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List Price: $18.00 | | Publisher: Caedmon
Salesrank: 2429874
Released: March 11, 1998 |
| Our Price: $7.99 |
| Used Price: $5.30 |
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| Media: Audio Cassette |
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Editorial Review:
Herman Melville's Moby Dick is perhaps the greatest of all American novels.The story of Captain Ahab's obsession with destroying the white whale that crippled him in a previous encounter, Moby Dick transcends its subject by exploring the bigger picture of man and his precarious and often contradictory relationship with the universe he inhabits, a universe of the greatest good and the most profound evil. It is a timeless epic parable that is by turns amusing and unsettling, but always fascinating. The vocal performances of a solid cast add to the listening excitement: Charlton Heston is Ahab'tyrannical, God-ridden, and consumed with his quest; Keir Dullea is the laconic and mysterious narrator, Ishmael, and George Rose delivers Father Mapple's tremendous call to the whaling men.
Moby Dick Reviews:
The Elusive White Whale of Required Reading 
2009-12-10 - Moby Dick by Herman Melville stands as one of the greatest American novels ever published.
Bleh!
How often have we heard that syllogism in classrooms and critic's circles nationwide? It's statements like this that actually turn people off to reading great books. As Mark Twain famously said, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read," a good majority of the American public approaches literary classics like taking strep throat medication. It might taste awful in your mouth and it might be a challenge to get through, but it's good for you so don't argue. Moby Dick has gotten a fair amount of flak because a lot of people are forced to read it. Of course, I'm no different from thousands of English teachers in the sense that I made my students read it. Of course, most didn't like it. Melville is hard to get through at times.
What makes the book a challenge is sadly what makes it a great read: the author's wide vocabulary. Moby Dick and Shakespeare's plays have a lot in common in the sense that they are extremely dense. When you're used to reading Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Stephanie Meyer, Melville's language can feel like being dropped into the Amazon after a week at Jesus Camp. You're totally unprepared. But there's a richness here that's unparalleled in contemporary fiction. One facet of Melville's writing that he excels at is metaphor and simile. If you want a crash course in how to write good similes and metaphors, read Moby Dick. Also of note is the extreme attention to detail, which effectively creates an authentic setting. This is the quintessential novel of "write what you know" since Melville was on a whale ship earlier in life.
As part of my personal preference, I also appreciate the consistent allusions to history, philosophy and theology. This book is so symbolic, it's as if the author is creating a contemporary Bible story.
The characters are extremely deep and complex, not to mention unforgettable. Captain Ahab stands in my book as one of the most interesting and morally ambiguous characters in all of fiction. But there I go again with hyperboles.
Read this book. Slog through it slowly if need be. Put it off till adulthood if you're being forced to read it now and don't appreciate it. Yes all the critics and teachers praise the book, but for all it's worth, they're right on this one.
whale
2009-12-08 - I have never read this classic and look forward to it. Book in excellent condition thanks
Inadequate notes! 
2009-12-03 - I've read Moby Dick several times. I started trying to read this edition, and by Chapter 20 I switched to the Oxford edition. I've found the best way to read the book is with a heavily annotated edition, because of the amounts of reference on the surface of and buried beneath the text. This Penguin edition is so lightly annotated that it's useless. If you are a casual reader, the notes won't begin to address all the questions you will have. If you are a more serious student of the work, the notes too lightly address things that any search of the Wiki can explain FAR better.
English told and spoken beautifully
2009-12-01 - Rereading Moby Dick after several decades is an extraordinary privilige. How wonderful Melville writes and relates to life experience now logged. And besides
the story we also can see his story...and what American stories were told in the
first half of the 19th century. Now, 170 years later many are chilled by the
desecration of whales..as we no longer seek to conquer nature but to sustain it.
Yet,one can fully understand - once transported backe to the whaling days of Melville's time the struggle for that harvest and the battle with the great white Leviathon. This is a marvelous edition that brings all the context and allusions
from Melville scholarship right to the reader in footnotes and appendices.
It is no small triumph.
George Rosenbaum
Till you get to be captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil
2009-12-01 - Moby Dick is a tribute to craftsmanship; Melville's writing craftsmanship's drawing from his former experience in the whale fishery to paint a vivid picture of the lives and toil of thirty men in a deranged quest for revenge on a "dumb brute".
Each one of the crew members holds a special pride for its own mastery of the many trades combined to make Nantucket whaling so dominant. We see the pagan harpooners, the cook, all the mates, the oarsmen, the carpenter, the blacksmith... The only crewmember that takes pride in having no pride is Ishmael.
Towards the end of the book Ahab cries at the height of his 58 years, 40 of it dedicated to whaling. He thinks of how little he has enjoyed of life, thinks about his young wife whom he seldom sees, thinks about how much more he could have reached if he only could have aspired less. Isn't this the age old paradox of capitalism? Till you get to be captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil, and after you become captain things do not improve much.
This is why Moby Dick is so hated by high school students. You have to toil away on your monkey-ropes before you can truly appreciate it. I just finished reading Moby Dick for the first time now that I am 37 years old. Thank you Herman Melville.
Leonardo Alves
Belo Horizonte MG 2009
