Herman Melville: Redburn, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick

Library of America #9

by Herman Melville, G. Thomas Tanselle (Editor)

Between 1849 and 1851, Melville wrote three masterful stories of the sea (including the classic Moby-Dick) that captured colorful and comic glimpses of shipboard life, the excitement of the whale hunt, and seascapes that move from the brutal to the sublime; they also displayed a marvelous command of language that mixes the ordinary talk of sailors with the rhythms of the Bible and Shakespearean hyperbole. Together the works in this Library of America volume reveal Melville’s obsession with the possibilities of human freedom, the sacrifice of that freedom to the demands of social cohesion, and the submission of social groups—represented by the shipboard community—to traditional forms of authority.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Adventure, American, 19th Century, Historical Fiction

1436 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1851

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. Typee, his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with the peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw. Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family.
Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector.
From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this is a Library of America edition with THREE novels, this review is only on one: Moby-Dick.

I'm speechless. OK, maybe a few words. At first I gave this book four stars, but then I looked at other books I'd given five stars to and said, "Who am I kidding? No way is that in a league with the Whale." I wanted to chip a star for some of the excess, the stuffed in chapters, the lengthy and in some cases unnecessary asides, but then I slept on it (ouch) and decided I'm using my 21st-century prejudices against a guy operating in the 19th century and that's just not fair.

What's to like here is some poetry-studded narrative. Lots of it. And Biblical slash Shakespearean moments galore. The sea is to Capt. Ahab as the heath is to King Lear. And, in the dramatic ending, more than once I heard Ahab addressed as "Oh Captain, my captain!" which made me wonder if this preceded Whitman or not. I'm guessing or not and that it's a nod to Walt.

I learned a lot about whaling, not much of it pleasant. But it was a great way to deliver information. And I loved all the little extras, the hints of mystery, like how dying whales, tethered to the ship, will turn to the sun and then, when they die, drift so their noses face the opposite direction. It's as if they are beautiful pagans like Queequeg, not facing Mecca but a more primal source, the god of fire. And Melville sees the irony in it, too -- the king of dark, watery vaults worshiping the great hearth of airy fire. Yeah. You can't just make stuff like that up. You've got to pause your reading, reread it, and say, "Wow" (or whatever they say in your neck of the woods).

Melville is, if nothing else, versatile. He can write an action scene. He can bring to life with a few words a wide array of characters. And he can philosophize in a leviathan way. Big. Yes, I think he was rooting for the Whale, but a part of him loved Ahab, too. A part of him was amazed not just at the hubris but at the dogged determination and blind courage man is capable of.

All in all, I'm glad I darned that hole in my reading résumé. Now I can die, meaning this is the literary equivalent of seeing Naples. :-)

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melville In The Library Of America

The novels of Herman Melville (1819 -- 1891) were among the first volumes published by the Library of America, a nonprofit organization devoted to presenting the best of American writing and thought in uniform hardcover editions. At the time of his death, Melville was almost forgotten. Beginning in the 1920's, he achieved belated recognition and was established as a canonical American writer. Melville wrote nine novels, together with "Billy Budd" and short stories and they are included in three large LOA volumes. In 2000, when I was beginning to review online, I reviewed the first volume, consisting of Melville's first three novels, "Typee", "Omoo", and "Mardi" in a review I titled "Growth of a Seeker". Although I have read Melville in the intervening years, I am only now turning to the second LOA volume which includes, "Redburn", "White Jacket" and the book for which the author will always be remembered, "Moby-Dick."

The five earlier novels prepare for "Moby-Dick" although this novel goes well beyond anything in its predecessors. "Mardi" captures something of the wild, searching character of the book while "Typee" and "Omoo" with their exploration of Polynesian culture foreshadow Melville's portrayal of Queequeg in ""Moby-Dick". Melville spoke disparagingly of the two subsequent novels which begin this collection, but authors frequently misjudge their own work as Melville did here. "Redburn" and "White Jacket" lack the metaphysical fire of "Moby-Dick". Both books reward reading and both offer portrayals of the United States of Melville's time.

Written in 1849, "Redburn" is Melville's most autobiographical novel. It is both a coming-of-age story and a depiction of a changing United States. The book tells the story of a young man, Wellinborough Redburn, born to a prominent family which has fallen upon hard times. Redburn enlists as a common seaman on a merchant ship where he loses some of his naivety and acquires the nickname, "Buttons". Through the development of Redburn and his loss of innocence, Melville makes a great deal of the difference between social classes, rich and poor, in the United States. Some of the best scenes in the book take place on land, as Redburn wanders the streets of New York City and, in the middle of the book, Liverpool. In Liverpool he encounters squalid misery and poverty and catches glimpses of the life of vice and gaming. This is a highly readable, accessible novel.

