Moby-Dick or, the Whale

This book. I'm not quite sure what to say. I started this book out thinking this was going to be fun. After 140 pages or so, I was glad I found a very well done audiobook (solo recorded) on librivox.org –> Moby Dick read by Stewart Wills

There were quite a few beautiful passages. Perhaps my favourite ones were Chapter 94 - A Squeeze of the hand and the ones about the anatomy of the Sperm and Right Whale. Throughout the book I've been interested by the large mammals and sea life in general. It has inspired me to look up a multitude of stuff.

For the rest of it though. It is dense, terse and does not move along at all. The story is hardly the most interesting part of the book, but it's what keeps coming back. It sometimes feels as if Melville was really trying to show everyone how much he really knows about stuff.

I'm not sure I will ever muster up the courage to reread this ever again.