Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally, after over two months of chipping away at this, I’m done! Some reflections:

1. On the negative side, there is way too much detail about the ins and outs of whales and whaling. This takes away from the plot and makes the story tedious. I got bogged down in the middle. (But maybe that’s what Melville intends for the reader, since that's the nature of a whaling voyage.)

2. I also didn’t care for the mixed point of view. Some of the novel is from Ishmael’s perspective, some of it is third-person omniscient, and a few chapters are written like play scripts, complete with stage directions. But this was written a century and a half ago, so there are different rules in play. Of course, Pilgrim’s Progress works the same way.

3. As a lover of Shakespeare, I enjoyed the echoes of Macbeth in this novel. The prophecies, the equivocation, the dark supernatural elements, the threes, some of the language (“foul” and “fair”), the protagonist’s faith in a prophecy that makes him think he is invincible . . . Even Ahab’s relationship with the Carpenter seems to parallel Macbeth’s relationship with the physician. These connections add a lot of depth.

4. The foreshadowing and symbolism are superb. The novel is a lot creepier than I expected, even gothic. (What happens to Fedallah is one of the freakiest scenes I've ever read in my life!) There’s so much supernatural symbolism—coffins, omens, threes, fires, sermons, . . . And the symbolism is huge. Melville is exploring the biggest questions—What does it mean to be human? Who determines our destiny—God? Fate? Ourselves? Melville powerfully captures the idea of man’s defiance against all forces above—and man’s helplessness against his destiny. This is truly an epic novel, and Melville pulls out all the stops.


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