christmas morning, the crew embarks on a journey to find the whale and make their fortunes. An exciting staple of American literature, Moby-Dick is a must-read for anyone interested in the classics. Herman Melville was inspired to write Moby Dick by the 1821 biographical account Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex (Cosimo Classics, 2015), which in turn inspired the 2000 novel and 2015 movie, In the Heart of the Sea. HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) was an American novelist. Born in New York, Melville lived and worked in the city for many years before moving with his family to Massachusetts, where he enjoyed a short friendship with author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Many of Melville’s books are inspired by his own experiences; he sailed on merchant and whaling ships, spent time on the Marquesas Islands with natives, and spent time in England, Egypt, and Palestine. Melville even wrote poetry reflecting on the American Civil War. He eventually retired in New York City, where he was buried in the Bronx, relatively unknown. Melville was the author of 19 books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including *Typee* (1846), Moby-Dick (1851), “Bartelby the Scrivener” (1853), “Benito Cerino”
A TALE OF DOOM AND DESTRUCTION This is the story of one man’s (Ahab’s) crazed compulsion to kill a white whale which had on a previous voyage taken his leg. Bottom-line, this is a story about vengeance, and the price of vengeance.The story is told by Ishmael who, tired of his life as a teacher, boarded a whaler, the Pequod, as part of a 30 man crew.Ishmael becomes the witness to Ahab’s insane drive to destroy the whale which had, in a certain sense, destroyed him.In the end, in the book’s…
Big, Big, Big I read Moby-Dick several times in college almost forty years ago. Now I’m taking a night class and reading it with life experience of forty years. Awe is the feeling that constantly gets evoked as I read. Why awe?Capacious. That is the word that repeats again and again in my head. Moby-Dick is a vibrantly colored hot air balloon that keeps growing in size as I read it. First, Melville’s subject is the sperm whale, the largest creature on earth. But we don’t just learn about…
This is one of the greatest American novels of all time for a reason I had avoided reading this monster of a book for many years. What was I thinking!? This is one of the greatest American novels of all time for a reason. It’s what a millenial like myself would call an epic, although I believe romance was the term used by Hawthorne. Moby Dick is a mixture of fiction, auto-biography, non-fiction, etc. I doubt those genres really describe it . There is a point in the book where it actually turns into a Shakespearean play. After that it reverts back to…