"White Jacket" or "The World in a Man-of War" White Jacket is a longer, more ambitious work which describes the life of a Navy sailor, known only is "White Jacket" in a voyage of about a year around Cape Horn. In his study of Melville, Melville: His World and Work, Andrew Delbanco aptly describes the novel as a "paean to American Democracy", as Melville both celebrates and criticizes American life. In the book, Melville famously criticizes the rigidity and unnecessary hierarchy of Navy life, particularly the widespread use of flogging. He also presents one of his heroes in the character of Jack Chase, to whom he would, near the end of his life, dedicate "Billy Budd". In chapter 36, titled "Flogging not Necessary", Melville writes the following famous passage about America and its promise.

"We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people -- the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world... God has given to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark, without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls. ... Long enough have we been skeptics with regard to ourselves, and doubted whether indeed, the political Messiah had come. But he has come in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings. And let us always remember, that with ourselves --- almost for the first time in the history of earth-- national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy, for we cannot do a good to America but we give alms to the world."

Melville's extraordinary novel, "Moby-Dick" has fascinated readers while being the source of inexhaustible critical commentary. It is a passionate, romantic, enigmatic work written in an inimitable, bravado style. "Moby-Dick" is a book of many themes and styles which resists easy summary. Narrated by a wandering, enigmatic character known as Ishmael, "(Call me Ishmael.)" the book both describes the background, history, and legends of the whale and whaling, and tells the story of the search of a mad sea captain, Ahab, for a great white whale which in an earlier voyage had taken his leg. Among much else, "Moby-Dick" is about the mad passions which rule the lives of individuals, about self-understanding, and coming to terms with disappointment and loss. The book has a great deal to say about nature, the inner life, human fellowship, religion, and politics. It is a wild, long, and passionate novel, one of the great works of literature. Here is Delbanco's short summary of the character of "Moby-Dick".

" 'Moby-Dick' was not a book for a particular moment. It is a book for the ages. What gives it its psychological and moral power is that, freakish as he is, Ahab seems more part of us than apart from us. Like all great literary representations of evil, he is attractive as well as repulsive. And so Melville emerged in the twentieth century as the American Dostoevsky -- a writer who, with terrible clairvoyance, had been waiting for the world to catch up with him."

In reviewing the first LOA volume, I wrote that "Americans can learn about themselves by learning about their literature.... For those with the patience, it is worth reading [Melville's] books in order to discover the growth of a great and troubled American writer and chronicler of the inward life, as well as of sea journeys." I am thankful for the opportunity to return to Melville through the Library of America and to share some thoughts on his books with other readers.

Robin Friedman

[Marxist Monkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for Moby Dick. It makes me feel like an idiot to give 5 stars to Moby Dick. It should make you feel like an idiot, too. Why do we live in such idiotic times? Why must I care obsessively about our idiotic times? Why does it feel like the times we live in bit off my right leg? Why must I drag all my family and all my friends and all my partners down into the depths of this hell I feel about the times we live in? I will seek out the truth of all this, with passion, impossible to sidetrack, determined to seek out the whiteness of these times, the blank meaningless emptiness of these times.

Everyone, yes, everyone should read Moby Dick at least once every 10 years. Just to remind ourselves of what is and what is not possible.

[John Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume contains three novels - Redburn, White-Jacket, and Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick. All three include a great deal of nineteenth century sea lore. Aspiring writers are told to "show, don't tell." Melville, on the other hand, did quite a bit of "telling" in these chapters. The story of Redburn is at its core a hackneyed nineteenth-century tale of a young man's first venture into the world. Whitejacket - the story of a cruise from the Pacific around Cape Horn and home to New England in a mid-nineteenth century naval frigate - is a bit better. Moby-Dick, of course, is magnificent, with new layers making themselves apparent with every reading.

[Philip Bellew · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite novel. The Library of America edition is beautiful.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Redburn

A charming opening work. Wellingborough Redburn, about to become his own man in early-to-mid 19th century America, leaves his family and home on the shores of Hudson River to go to the New York docks to get a job on a ship heading to Liverpool, where his father had traveled for business trip years earlier. His account is less a novel or tale than it is a sort of Bildungsroman and a snapshot of what life was like on a transatlantic ship, a picture of Liverpool when it was arguably the center of Western commerce with wonderful insights.

