Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick | Herman Melville
"Call me Ishmael" is the iconic opening line of Herman Melville s classic American novel, Moby-Dick. Ishmael is a seaman aboard the whaling vessel, Pequod, under the vengeful captain, Ahab. Maniacally seeking retribution from the great white sperm whale called Moby-Dick the whale responsible for the captain s missing leg Ahab leads the crew on a quest to kill the infamous beast. A fictional work based on actual events, Moby-Dick is a classic that has been enjoyed for generations and is now available as part of the Word Cloud Classic series, making it a stylish and affordable addition to any library. Lexile score: 1230L"
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
PurpleyPumpkin
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image
mrp27 Beautiful edition! 2mo
PurpleyPumpkin @mrp27 Folios do not disappoint!💜 2mo
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Gorgeous 🩵 2mo
37 likes2 stack adds3 comments
blurb
bcncookbookclub
post image

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii

• Reading the tagged book🐳

DebinHawaii A lovely list of joys! 💛💛💛 Reconnecting with childhood friends & catching up is so joyful! Thanks for joining in & helping spread the joy! 🤗 3mo
bcncookbookclub @DebinHawaii Yeah, was lovely! 2mo
24 likes2 comments
quote
AroundTheBookWorld
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.
#MobyDick #HermanMelville #book #books #bookmark #Classics #Fiction #Literature #Adventur #HistoricalFiction #Novels #American #Audiobook

blurb
dabbe
Moby-Dick | Herman Melville
post image
Eggs Excellent 👌🏼 5mo
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Beautiful 💙 5mo
dabbe @Eggs 💙🐋💙 5mo
40 likes4 comments
blurb
AmandaBlaze
Moby-Dick | Herman Melville
post image

This was not a favorite classic of mine, but it fits the prompt well, I believe
#SummerSouls #Sea
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Perfect 🌊 5mo
35 likes1 comment
blurb
Leftcoastzen
Moby-Dick, Or, The Whale | Herman Melville
post image

#NewYearNewBooks #InvolvesJourney Can‘t remember if I finally read this last year or the year before.Though it can get a little deep on whale science, I was surprised how funny it was in parts.I read an old Bantam edition, may dig into this Norton Critical Edition someday to see what I missed on the first reading.

Eggs I think I‘ll read it again bc it‘s been so many years. Love that whale box❤️🐳 🩵 9mo
SamAnne I was not expecting the humor! I‘m halfway through. 9mo
Leftcoastzen @SamAnne Right? Glad you are enjoying it , I think!😀 (edited) 9mo
Leftcoastzen @Eggs thanks, it was my mom‘s , she finally let me have it. 9mo
57 likes1 stack add4 comments
review
Schwifty
post image
Mehso-so

I‘m going to be one of those people that appreciates the idea of the story and the theme of the maniacal, self-destructive quest, but wish to never read this again. I understand that Melville felt the need to expand the work by 70% with essays on whaling and whale anatomy and sailing and philosophy and that has its place, but I didn‘t care for it. After 300 pages, I just wanted this long slog to be over. But I was on team Dick, for sure.

blurb
Sinnett_Blue
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

Summer 2023 reads 😍

blurb
RavenclawPrincess913
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

review
mjtwo
Moby-Dick | Herman Melville
post image
Panpan

15-25 Aug 23 (audiobook)
I do wonder how I managed to read so many of these long, somewhat tedious classics in my teen years. Maybe Moby Dick needs to be read in text format rather than listened to? I am not sure why I persisted to the end really. Old habits. Not so much a story as a treatise on whaling and a list of every time a whale is ever mentioned anywhere.
I do at least appreciate the anti-whaling and environmental sentiment.

