Moby Dick

Synopsis: When Ishmael sets sail on the whaling ship Pequod one cold Christmas Day, he has no idea of the horrors awaiting him out on the vast and merciless ocean. The ship's strange captain, Ahab, is in the grip of an obsession to hunt down the famous white whale, Moby Dick, and will stop at nothing on his quest to annihilate his nemesis.

Review: I'm not an avid seafarer, I've been known to go a bit green around the gills on the Isle of Wight ferry, but I do love reading books about the sea and I think you have to be a bit of an enthusiast to get the most out of this story, perhaps not quite as fanatical as Captain Ahab but definitely interested in all things nautical and whaling in particular because the book goes into such minute descriptions that anyone not interested will just find it boring, wordy and hard work. It's true that the actual story could be told in half the amount of pages maybe less but I enjoyed all the detail and relished the lulls as well as the peaks. Sometimes it felt more like a reference book but just as you're getting bogged down with all the facts and figures you are pulled back into the pitch and toss of the story once more. The chapters, on the whole, are extremely short (sometimes less than a page long) and this helps you to feel you're progressing.

It's a large book but absolutely compelling, there are long chapters on cetology and descriptions of the crew and ship (so detailed that you feel he has included every plank and nail,) but I didn't find myself wandering at any point, I was genuinely interested in all the minutiae. It's not an easy read though and is probably not for those who like their adventure stories to rattle along, you probably could skip all the chapters about whaling lore and read a sort of potted version. Occasionally the writing leaps into madness and you just hang on for dear life, Ahab himself spouts all sorts of maniacal rhetoric and the thoughts and remarks of the crew are given in one long continuous stream.

As most people know (from it's famous first line) this is a story told from the perspective of Ishmael, but strangely Ishmael is the character that we get to know the least .. probably because he is observing others and relating all to us. There are fascinating descriptions of the others though, in particular Queequeg (the cannibal harpooneer and 'infernal head peddler') with his yellow purplish skin tattoed with blackish squares, his small scalp-knot twisted upon his forehead, his legs which were marked as if 'a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms' and his tomahawk clenched between his teeth and Ahab with his whalebone leg, broad form seemingly made of solid bronze and facial scar that disappears into his clothing which 'resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts it down, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, living the tree still greenly alive, but branded.'

Ishmael, seeking adventure and needing some money thinks he will 'sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hat's off - then, I account it high time to get to sea.' This time he has a notion to go whaling and so betakes himself to Nantucket to sign up as a member of the crew for the whaling ship the Pequod. What he doesn't realise at this point is that the captain of the Pequod is a man who has been driven to madness and beyond by his desire for revenge on the white whale Moby Dick.

I was especially excited to read the climax and abolish once and for all awful images of Gregory Peck clonking about on deck, waging war on a huge piece of fibreglass (I just couldn't suspend disbelief enough.) An added benefit of this beautiful Vintage edition is the inclusion of an extract from Owen Chase's 'Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex', a true account which, if anything, I found even more fascinating than that of Moby Dick.

I loved it, I felt like I was drenched with salt and greasy with spermaceti by the time I'd finished and knew enough to be able to pass muster as a harpooneer if ever I could be prevailed upon to do anything as barbaric as hunt whales (which I never could .. first there's the seasickness and then there's the squeamishness .. I can't even despatch a flower munching garden slug.) Actually the whales were the one's that had my deepest sympathies, in that respect Moby Dick is a bit of a hero ... he is not going to have any truck with these murderous seamen and he's definitely the one calling the shots and wearing the trousers.

I found it really enthralling but it's a book that should come with a warning, if you're easily bored or like stories with a lot of pace and action, this probably isn't for you. It wasn't successful in it's day and that's probably because it's considered by some to be long winded (but as you can tell by this review ... long winded isn't a problem for me ) It's not a relaxing read but I found the effort well worth it, I read some of the best passages I've ever read .. I think I would have given him 10 out of 10 just for writing a line such as ... 'whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul' .. bliss! (and now someone will tell me that Shakespeare first wrote that )