Not a classic, but certainly the novel has its moments of brilliance, none more so than his summation of people who live – survive – on the margins of society:

There are classes of men in the world, who bear the same relation to society at large, that the wheels do to a coach: and are just as indispensable. But however easy and delectable the springs upon which the insiders pleasantly vibrate; however sumptuous the hammer-cloth, and glossy the door panels; yet for all this, the wheels must still revolve in dusty, or muddy revolutions. No contrivance, no sagacity can lift them out of the mire; for upon something the coach must be bottomed; on something the insiders must roll.

Just to have found this quote was worth the read alone.

White-Jacket

Published in 1850, White-Jacket is as much an episodic history of the United States Navy between the War of 1812 and the Civil War as it is a novel about a sailor’s remembrances on board the premiere man of war in its fleet. An itinerant sailor stranded in Hawaii gets a position among on the man of war Neversink to round Cape Horn and make his way back to his native New York. He becomes White-Jacket – we never learn his real name – a garment he wears to stand out in his job on the deck maintaining a section of the sail. The jacket helps the crew to see him as he stands high up on the masts, one member of 500 of a strictly hierarchical ship’s crew.

Much like the previous novel, Redburn, White-Jacket’s descriptions of the work, fellow sailors, and anecdotes about the voyage and landings is an insightful look into the reality of being in the navy in the first half of the 19th century. Unlike that novel, Melville’s descriptions become more philosophical, comparing the navy with civilian life. His extended discussions about how the principles of the Constitution are completely violated – with legal, congressional approval – by the ship’s captain and the rules governing the ship. He also finds moments of humor, as when he explains the importances of grog, of staying drunk, or at the very least, addicted to drink, to naval decorum. In observing that “The Navy is the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate,” Melville explains the vital role grog plays:

At the roll of the drum, the sailors assemble round a large tub, or cask, filled with the liquid; and, as their names are called off by the midshipman, they step up and regale themselves from a little tin measure called a “tot.” No high-liver helping himself to Tokay off a well-polished side-board, smacks his lips with more mighty satisfaction that the sailor does over this tot. To many of them, indeed, the thought of their daily tots forms a perpetual perspective of ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding in the distance. It is their great “prospect in life.” Take away their grog, and life possesses no further charms for them. It is hardly to be doubted, that the controlling inducement which keeps many men in the Navy, is the unbounded confidence that they have in the ability of the United States government to supply them, regularly and unfailingly, with their daily allowance of this beverage. I have known several forlorn individuals, shipping as landmen, who have confessed to me, that could have contracted a love for ardent spirits, which they could not renounce, and having by their foolish courses been brought into the most abject poverty—insomuch that they could no longer gratify their thirst ashore—they incontinently entered the Navy; regarding it as the asylum for all drunkards, who might there prolong their lives by regular hours and exercise, and twice every day quench their thirst by moderate and undeviating doses.

Moby Dick

Well, kind of like Ahab, I’ve finally met Moby Dick, in book form. And now that I’ve finally read it, I’m glad I waited. This is not a book for youth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be and that’s why it’s often assigned in middle and high schools in the United States. But it’s a book that should be re- and reread throughout adulthood because its facets can be better seen with age. My only regret, now that I’ve read Moby Dick is that I didn’t read it earlier in my adulthood so that I could have had many rereadings by now. Because that’s what this book deserves, especially if one is interested in American literature.

My only knowledge of Moby Dick came through the Gregory Peck/Richard Basehart film, and I prefer the German dubbed version. Nonetheless, it’s pale compared to the novel.

And there are short stories about people, ship procedures; histories – both human and natural, and 19th century philosophical treatises to ponder. This is more than a novel and it requires commitment from the reader, which Melville rewards. Hopefully the following passage conveys, unlike I am able to now, the simple grandeur of this remarkable novel, of how to connect the tasks of a lookout in a 19th century whaling ship with man’s eternal fate:

Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even through Bering’s straits, an into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke in his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.

