Moby-Dick pdf Overview
Moby-Dick pdf or The Whale , a novel by American writer Herman Melville Written in 1851. The book is the sailor Ishmael’s narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick pdf, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship’s previous voyage bit off Ahab’s leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick pdf was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author’s death in 1891. Its reputation as a “Great American Novel” was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author’s birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world” and “the greatest book of the sea ever written”. Its opening sentence, “Call me Ishmael”, is among world literature’s most famous.
Moby-Dick pdf or The Whale Summary
Moby-Dick pdf; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, in which Ishmael narrates the monomaniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the albino sperm whale Moby Dick, which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab’s ship and severed his leg at the knee. Although the novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author’s death in 1891, its reputation grew immensely during the twentieth century. D. H. Lawrence called it “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world,” and “the greatest book of the sea ever written.” Moby-Dick is considered a Great American Novel and an outstanding work of the Romantic period in America and the American Renaissance. “Call me Ishmael” is one of world literature’s most famous opening sentences. The product of a year and a half of writing, the book is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, “in token of my admiration for his genius,” and draws on Melville’s experience at sea, on his reading in whaling literature, and on literary inspirations such as Shakespeare and the Bible. The detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God. In addition to narrative prose, Melville uses styles and literary devices ranging from songs, poetry and catalogs to Shakespearean stage directions, soliloquies and asides. The author changed the title at the very last moment in September 1851. The work first appeared as The Whale in London in October 1851, and then under its definitive title Moby-Dick pdf in New York in November. The whale, however, appears in both the London and New York editions as “Moby Dick,” with no hyphen. The British edition of five hundred copies was not reprinted during the author’s life, the American of almost three thousand was reprinted three times at approximately 250 copies, the last reprinting in 1871. These figures are exaggerated because three hundred copies were destroyed in a fire at Harper’s; only 3,200 copies were actually sold during the author’s life.
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Herman Melville Author Moby-Dick pdf Book
Celebrated American author Herman Melville wrote ‘Moby-Dick’ pdf book and several other sea-adventure novels before turning to poetry later in his literary career. Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. He worked as a crew member on several vessels beginning in 1839, his experiences spawning his successful early novels Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). Subsequent books, including his masterpiece Moby-Dick pdf(1851), sold poorly, and by the 1860s Melville had turned to poetry. Following his death in New York City in 1891, he posthumously came to be regarded as one of the great American writers. Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, to Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill (Maria added the “e” to the family name following her husband’s death). In the mid-1820s, young Melville fell ill to scarlet fever, and though he regained his health not long afterward, his vision was left permanently impaired by the illness.
Moby-Dick pdf Book Information (Bookdepository)
Below, you will get all the basic information you need to know about Moby-dick pdf and its paperback versions.
- Format Paperback | 544 pages
- Dimensions 129 x 198 x 27mm | 336g
- Publication date 01 Dec 1999
- Publisher Wordsworth Editions Ltd
- Publication City/Country Herts, United Kingdom
- Language English
- ISBN10 1853260088
- ISBN13 9781853260087
- Bestsellers rank 10,138
Read Moby-Dick pdf excerpt or The Whale by Herman Melville online
CHAPTER 1
Loomings
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely–having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs–commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?–Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks glasses! of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster–tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here? But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in.
And there they stand–miles of them–leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues,– north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries–stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever. But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke.Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him.
Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies–what is the one charm wanting?–Water there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
Moby-Dick pdf Quotes or The Whale Quotes
“In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents.”
– Ishmael, Chapter 68.
“Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.”-Starbuck, Chapter 114.
“They think me mad – Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened!”- Captain Ahab, Chapter 37.
“Ye’ve shipped, have ye? Names down on the papers?” – Elijah, Chapter 19.
“Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape Codman.” – Ishmael, Chapter 27.
“Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places.” – Stubb, Chapter 99.
“Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to yourself.” – Steelkilt, Chapter 54.
“I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer.” – Captain Ahab, Chapter 37.
“Anything down there about your souls?” – Queequeg, Chapter 19.
“Son of darkness, art thou at present in communion with any Christian church?” – Captain Bildad, Chapter 18.
“We have seen many whale-ships in our harbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are they?” – Don Pedro, Chapter 54.
