I <3 Books

1851

Wow, long, long. This was the most daunitng and difficult novel I have ever read. Why is it so famous? It's not really that good. Way too much description, so little movement. As a writer, Melville is on par with Hugo for his nowledge of the classiscs and ability to construct a sentence. But falls far behind when it comes to building a story. It is as much a techincal briefing of 18th century whaling as it is a fiction novel. There are so many chapters about the specific way to complete this or that specialized whaling manoever that removing 25% of the book would affect it little. There's probably an abriged version that's much more readable. After 900 pages, the reader knows more about whaling than about the characters and their relationships with each other. There's too much tell, and not enough show. Often, a whole chapter will be devoted to describing exactly what kind of man one of the sailors is, that you would think you know him. But it is then so rare to see that sailor in action -because there is so little action - that you don't get to know the characters at all. It is the opposite of Les Miserables for it's character and story development.

As a psycho-thriller, it almost feels like an old movie from the fifties that can't really cut it against new ultra-thrilling movies now. It is a bit predictable, and a bit repetitive. The captain is crazy, they sail looking for the whale, and ask everyone they meet if they've seen the whale. It builds to a crescendo, but the crescendo is so obvious that it's not rewarding arriving there.

The picture it paints of whaling life is vivid and real. The author did work on boats. And as far as my interest is whaling history goes, it satisfies any curiosity thoroughly. There is a certain amount of American myth-making and boosterism that contributes to it's place as a great American novel. Barack Obama said it was his favourite novel, I think his advisors told him to say that.