[francisco rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve around me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy."

as this is a classic, there will be "spoilers"....

what a juicy book.. boring as fuck at times, but it does reward you throughout. i wanted something that would force me to slow down and pay attention, and it definitely did that. classics are like that i guess! the way melville brings poetry to even his densest passages, where he dissects the whale (literally and figuratively) with just about every razor possible. history, mythology, industry, anatomy, the bible, ecology, philosophy... the cetology doesn't end. in most of these studies, though, he treats the whale with absolute majesty. he makes his hyperfixation interesting, that's for sure.

the legendary opening "call me ishmael" kind of threw me; if i hadn't known it was so renowned i don't think i would've taken much note of it to be honest. what did stand out to me was the way in which ishmael and much of the crew seem to dissolve once the voyage starts. instead, the ship takes on a life, almost a consciousness of its own. its a perspective i haven't seen before, you kind of become the all-seeing eye. in that sense, major dissolution of the ego vibes (which, looking back, is all spelled out in ishmael's intro). at the same time, one of melville's favorite little winks was the idea that "we are all this way". i would go so far as saying he got the closest a human could get to writing about whales the way God knows them.

and i have to say, i love how biblical it got. it felt like reading certain books totally paid off in a literary way with this one. mainly Jonah, for obvious reasons, but also Job, which is the one that means the most to me. every time he describes the idea of the whale as Leviathan it gave me shivers, all the more when it's Moby himself. even Numbers had its moment when he's measuring the goddamn whales... but when it got reallyy juicy was towards the end with the apocalyptic, Revelations-type vibes. the omens are there throughout, but they build up in such a dark and METAL way, i couldn't get enough.

the ship and the sea act as driving forces more so than the narrator or most of the individual characters (excepting Ahab) and on that level i thought the novel adhered to its anti-anthropocentric themes very cohesively. the sea takes on this void quality that put the scale of the humans versus the rest of creation into perspective. it and it's creatures are treated with such sublimity, makes you realize we are Nothing in comparison!! it makes all the violence inflicted so much more grotesque and visceral. "you would have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods". okayyayayyyy. what does it say about me that this whole time, i thought they KILLED MOBY DICK?!?! no, he ended them without a second thought, and as the paragon of what the whole book is talking about, he's right for that. it was a subversion of my expectation, but it brings it all together. i will say, pacing-wise, i think "The Whale" is a better title than Moby Dick.

if you're a big book lover, you have to make your way to this one eventually. if not, don't start here!

i am going to be releasing a pod (hehe) about this on my freeee Patreon, so I'll update this review with the link (here!) when the episode is ready. casual, personal, wavy vibes more so than literary analysis. it's biiiig boook seasoooon

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a long time to be able to read Moby Dick. I tried on many occasions, but I wandered away in the middle. I remembered, recently, the strategy of just plowing through. That's what I had to do with William Blake; I took a seminar where we read the complete works, chronologically, without pause or deviation. This time, I took the same strategy with Melville. I started with Typee and just forged on. I now have a much deeper appreciation of all these books.

Once attaining the "rhythm" of reading nautical romance, they just get better and better. It's like following along as a writer learns to write. At first, the reading is light and easy. It becomes over wrought and a bit meandering around Mardi, but by the time you get here-- to Redburn, in particular, it all comes together. It's a narrative that has much to offer when it comes to thoughts on colonialism and immigration. White Jacket is downright hilarious in places, and where he really gets the pace of the voyage to work for him. Moby Dick, with all it's educational digressions, is like scaling a summit of sorts, with the sprint to the top of the hill as the most rewarding.

I'm looking forward to the last volume in this series of Melville's prose, but I suspect I need to read a few other things and allow time to "breathe" in between. I don't think I've really begun to appreciate the complexity of Moby Dick yet, but I suspect I'll return to it once I've finished the reset of the novels, and perhaps Clarel.

[Jenifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always planned on reading this book but just kept putting it off until I took an Great American Novels Course. A lot of people think the novel is overrated and while I can see thier point I still have to disagree. There are just so many metaphors and different interpretations of this novel for it not to be one of the greats. You can read it in SO many ways, it is just incredible. I wroThe professor who taught this course is a freudian so you can imagine the kinds of conversations were started during class; they were very entertainging to say the least. I wrote a paper on this novel that I was quite proud of. The more open you are to the imagination and the ablility to read beyond the surface of the plot, the more you will enjoy it. The possibilities are endless in just a few hundred pages.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read Redburn, which is a great tale of a sailor from NY across the Atlantic to Liverpool and back. This was Melville's first novel. Young Redburn was very naive and I saw a lot of a young me in him. In one moment, he becomes overwhelmed on a ferry and has a meltdown with a gun. Although no one was hurt, it sounded eerily like something that could happen in our own day with much more disastrous consequences. While Redburn has many serious moments, it also had many humorous or downright funny moments as well. As an historian, I found his comments on race and immigration interesting as a source from the late 1840s as both became issues in the wake of the Mexican War and the Irish Potato Famine.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?