Moby-Dick or the Whale Reviews by Herman Melville
Customer reviews on bookdepository for Moby Dick pdf or the whale
By Tania Hyde
Starts well with character development and scene setting then moves into an exhausting diatribe of the minutiae of whaling in the 19th century. Melville constantly goes off in tangents – tedious is an understatement. If this is considered one of the best American novels of all time I think I’ll stick to the English greats thank you.
By Vincent Lorberg
You’ll need to devote some time to reading this leviathan. Although it contains some excellent writing and has, at its heart, a fantastic adventure tale, it suffers from a flawed narrative and gets bogged down with too much irrelevant detail. Maybe go for an abridged version of the book….that way you can enjoy a cracking read and plus save 10 hours of your life.
Amazon customers reviews for Moby-Dick or the whale
Frank DonnellyTop Contributor: Poetry Books
TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars One of The Greatest of American Novels
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2019
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Having now read this novel three times with multiple decades in between, there is no doubt to me that this belongs on the short list of the greatest American novels. This novel seems to be a little bit of everything. It is not always an easy read, yet there are times that it is an easy read. There are times it is poetic. There narrator shifts between the first person, Ishmael, and an omniscient third person. There is considerable symbolism. There is of course the monomaniacal Captain Ahab. And of course, there is Moby Dick.
When I first read this novel as a youth, looking back now, it was simply beyond me. I thought I was embarking on a “Treasure Island” like adventure reading experience. I was soon in over my head and merely endured. The second time, as a middle age adult, I wanted figure out what I only dimly recalled and why I was left so ambivalent about the novel as a youth. Finally, now that I have the time, I read carefully, one to two chapters a day, over the course of perhaps two months. I looked up every reference that I did not know. Wow, what an experience.
There are parts of this novel that I have never heard discussed. An example is the beginning of the second paragraph of Chapter 51. It reads: “it was while while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow.” I had to read that, then reread it aloud, and then have it read to me before I could fully appreciate the lyrical, sibilant aspect of that one sentence. That of course is merely the tip, of the tip, of this literary iceberg. Although I intend to be vague, If a reader does not know how this novel ends, and wishes to read the novel for him or herself, consider skipping the next paragraph…
Quite some time ago I read “Ulysses” by James Joyce. I needed a lot of help with its symbolism. Early in that novel there is a ship at sea with three masts. The study source that I was using stated that was a religious symbol. That would have been lost on me if left to my own devices. With that in mind, consider the end of this novel with the three harpooneers and where they are last seen by Ishmael. I never gave any of that a thought until this third reading. (Please forgive me, I am a student, not a scholar.)
I obtained this novel on Kindle for free and purchased an accompanying audiobook, narrated by Frank Muller in order to compensate for my flawed “inner narrator”. I am so glad that I did. The entire experience was excellent.
In summary I thoroughly enjoyed this great novel and this entire reading and study experience. I really took my time. But for me, the experience was sublime. Thank You…
DantheMan
5.0 out of 5 stars Beware of Thyself, Old Man
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2017
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After reading Herman Melville’s renown classic “Moby-Dick pdf” for the first time, this book has become one of my favorites. Melville writes with incredible skill as sentences are saturated with adverbs and adjectives; colorful metaphors are laden throughout. And while many today might find such meandrous writing painstakingly laborious (Just get to the point, Melville), I found it rather refreshing. In an instant gratification age where media looks to provide entertainment at the expense of meaning, there is nothing like a book that requires some thinking to accompany it.
It is with such writing that Melville makes whaling seem a most desirable career path (never mind it is currently illegal by international law!). The serenity of standing aloft the mainmast, is so brilliantly described that I, someone who has no real desire for sea-crafting, found myself longing to quit my day job for the escape of the infinite sea. The work required in the industry gives the reader much appreciation for such peril inviting, hard working men. Whaling was a historically risky venture, that for centuries provided oil for the world’s lamps.
But “Moby-Dick”, while it is many things, it is at its heart is a story about humanity. And though Melville is quite a fan of humanity, this novel revolves around a representation of mankind gone wrong in the character of Ahab. It is a story of what happens when ambition is unchecked; it is a picture of what prideful, unrestrained defiance against a higher power looks like. Ahab is described as monomaniacal throughout the book, completely engrossed in this one obsession of enacting revenge on the whale that had previously left him maimed. He dreams of the whale. He forces his crew to engage in some sort of cultic ritual which they swear together to never rest until that whale is dead. Later on he forges a special harpoon for the whale, and each harpooner baptizes the spear with drops of their own blood. And while similar men would learn the lesson of what happens when you cross the white whale (stay away from it!), memory of the prior clash only further buries Ahab into his self-destructing pursuit. “What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures.”