blurb
Doppoetry
Moby-Dick | Herman Melville
post image

Got this edition a few years ago for Christmas, still haven't gotten to it 😭

3 likes1 stack add
review
Robotswithpersonality
post image
Mehso-so

Who‘s the monster? Is there a monster at the end of the book? It kind of seems like Ishmael couldn‘t make up his mind, and didn‘t want to leave the reader too certain either.
1/ ?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? Despite the prevalence of horror movie motifs:
- mystery wacky character warns you off cryptically
-a zealot giving you bad vibes
-at some point it becomes clear based on the actions of your companions and the danger just faced that chances are slim you'll all make it out alive
-foreboding, fatal tales told about previous encounters with 'the monster'
1y
Robotswithpersonality 3/? While so much of this book is framed as ‘let me tell you ALL about whales so you know what we‘re up against‘, and veers into nauseating anatomy textbook like passages of harvesting ‘by-products‘ from the whale and much more charming National Geographic like passages on cetology, and the whaling industry (hazardous for hunter and hunted), it does pause infrequently to reassure you yet again that the revenge obsessed captain is suffering from an incurable madness whose singular focus is destructive to himself and all around him. We have characters who seem to exist solely to entreat Ahab to abandon this path, which only ends in reaffirming his murderous resolve. 1y
Robotswithpersonality 4/? Whales depicted as monsters, unvirtuous enemies, by a whaleman, a narrator ostensibly making a living from killing whales and thus eager to justify such actions, is a craven kind of logic, but Ishmael's fascination with whales doesn‘t leave things in such a black and white, us and them space.
To that end, Ishmael seems to end each of the more positive passages on whales contrasting them with the more barbaric and corrupt aspects of humanity.
1y
See All 7 Comments
Robotswithpersonality 5/? Ahab‘s mission then becomes not simply vengeance but a place for all the anger and hate that Melville states as endemic to man, and makes Moby Dick the age old story of prejudice against the Other (living being).
Lot of biblical references, so not that surprising that Melville is moralizing.
1y
Robotswithpersonality 6/? On the less overt side, observations:
The ocean is scary, we don't know all that's in it, and it often produces both creatures and storms that can kill us - funny how that mindset hasn't actually gone out of style.
I appreciated the pagan/mythological references because I understood a lot more of those than the Bible ones!
1y
Robotswithpersonality 7/? While I was actually highly amused by the extensive pseudo-non-fiction digressions by ‘Ishmael‘, I can‘t help but wonder, especially based on the handful of chapters that were set up like a stage play might be (set the scene, stage directions, monologue/dialogue), what this story would be like if it took the tidbits of philosophy based on a contrast between humanity‘s actions and observances of the natural world, the explorations of Ahab‘s inner landscape, the comic relief of the capering crew, and the conflict between Starbuck (basically the angel on Ahab‘s shoulder) and Ahab, and condensed it down to focus primarily on the ‘we‘re on the boat, we‘re hot on the trail of Moby Dick‘ portion. I would go to that play. 1y
Robotswithpersonality ⚠️RACISM (holy fuck it‘s blatant and it‘s never ending), xenophobia, classism, colonialism, details of whaling industry: hunting and harvesting by-products 🤢, ableism 1y
6 likes7 comments
quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Damned with faint praise or a recognized talent?

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

THAT is an understatement, Herman/Ishmael!

shortsarahrose It‘s so true 😂 1y
3 likes1 comment
quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Ah ha! I love it when a context-based hunch on unknown word's meaning pays off.
The internet confirms:
Anti-scorbutic: "(chiefly of a drug) having the effect of preventing or curing scurvy."
Fairly obvious why it's not in common usage today.

julesG Scurvy is called Scorbut in German. And it still occurs these days, not in sailors but people with low income. I think I've heard "scorbutic" a few times in medical jargon, not sure about "anti-scorbutic" though. 1y
Robotswithpersonality @julesG Etymological bonus content, yay! Re scurvy occurrence: makes sense, instead of a vocation-led nutrition issue, now it's capitalism, how much you can afford to buy and where you live (food deserts). Wonder where the scholarship falls on that one: earlier eras, city vs. rural - was it easier to get all your vitamins as a subsistence farmer than a factory worker. 🤔 1y
julesG Now I want to fall down a research rabbit hole. Can't imagine either having had a very varied diet, but would imagine the farmer had a few greens at least. 1y
3 likes4 comments
quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Please tell me I'm not the only person who read this and immediately imagined EITHER: a officious little fish in suit with briefcase OR some kind of strange paper/fish hybrid swimming about with scales and script intermingled.

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

No idea what a 'stem-piece' is, but intrigued by the notion that this might mean a mast head of a copper-thorned rose rather than the standard mermaid. [My very shallow knowledge on the subject says mast heads were usually mermaids - but maybe there were all kinds of masthead figures, like old-timey hood ornaments! Off to Google I go! ]

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

...for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

The notion 'cool as a cucumber' has been around for THAT long?! 🥒😲

julesG Shakespeare? I think it was good old Bill the Bard. 🤔🤔🤔 1y
Robotswithpersonality @julesG So it's even older than I thought! Learn somethin' new everyday... 1y
7 likes2 comments
quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Ah, yes, now let's take some time to pause the main narrative, AGAIN, and examine the appearance of the Whale in the various man-made art forms, and human-perceived whale forms appearing in nature. I can't help but wonder how long this book would be without these colourful asides. 💁🏼‍♂️

shortsarahrose One of the things I really appreciate about this book is how the pace of the narrative mimics the pace of being on a whaling ship - bursts of action followed by long periods where nothing much happens. Anyways, I oddly love this book and need to reread it soon. 1y
Robotswithpersonality @shortsarahrose I enjoy this perspective/parallel, thank you. I keep finding it weird how much I'm liking reading it when in theory this is the kind of pacing that usually irritates me. I think taking my time with it, and the quality of the writing, is saving me. Feels like it was made to read aloud. 1y
5 likes2 comments
quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

"...(for immortality is but ubiquity in time)..."
When the phrase just hits.
I feel like I better understand the exhaustion given to vampires in certain narratives now, the idea of always being...makes me want a nap.