Redburn: 4 stars
White-Jacket: 5 stars
Moby-Dick: 5,000 stars

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. A must read for everyone. A book I plan to re-read soon.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moby-Dick ***** – I originally picked up this book to read Redburn, which I’d never read. But the coming of age story – a young boy trying to survive in a strange world – seemed rather depressing and I just wasn’t in the mood for it. Then I happened to turn to Moby-Dick and started reading it.

And I noticed it’s funny – I mean truly laugh-out-loud funny. Starting with Ishmael’s misanthropical rant about going to sea, the novel unfolds one unlikely and humorous scene after another. So I kept reading it. I’ve read it several times before, and I knew it had some humorous parts, but I suppose that I used to think the humor was just a part of the melodrama to set up the tragic ending. This time, though, I approached it with a different mindset, more receptive to – and more observant of – the humor.

There’s not much I can add to the tomes written about this great American novel. Here are my thoughts as I read through it.

Chapter 1-25 – What a funny book! The narrator’s wry observations, his introduction to Queequeg, their odd-couple friendship, finding the Pequod, meeting Captains Bildad and Peleg – the first quarter of the book is fantastic. Melville beautifully sets up a clash of cultures – Polynesian vs American, sea vs land, Christian vs pagan, etc.

I wonder what our British cousins made of this strange and wild novel, coming out shortly after Dickens’ David Copperfield.

Chapter 26-50 – In these chapters, the book takes a sharp turn. The humor drops off precipitously and Ishmael as an active character in the action disappears for several chapters at time. But what a wonderful turn it takes toward the dark, the strange and the foreboding. (01/16)

Chapt. 36 The Quarter-Deck, which introduces Moby Dick, Chapt. 37 Sunset, featuring Ahab’s soliloquy, Chapt. 38, Starbuck’s soliloquy, Chapt. 39, Stubb’s soliloquy, Chapt. 40, men on the boat, Chapt. 41 on the history of Moby Dick and Chapt. 42, the Whiteness of the Whale are all wonderfully weird, sprawling, winding chapters, unlike anything written before. His influence by Shakespeare shines through the writing. (08/16)


Chapters 48-71 – This stretch of the oceanic novel mixes ominous chapters (such as the Town-Ho and Jeroboam) with commonplaces of the whaler’s life and fun facts about whales. What to make of these latter – what shall I call these? – supplementary chapters. There’s fierce disagreement. Doctoral students have leveled many a forest justifying these chapters; nay, arguing vehemently for their primary importance without which the novel would not stand. Chapters on pictures of whales, whale skin, whale classifications, etc. abound. One can argue their value to the overall novel, my gripe is that they are not written with the same verve and power of those around them. I sense Melville going through the motions of paraphrasing passages from other book. (Or stealing from them?) There is a feeling of padding. Following chapters of bizarre, chilling, uplifting and down-putting prose, these supplementary chapters pale. Almost always, though, they end with a dynamic final sentence or paragraph. (05/18)

Chapters 72-99 – These chapters highlight more of Melville’s sly humor with a phrenological study of the whale’s head (chapters 79 and 80), the squeezing of the sperm (chapter 94) and the whale’s special tool (chapter 95). There are, of course, the unusually detailed examinations of the process to remove the oil, an extended examination of the sperm whale and how it compares to a right whale, an a dubious history of the whale. In between, the Dutch Jungfrau visits the Pequod looking for oil, a there are a couple of horrible whale deaths.

Melville’s narrative experiments continue with chapter 99, The Doubloon. The other outstanding chapters include chapter 96, The Try-Works, and the story of Pip in chapter 93, The Castaway.

Some memorable lines:

- “I try all things. I achieve what I can.” Chapter 79, page 291
- “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.” Chapter 82, pg. 304
- “Look not too long in the face of the fire, o man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm!” Chapter 96, page 354
- “There is a wisdom that is woe, but there is a woe that is madness.” Chapter 96, page 355
(10/18)


Chapters 100-135 (and Epilogue) – What wonderfully disturbing writing. These last 35 chapters are what secure Moby-Dick’s position as one of the best novels ever written. The prose is rambling, maddening and deeply weird, with no regard for narrative consistency or form. The novel becomes a play becomes a soliloquy becomes memoir.

