Moby-Dick or, The Whale (Penguin Classics)

I'll warn you now, a balanced review this aint. This book brought out a lot of powerful emotions in me and none of them good. Widely regarded as a ... (show more)

I'll warn you now, a balanced review this aint. This book brought out a lot of powerful emotions in me and none of them good. Widely regarded as a classic of 19th century American literature Moby Dick is often hailed as a work of genius by minds far greater than mine. So I have no doubt that this is true but I cannot fathom why. I really would love for someone to explain to me why this book is so wonderful. I hated it. Here are my reasons; they are many:
First of all the narrator (who I shall call Ishmael) is an incredibly boring and insipid character which is actually quite an achievement considering his mysterious past and the fact that he randomly joins whaling ships when his life is in a crisis. You'd expect that this would make him intriguing and somewhat enigmatic, but no! I couldn't have cared less if he'd been thrown overboard and drowned. In fact I'd have been quite pleased to be rid of him.
There is of course the obvious cruelty to whales which made for some extremely uncomfortable reading, but in all fairness to Melville this was fully expected in a novel about whaling back in the days when whales were misunderstood as aggressive fish that enjoyed eating people. I was of course expecting harpooning, bludgeoning and general animal torture, and yet the graphic descriptions and glorification of brutality were really very upsetting. The strong emotional response this provoked is no way in credit to Melville's writing style however; it's just an upsetting and emotive subject.
This brings me to the writing style. Well, where do I even start in my criticism of that? Melville's philosophy seems to be why use one apt, well thought out metaphor when several hundred crap, not at all related to the subject ones will suffice. There is a whole chapter, a whole freakin' chapter, on "the whiteness of the whale" in which Melville compares Moby Dick's whiteness to that of every other creature in the known world, explains religious symbolic connotations of the colour white, and even analyses the Latin roots of the word "white." All this and he could simply have written, "The whale was white. Really, really white. And I find that oddly unsettling." The whole novel is weighed down by over-description, obscure tangents, and unnecessary detail. If you're considering going whaling on a 19th century ship and want to know how to best dismember your prey and sell its oil for a profit, then this book would be all you'd ever need. Right down to the size of the harpoons you'd require and exactly how much oil you could fit into your cargo hold. If on the other hand you are one of those odd people who expects nothing more than a plot, coherent sentences, and entertainment from a novel then boy are you going to be disappointed.
And disappointment is the overall impression I was left with after reading. Because there is such potential! It could have been so, so good! There are themes of revenge and obsession, insanity and despair, and of course action and adventure. Occasionally a glimmer of hope would surface when Ahab revealed his mad desire to stop at nothing in his quest for vengeance on a dumb animal, or when there was the possibilty of mutiny and betrayal, but this was soon abandoned for yet another mind-numbing description of how best to clean whale blood out of the mainsail. In a story about the destructive nature of obsession and the dangers of living at sea I was expecting a bit of suspense and excitement. What could be more exciting than the prospect of someone potentially having their limbs chewed off by an angry whale?, I thought. So why, WHY am I so bloody bored!?
To sum up, it's not often that I hate a book, but I hated this one. (show less)