Moby-Dick

⭐ ⭐ ☆ ☆ ☆

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

So… it’s a book about whaling?! 🐳

Well, yes. But that’s not what I mean.

I mean it’s practically non-fiction. Out of its 135 chapters, maybe a dozen actually move the plot forward. The rest read like a mash-up between a whale biology textbook and a 19th-century sailing manual.

It gets 2 stars for the prose alone. Melville’s style is so hypnotically rich and intricate that it almost disguises how much of the book is meandering and unnecessary.

The finale is another oddity. Normally, a climax is followed by at least a little breathing room, a chapter or two to tie up loose ends. But here? The finale arrives far too late, and when it does, it’s over in a blink. The climax hits, and then… curtain. Abrupt and unsatisfying, the sudden stop only highlights how long it took to get there, made worse by the sheer size of the thing.

Moby-Dick is, to me, a perfect example of collective opinion shaping personal opinion. Its reputation has been inflated by history, making it revered by default. I can appreciate its place in literary history, but it’s a product of its time. If it came out today, it would be criticized for being bloated, earn mediocre reviews, sell modestly, and quietly fade away.

Unfortunately, epic novels of this kind just don’t get nurtured in the 21st century.