As the Pequod nears its tragic end, the crew meets a series of boats starting with the Samuel Enderby in chapter 100. Then the novel has several chapters on the size of the whale. Then, starting with Ahab’s Leg (chapter 106) and going through The Carpenter (chapter 107) and Ahab and the Carpenter (chapter 108), there are several chapters on replacing Ahab’s ivory leg which are wickedly weird and philosophical. Queequeg becomes so ill they make a coffin for him, but he recovers. Witless Pip commands more attention and becomes like Lear’s Fool to Ahab. Bad omens pile up. They meet the happy Bachelor, spurn the Rachel, and look on the Delight’s sad crew. Until finally, chapter 133, the White Whale is seen. The novel moves rapidly toward its ordained conclusion, Ahab sinking twice, and the third time not rising. Ending, of course, with the great words, “from hell’s heart I stab at thee” spoken by Khan Noonien Singh – I mean Ahab.

Among the best of many great chapters in this section are A Bower in the Arascide, chapter 102, Ahab’s Leg chapter 106, The Carpenter chapter 107, Ahab and the Carpenter chapter 108, and The Cabin chapter 129.

Some memorable lines:
- “Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.” Page 375
- “But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing – at least what untattooed parts might remain – I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.” Page 376
- “… the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.” Page 386
- “… Let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.” Page 394
- "Omen? omen?--the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honourably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint.-- Begone!” page 452
- “To the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same — the same!” page 468
(04/19)

[James Varney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time through, “Moby-Dick” can seem like a slog. Certainly the pages of what Melville calls “Extracts” at the beginning can be skipped, and chapters stuffed with history in the first third of the novel can drag. The thing is, everyone knows what happens in “Moby-Dick” whether they’ve read it or not. So it’s easy to think, “let’s get to the chase!” (literally in Moby-Dick’s case, given that’s what the final chapters are called).
But all readers also know Achilles kills Hector and a Shakespearean stage will be littered with corpses at the end, but that doesn’t stop one from reading, and being astonished by, “The Iliad” or “Hamlet.” The same is true for “Moby-Dick.”
What’s more, Melville has so many wonderful, funny lines speckled throughout. I think I missed some of the jokes on a first reading, which, cover-to-cover, probably happened a decade ago. I’ve got a beat-up Norton Critical Edition that I’ve owned since at least 1979, and it’s a great companion, if you will. I highly recommend it for the notes and other information packed in there, or along with the Library of America volume (they both use the same text).
Even in early chapters, Melville delivers great passages, such as this where he’s talking about Nantucket whalers and it’s the only port for him:
“The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home; there lies his business, which a Noah’s flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps…With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is nestled to sleep between billows, so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.”
There is something Biblical about “Moby-Dick,” and it’s not just Ahab’s speech or the presence of about two million useless commas and semi-colons. The novel’s immense sweep, its incredible originality - all of it amazes and all of it is on a scale matched only by a handful of books, such as the Bible.
And as for Shakespeare - Starbuck’s soliloquy in “Dusk,” Chapter 38, is as profound as any uttered by Macbeth. And here is Ahab, musing as he looks over the Pequod’s side at the dangling head of the first sperm whale they’ve killed:
“Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home…Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed - while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
Superb.
And for those who claim “Moby-Dick” is too “old-fashioned” or “dated” I say, that’s a dodge. It’s fascinating to see how different things were in Melville’s day, even to a brilliant man like him. For example, he concludes whales are fish, even though he knows they have lungs and warm blood. Was the classification of “mammal” after 1850? I can’t believe it was, yet Melville doesn’t make that connection.
The time gap often reflects well on Melville. Consider this line, where he is talking about the sperm whale’s vast, tough, flat front in a chapter called “Battering Ram” where he foreshadows the Pequod’s end and chastens those who doubt his descriptions:
“...and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow.”
If only the men digging the Panama Canal had had a few sperm whales to go with the mosquitoes!
Let’s be honest: breathtaking is what you’re looking for when you read “Moby-Dick” (well, that and unforgettable characters like Ahab, Queequeg, Stubb, Flask, Fedallah and Moby-Dick), and Melville delivers in heaps. “Moby-Dick” is packed with action, and all of it filtered through not only Melville’s extraordinary talent but also his profound love of and respect for the sea. Like Conrad, Melville is a poet when it comes to the ocean.
“Moby-Dick” has a thousand gorgeous sentences like this:
“And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.”
His scene-setting is terrific, too. I’ll offer one, which comes from the first time they lower boats from the Pequod and take off after whales:
“It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurring and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down the other side; - all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooners, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; - all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the first unknown phantom in the other world; - neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.”
All of this comes before the famous chase - as does a race against pirates in the South Seas, Melville’s humorous asides about Lima, and the great psychological war between Ahab and Starbuck, Ahab and The Whale, and the Pequod and its crew against the ocean.
I’m hardly the first to say it, but, please, if you love great novels, read “Moby-Dick.”