But interestingly enough, Melville gives us a few glimpses of the human side of the madman. In what may be the climax of the book, the Quaker First Mate Starbuck, entreats the maniac to turn home before the first chase of the whale. “Oh my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck’s–wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, playfellow youth; even as thine, sire the wife and child of thy, loving, longing, paternal old age…I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.” It is here that Melville reveals a fraction of fleshy heart in the thoroughly calloused old man. Ahab responds: “They have, they have. I have seen them–some summer days in the morning. About this time–yes, it is his noon nap now–the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; an his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again.” Ahab in the deepest part of his heart, longs for his family–for his child. Even in the midst of his madness, he wants to be free of it. Could hope remain for so deluded and craven a soul?
After further begging to turn back from Starbuck, Melville writes what might be the saddest portion of the book: “But Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.” Ahab then blames fate, “some invisible power” that leaves him unable to abate his demonic pursuit of Moby Dick. This, this is what happens when mankind goes wrong, when mankind is in “too deep”. Ahab, though in his heart of hearts he longs for freedom from his chains, he has too long fed the monster within. He cannot get out, and his long hardened heart is sure to bring doom to himself and his crew.
The story of Ahab is then a billboard sized warning sign to the rest of us. It is a warning that that screams in all caps the caution previously given to Ahab: BEWARE OF THYSELF. For the same arrogance, the same morbidness of “mortal greatness” is within us. And if we allow it, if we desensitize ourselves to our own desires long enough, we will also like Ahab, reap what we have sown.
***
“In pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.”
Clive Eiles
3.0 out of 5 stars Moby Dick is not a Novel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2018
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Moby Dick pdf is not a novel.
If, like me, you assumed that it is, you may, like me, have a problem.
In a novel you would expect to find, for example: a narrative of events, development of characters, and some clarity in the writing. Moby Dick does have something of each of these, but it is overloaded by so much more. It digresses into accounts of whales, ships, weather, quasi philosophical discourse – and not be prolix myself, much else. The first third, and the last third are narrative, and the middle third is a digression about whales. If it were sent to a publisher today it might well be rejected, or if accepted the middle third would be heavily edited.
Yet in a way this is unfair. It is surely sui generis. It is what it is, and nothing else, and surely there is nothing else like it. Reading it is an experience unlike anything else I have read. I did read it some time ago,and while I have not yet completed re-reading it, and have been tempted to abandon it, I will continue to the end.
Because it is so unusual it is not easy to review; a reader of a review will expect to find some description, and analysis, but there are conventions about how this should be done. Moby Dick is so idiosyncratic, that like the book itself, it requires a different way of reviewing it. This review will fail because it will be succinct. A conventional review, which I was tempted to write, would probably be critical, with its verbosity as a starting point. And yet by its being so different from anything else it is worth the hard work and the stamina of of reading. To read it is an experience unlike anything else.
Marraduse
3.0 out of 5 stars I’m glad I read it from the perspective of being able …
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 28, 2015
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I’m glad I read it from the perspective of being able to discuss it as one of the classics but it’s a very difficult book to read from at least two points of view. Firstly, if you’re an animal lover you’ll find the detailed, highly gory, descriptions of the slaughter of whales, of which there are many accounts, unpalatable (to say the least). Secondly, there are very long and tedious accounts of whale study that will bore you to tears unless you’re the most pedantic whale fanatic alive. This book apparently describes every species of whale known to man in the most horribly exacting manner, right down to such minutiae as what is found inside a sperm whale’s skull, what this smells like, and how it feels to squeeze it in your fingers. Only after you’ve ploughed through all this do you finally get to the ‘exciting’ pursuit of the eponymous white whale (if you can stomach hunting). This part of the book is in the style of your typical adventure yarn, entertaining and fast-paced. There are some fabulous moments that have been referenced in popular culture such as Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. The mighty antagonist, Moby Dick, is truly a beast of mythic qualities, enormous, ancient, and intelligent. This gives Captain Ahab’s obsessive pursuit a metaphorical dimension that contributes to its status as a classic. Certainly the detailed accounts not only of whales but of whaling are also integral to this as a significant work to history and natural history. The first third of the book is surprisingly comical which, perhaps, serves as a nice counter to the darker realities of the harsh and dangerous life of the whaler.
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