Well this was a long book that my mum told me was a real slog but actually i found it extremely readable and enjoyable! It is a book about whaling with a view of considering all of someone’s life through the prism of being at sea and hunting whales.
That someone being the narrator, Ishmael who is probably loosely based on Melville and is honestly the least important character in the story.
Melville can write one hell of a sentence, and paragraph, and chapter. He’s really good at tight arcs, and then somehow orchestrating several of them together into this whole novel – very impressive.
Weakest aspect were the characters I think. They are all of them cariactures or more generously larger-than-life in the way Shakespearian characters are (Moby-Dick is extremely Shakespearian in tone and style). Most egregiously the non-white characters are all stereotypes, but Capt. Ahab and the mates (Stubb, Flask, Starbuck) are also all stereotypes and cariacatures of “salty sea sailor yarrr”. It gives every character a sort of unreality to them.
I think the exception to this are rare moments where Ishmael is personally relating to them, whether that’s in his actual interactions with Queequeg towards the start of the book which basically end after they board to the infamous sperm squeezing scene where he becomes full of love for humanity &c.. In these moments Ishmael seems to draw a more accurate and fuller portrait of the people he interacts with. Also towards the end where he narrates the lives of the blacksmith and carpenter.
I guess what’s going on here is once he boards the ship, Ishmael becomes drawn into crew’s shared monomania for whaling – which Ahab typifies a particularly strong variety of, and so his interest in anything else becomes diminished. Ishmael’s perspective is very drawn to biblicas allusion, and spiritual interpretations of events, which make for some interesting thoughts.
I really appreciated all the details of life on board and whaling. I decided to read this because I was in a distinctly nautical mood and wanted something to satisfy that, which this certainly did. I have no idea how realistic the whaling bits are, but Ishmael likes to emphasise how accurate he’s being so probably fairly?
There’s no sense of time passing. I think, vaguely, the whole action of the book takes place over about 1 year? They set sail around Christmas and don’t mention Christmas again, and because they hop above and below the equator, and are at sea, that the seasons are very relevant. They do encounter a typhoon so presumably that puts them past summer? Probably less than a year.
So the plot takes place over an unknown amount of time, in a series of episodes. Reflective of later recollection and writing down. Not a contemporaneous account of the voyage.
Yeah, I really liked it. Read this book if you like long, weird, historical novels with lots of details and weird historical thoughts. Don’t read it if you need female characters to exist on the page, or can’t stand stereotypes.