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a work of great erudition; it has extraordinary moments of prose and plotting that reveal Melville's genius, but it taxed me so much that it took most of the pleasure from reading it. Ahab is such an unsympathetic character. He seems never to have had a relationship with any human being, so it's hard to even hate him because he seems so inhuman. Starbuck, Queequeg, Pip, and Stubbs much more fully engaged my attention, but I think Melville's effort to have us enter into the dark soul (does he have one?) of Ahab and the mysterious actions of the whale, while it makes us contemplate the twin horrors of being disconnected from other humans and their needs as well as the truly awesome power of nature against which humans have so little control, leaves us as stranded and wrecked as Ishmael in the novel's conclusion. Melville's "Bartleby" is so much more satisfying because of its brevity while retaining the sense of mystery in man's condition on this earth. In the novel's final chapters, he sees the need for compassion for both Starbuck and Pip, but I just didn't believe the momentary change or why Ahab was so murderously destructive. I resist the five stars rating because Melville in this work fails to reveal more of the human in his protagonist while diving into the depths of his darkness.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melville wrote in his letters that he produced Redburn and White-Jacket "...for money—being forced to it as other men are to sawing wood". Yet even within these stories there is a deeper artistic streak (notably restrained) that nonetheless bursts through from time to time and produces something brilliant. He cannot help but burst into poesy or - via reference - share with us the depths of his reading and erudition.

Highly worth reading for anyone enamored with Melville.

[Daniel Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

writing just one of these books would make Melville one of my favourite writers. Having written all three, my heart is his. Redburn and White-Jacket don't get mentioned very often I find, but of the two I'd say I prefer Redburn, but that Wihte-jacket is generally the stronger book. Moby-Dick is Moby-Dick, what more can you say about the greatest book ever written.

[Lucas Chance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Based on Moby Dick alone, I'll give this a 5. But Redburn and White-Jacket are definitely shades in comparison. They are by no means bad and they do have their own goals, but they feel barebones in comparison to what Melville achieves afterwards.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 4 out of 5]

classic tale of an epic adventure,you don't want to miss. This is one to buy and keep handy on your shelf.

[GRANT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moby-Dick, a strange and ponderous novel. Still want to read the others.

[Adam Gossman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book.

[Brad Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of the novels is Moby-Dick in this collection of these three novels dealing with the sea. 2.5 stars for Redburn; 3.25 stars for White-Jacket; and 4.8 stars for Moby-Dick.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of unique genius, a parable of American greed and madness. Flecked with lots and lots of whale lore, of course, but also with rising horror and looming tragedy. A true American masterpiece.

[Kevin Demel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the story but not all the build up to the end. I didn't like that I had to read 400 pages to get to the story which occurred in just 25 pages. I only read the Moby Dick story.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this maybe twenty years ago. It has been a while. I remember enjoying it. I will pick it up again soon, no doubt.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moby-Dick is a book you need to read twice, because the first time you read it it’s entirely not what you expect. The second time around gives you a chance to know what’s coming-—yes, there will be an entire chapter about the color white—-and even then, the novel is just full of so many bizarre and beautiful images and amazing turns-of-language it can still suckerpunch you. (I mean, there’s a scene where Ahab stands in the middle of a typhoon waving a flaming harpoon!)

This Library of America volume puts Moby-Dick side by side with the lesser known Redburn and White-Jacket. These are both less story driven and more fictionalized documentary. Redburn, ostensibly about a young sailor’s first voyage, is really a series of chapters describing life as a sailor. What plot there is is fairly slight. White-Jacket is similar, only this time it is about life in the U.S. Navy aboard a Man-of-War. (These plot-free novels make all the plot-free descriptive chapters of Moby-Dick understandable in context. It's what 19th century readers expected when they picked up a book by Mr. Melville.) Both of these novels have their standout moments. Redburn has a chilling chapter where the young narrator on a layover in Liverpool watches a mother and her children starve to death over the course of several days. And White-Jacket has a chapter about an on-board amputation that is so gory, absurd, and funny it could just as well have appeared in Catch-22.

