Book Bearings
Moby Dick
- 452 pages · about 8 hours
- First published 1851
- 1,115 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
"Command the murderous chalices! Drink ye harpooners! Drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow -- Death to Moby Dick!" So Captain Ahab binds his crew to fulfil his obsession -- the destruction of the great white whale. Under his lordly but maniacal command the Pequod's commercial mission is perverted to one of vengeance.
To Ahab, the monster that destroyed his body is not a creature, but the symbol of "some unknown but still reasoning thing." Uncowed by natural disasters, ill omens, even death, Ahab urges his ship towards "the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale."
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Adventure
- Classics
- Fantasy, epic
- Psychological fiction
- Sea stories
- People with mental illness
- Whaling
2 What to expect
A long novel of a whaling voyage, narrated by the sailor Ishmael, under a captain bent on revenge against the white whale that took his leg. The chase is only part of it: whole chapters stop to describe whales, the whaling trade and life aboard ship, and others read like sermons, stage plays or philosophy. The language is rich, allusive and often difficult, with humor beside the obsession, and the pace is slow.
Good for readers who want: a major American classic, the sea and whaling, and a great book to take your time with.
3 Read it free, right here
A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.
Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Herman Melville
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
5 More by Herman Melville
6 Similar books
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- The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
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