"It will be a strange sort of a book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;--& to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy.... Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this." Moby-Dick has a monumental reputation. Less well known are the novel's unexpectedly weird, funny, tantalizing, messy, and wondrous moments. Narrator Ishmael, along with the whaleship Pequod's other "meanest mariners, and renegades ...
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"It will be a strange sort of a book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;--& to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy.... Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this." Moby-Dick has a monumental reputation. Less well known are the novel's unexpectedly weird, funny, tantalizing, messy, and wondrous moments. Narrator Ishmael, along with the whaleship Pequod's other "meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways", is beguiled into joining Captain Ahab in his vengeful pursuit of the white whale that "dismasted" him. But along the way, Ishmael takes the reader along many a detour into variegated ways of knowing. In a tone "strangely compounded of fun and fury", Moby-Dick brings outlandish curiosity to bear on the multitudinous, oceanic scale of our diverse world. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Add this copy of Moby-Dick (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by Big River Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Powder Springs, GA, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Dover Publications.
Add this copy of Moby-Dick to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by Jenson Books Inc rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Logan, UT, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Simon & Schuster.
Add this copy of Moby Dick to cart. $0.99, fair condition, Sold by Jenson Books Inc rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Logan, UT, UNITED STATES, published 2017 by Flowerpot Press.
Add this copy of Moby Dick (Wordsworth Classics) to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
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Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of Moby Dick (Great Illustrated Classics) to cart. $0.99, fair condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1990 by Baronet.
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Fair. Used book-May contain writing notes highlighting bends or folds. Text is readable book is clean and pages and cover mostly intact. May show normal wear and tear. Item may be missing CD. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of Moby Dick to cart. $1.01, good condition, Sold by Jenson Books Inc rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Logan, UT, UNITED STATES, published 2017 by Flowerpot Press.
Add this copy of Moby Dick to cart. $1.09, fair condition, Sold by Jenson Books Inc rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Logan, UT, UNITED STATES, published 1955 by Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Add this copy of Moby Dick (Wordsworth Classics) to cart. $1.18, fair condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
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Fair. Used book-May contain writing notes highlighting bends or folds. Text is readable book is clean and pages and cover mostly intact. May show normal wear and tear. Item may be missing CD. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of Moby Dick to cart. $1.26, very good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 1994 by Dorset Press.
Add this copy of Moby-Dick (Bantam Classics) to cart. $1.34, good condition, Sold by Gulf Coast Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Memphis, TN, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Bantam Classics.
This book was just like new & in excellent condition.
dekesolomon
Oct 31, 2009
Whaling is a deep subject.
A lot of people can't understand Moby-Dick. And I think, to an extent, nobody can fully understand this book who doesn't know at least a little about the transcendentalist movement in American literature.
Transcendentalism, to Thoreau and Emerson, et al., was the idea that one can get to know God by studying nature. Thoreau was transcendentalism's greatest proponent. That's what 'Walden Pond' was all about.
Melville used Ahab and the whale to show (to put it as simply as possible) that one thing we learn when we study nature is that God isn't necessarily a creature we'd like to be closely acquainted with. When little Pip, the cabin boy, falls out of the whaleboat -- to take one example -- he sinks down and down, then he goes down a little farther, then farther still, and then he sinks some more until, bye and bye, he sank so far down in the ocean that he 'saw God's foot on the treadle of the loom.' At that point his mind snapped and when he finally broke surface, he was as crazy as a crap-house mouse. Having seen God, he became a madman, and his derangement was permanent.
Ahab is crazy because he, too, has met God -- and the damned thing took his leg off. He was not happy about losing his leg. He has sworn vengeance on God (manifest in the unstoppable power of the whale) and he will have it if it kills him -- as of course it finally does. Ahab's rage against God reflects the human creature's rage to order the insane universe (God) in which we live.
I mean, that vein is deep and rich. Moby-Dick gives us plenty of room to think and plenty of material to think about, and if we bother to think about it we'll be thinking for a long while. How about the scene where the men sit in a circle around a tub, squishing spermaceti between their fingers? Is there a circle-jerk going on there? Is there a hint at the homosexuality that was so common in all-male crews who spent months and years at sea?
In sum, I believe the novel has at least three purposes and at least two of those are didactic. On the one hand it discourses on transcendentalism, on the nature of God and the nature of man and the relationship between them. On the other hand, it discourses on the life of the whalers. We learn from reading Moby-Dick a very great deal about life and work on a wooden, wind-powered, Yankee whaling vessel. You can read it one way, you can read it the other way, or you can read it as a straight-up, meaningless adventure yarn. No matter how you read it, it's a whale of a tale and it's one that always yields more to those who re-read it.
I give it five stars because I think it earns every one of 'em.
abc20
Aug 6, 2007
Where to start with Moby Dick...
Had to read this book for English. The opening was really interesting, and it wasn't too bad until they were on the boat and Melville goes on and on about whale parts. I was warned about this in advance, so I just skimmed over those parts. It's really a great classic story if you can get beyond Melville's style at times.