Moby-Dick of course is a giant and beautiful mess. It’s a slaughtered-whale of a novel, to speak metaphorically. (Which is easy to do after immersing yourself in 600 pages of Melville’s non-stop metaphorizing.) It’s no refined classic. It’s unkempt, preposterous, beautiful and totally American.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moby Dick was way cool. Well, it had a LOT of scientific information and a lot of philosophy. I liked it very much. I can see people in the 1850s (who had never seen the Discovery Channel) poring over it for whale details. On the other hand, it was a bit too much detail for a novel... and not enough for a scientific treatise. I'm glad he explained how whales had been represented in literature in the past; it made my wading through his scientific details that much easier. I saw the need for his detailing.

In these days, when people in general are more likely to have actually seen footage of whales and to have learned somewhat about them, the book _Moby Dick_ could be cut in half easily and not lose much philosophically.

I found the psychological conflict compelling. Where would you draw the line if your commander lost his mental ballast? I felt for Starbuck, but I don't know if I would have chosen any differently. He had to determine whether to follow to Ahab's doom or perhaps doom the ship by mutiny. I wonder that he did not speak with other crewmembers about it; then again, if Stubbs wouldn't support him (he indicated that Stubbs would keep smiling to the end regardless of what happened), who would he confide in? And wouldn't the very act of confiding undermine his purpose or constitute mutiny against Ahab?

It seemed miraculous to me that the ship should be stove in and sink, as it were, instantly. After wading through so many pages of little or no dramatic action, the end was sudden. And yet it suited the tale. It fit, and I'm glad that Melville stopped there, not continuing to philosophize after Ishmael was picked up.

[Markgroner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just for Moby Dick - I couldn't find the edition I read on GoodReads, so I picked this one...

Ok, that was a monster of a book. I think it took me two months to read. It hasn't taken me two months to read a book since I was 10 and tried to read the Lord of the Rings.

Anyhoo - I am not really going to try write a review of this book. I do think I'll read it again and I do think it is more than deserving of its fame and high regard.

Even taking so long to read it I feel that I rushed it. It really needs to be savored, even memorized in key quotes and scenes. But in other parts it is just painful to read and you feel like you have to force yourself through the endless descriptions of comparative whale anatomy, whale classification, whale lifecycles, whale heads, whale fins, whale vertebrae, whale teeth, whale history, whale art, historical whale captains, whale watching methods, whale blubber extraction, whale ambergris, whale boning, whale hooking, whale harpooning, whale growth, whale foreheads, whale noses, whale eyes, whale scrimshaw, whaling boats, whale, whale, whale, whale, whale....

But it serves a purpose and Moby Dick makes my short list of "Great Novels" even if it in no way is it a gripping or even necessarialy fun read.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ishmael and Queequeg are two guys who are looking for work in 19th Century America. When they come upon a job opportunity aboard the Pequod, a whaling vessel led by Captain Ahab, they feel they've found their ideal jobs with Ishmael working as an oarsman and Queequeg as a harpooneer. Things go awry early when Ahab makes his intention known to hunt down the great white whale named Moby-Dick that severed his leg years earlier. The first half of the book as well as the ending are incredibly well written with hints of period humor. However, once the ship is at sea, Melville tends to follow each plot-line chapter with excruciatingly long chapters dedicated either to the history of whaling or the anatomy of whales. Initially, these "history" lessons are fine and dandy, but they become quite tedious after a while and you pray that the follow-up action will be worth the wait.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the Library of America editions, though I've only read Moby Dick in this one. There's so much metaphorical ambiguity in Moby Dick that it's hard not to arrive at a subversive interpretation. The star of the novel is Ahab, a man whose obsession is so profound that obsession itself becomes the theme, and the target, of Melville's harpoon. The question is what was Melville really talking about... personal obsession, political obsession, philosophical obsession, and where is the dividing line between obsession and ambition? How much sacrifice is tolerable to attain one's goals? Is extremism in the defense of liberty defensible? There are far more questions than answers here, but they are great questions. I sort of wish Melville had been more focused in his approach, but I suspect there was a reason he was not. He might have been crazy, but not as crazy as Ahab.