Peter Adamson’s Reviews > Moby-Dick; or, The Whale > Status Update

I've never tackled this story though I watched a Ron Howard film on Prime that tells the story of how Melville interviewed one of the few survivors of the whaling ship Essex that was attacked by the white whale and formed the basis for his fictional interpretation

It is not AT ALL what I thought it would be. Very little of the book is about Ahab and Moby!

Wow..I had no idea. The characters in the movie are far and away different from this story so if true, its obvious Melville fictionalized the account. Some say he uses Ahab and the whale as metaphor

It is really about whales and whaling in the mid 19th century. Full stop.

That's what's told in the story of the Essex..the ship launches from New England and traverses the globe..after months of unsuccessful hunting, they come across a school of sperm whales and while hunting the giant white whale attacks the Essex causing it to sink. The survivors take to life boats and over time, most all of them perish