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Just remembered this is the song Quint sings...is it just a well known sailor ditty, or was Jaws making Moby-Dick reference?! 🤔

Bookwomble I do think the white shark 🦈 was Quint's white whale 🐳 😊 1y
Robotswithpersonality @Bookwomble Now on the lookout for further crossover/comparisons...🔬🔍 1y
9 likes2 comments
blurb
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Current reads include two large books with whales on the cover. 🐳🐋
What could go wrong? 🤦🏼‍♂️

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Sounds like a Shakespearean insult: 'Thou mealy-mouthed porpoise!'

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

"For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included."

Certainly more profound observations than I remember getting in high school biology text books.

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Ah, yes, having just introduced the character best known in this book, twenty-eight chapters in, having just barely set sail, NOW is the time to pause for a lengthy treatise on the different kinds of WHALES! Oh, Herman. 🤦🏼‍♂️ Needless to say, the biology and taxonomy are not to be trusted. 🤨 What makes no sense? I'm actually enjoying all of it! 🤷🏼‍♂️🥴

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Now y'all are just messing with me.
Any particular reason you couldn't have just made Chapter Twenty-Six longer, if you felt the same subtitle applied and were continuing to discuss the characters in the command structure aboard ship?!

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

So to summarize: You accepted a lower wage thanks to some fancy footwork on the part of your employers and you haven't actually MET your direct supervisor yet.
Not GOOD Ishmael!

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

Pfft. A choice way to prod the pious. 😈

quote
Robotswithpersonality
post image

How does one survive reading a classic from the 1800s? Focus on the cuddles.
[There are some amusing slices of life in amongst the frequent xenophobia/racism, prominent profiteering off species and blatant Christian messaging (the chapter before this one was entitled The Sermon, it was an ACTUAL sermon about Jonah and the Whale!) 😒🙄]

SamAnne I‘m two-thirds through and I was not expecting the humor! 1y
9 likes1 stack add2 comments
blurb
Roary47
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

Gandalf is my reading buddy today for my daily Serial read. 🥰💛

RaeLovesToRead Gandalf 🥰🥰🥰😭😭😭 oh he is too adorable! 1y
Leftcoastzen So cute!😻 1y
Ruthiella 😻😻😻 1y
9 likes3 comments
blurb
Roary47
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

Going to start a summer habit to get more classics read. Withering Heights and Scarlet Letter I‘ll finish in July. 🥰💛

quote
VioletMoonBooks
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

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.
#MobyDick #HermanMelville #firstline #openingline #book #books #bookmark #bookmarks #bookmarket #bookmarkets #bookmoment #bookmoments #Classics #Fiction #Literature #Adventure #HistoricalFiction #Novels #American #19thCentury

quote
HeartOfBabel
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman

“Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.”

blurb
VioletMoonBooks
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image
blurb
julesG
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

#Ihavequestions @RaeLovesToRead

1) tough question. I bail on books that "don't spark joy" or let's say any kind of interest. The tagged book I had to read for uni. Definitely did not like it.

2) Colleen Hoover - skimmed one. No thanks.
Lord of the Rings - bailed before the Hobbits got to the Prancing Pony.
A Song of Ice and Fire - bailed after 200+pp, read like an endless prologue.
Secret History - I'm going to be exiled for this.
+So many more

RaeLovesToRead Hahaha, epic books are THE BEST though!! 🤭🤭 Wish I could learn how to bail. 2y
julesG @RaeLovesToRead Learning to bail was tough, but it's literally freeing. As for epic, there's boring epic and there's interesting epic. I bore easily and if a book doesn't hook me by the third chapter I tend to give up. 2y
TrishB Secret History 😁 2y
Laughterhp Yes, I refuse to read Colleen Hoover too! 2y
57 likes4 comments
blurb
Sharpeipup
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

#ihavequestions @raelovestoread
1. Tagged. Just no.
2. Anymore CoHo.

RaeLovesToRead Glad I'm not missing out on Moby Dick! 😅 2y
Sharpeipup @raelovestoread you‘re only missing out on the mind boggling confusion why this is considered both worthy of printing and classic status. 🤯 2y
RaeLovesToRead I just remember in the comic, Bone, the MC kept reading it out enthusiastically and everyone fell asleep 🤣🤣 2y
See All 9 Comments
Soubhiville Ugh Moby Dick was pretty awful! 2y
TheBookHippie No CoHo 🤢 and I still have nightmares about not doing my Moby Dick book report 🤣 2y
Sharpeipup @soubhiville glad it wasn‘t just me. 2y
Sharpeipup @thebookhippie what makes CoHo worse is that she‘s my sister in laws favorite so that‘s all she wants to talk to me about. (edited) 2y
TheBookHippie @Sharpeipup 🤢😝🙃 you have my sympathy … yuk. 2y
StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego Ha! Moby Dick. That book was difficult to get through. 2y
35 likes9 comments
review
breadnroses
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image
Pickpick

Wow. After 4 months, I‘m finally done. I‘ve never taken this long to finish a book, but I‘m glad I took my time & annotated so thoroughly. D.H Lawrence was right, it is “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world.” 🌟5/5🌟

11 likes1 stack add
blurb
Susanita
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

I don‘t finish every book I start. Some books I circle around and finish them eventually, but others I intentionally abandon.

The specific reasons might be varied (boring story, characters doing things that don‘t make sense, can‘t figure out what‘s going on, etc.) but usually boil down to I just don‘t care what happens.

#sundayfunday

BookmarkTavern That‘s an excellent way to think about it. If I don‘t care, why continue? Thank you for sharing! 2y
kelli7990 I like to finish every book I start but if I don‘t like the writing style or I‘m not emotionally invested in the story then I‘m more likely to bail on the book. 2y
35 likes2 comments
blurb
JLaurenceCohen
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

I love a good Norton Critical Edition

blurb
rachaich
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

Apologies for the terrible photo, new phone causing angst!
So, first up for 2023 is this classic, chosen by book club.
I've tried listening to it, some years ago, and failed. I'm now 30% through the kindle version and taking some of it in 🤔😁📖

Booksblanketsandahotbeverage Enjoy! For an american fiction class in college, I read that and 2y
17 likes1 comment
blurb
VioletMoonBooks
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image
review
stevesbookstuf1
post image
Pickpick

No. 11 in my '22 Modern Classics reads. Haven't read this since high school, and I don't remember it being this long! But I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if by today's standards it's a bit of a muddle. Because of Thanksgiving holiday travel I compromised and listened to parts of the book through Librivox and can highly recommend their version narrated by Stewart Wills. But I think it's best read not listened to.

Full review: https://bit.ly/rvw-Moby

SamAnne I‘m halfway through. Had no idea it had so much humor in it! 2y
stevesbookstuf1 Yes, I almost think the humor has aged better than the tragedy. 🤓 2y
18 likes2 comments
blurb
BookmarkTavern
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

Moby Dick. And I don‘t really know why. Maybe to seem impressive? 😅

#SundayFunday How about you?

TalesandTexts I used to say that about Anna Karenina till last year. I just couldn‘t get myself to get through the book. So in order to not lose face in the Reading community, I would nod along when people would talk about it 🫣 Then last year, i decided to get the audio version and finally finished the book. 😅 (edited) 2y
DGRachel You‘re not missing much with Moby Dick, IMO. It took me an entire summer to get through it in college. I had a professor who said every student of literature owed it to themselves to read it. I idolized her, so I read it, and I cursed her through every page. 😂😂 2y
ImperfectCJ I don't have a particular book like that, but I do have a class of 6th graders who all said they'd read Moby-Dick. When I dug a little deeper, it sounds like they'd all read an adaptation so I don't have to feel too embarrassed about only having read parts of it. 2y
AnnR No, not books I haven't read but maybe a partially read book. I got near the 50% mark in War and Peace but just couldn't force myself to read another chapter. 2y
SamAnne LOL. This is a hilarious question. Second Sex. I‘ve pretended to read that. 2y
51 likes5 comments
blurb
SaraC24
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

Stopped by Barnes and nobles cause today is the day I went full out in actually treating myself since that hasn't happened in literally months. The Moby dick copy is not only pretty but soooo heavy that it's a legit brick. Very pretty brick. Will post more about it cause omg! The others are also pretty! Like omg! xD

blurb
Sharpeipup
post image

Started this whale of a book after a recent cruise to the channel islands.

46 likes1 stack add
blurb
TheKidUpstairs
Moby-Dick, Or, The Whale | Herman Melville
post image

#OnThisDay in 1851 Moby-Dick was first published. Like many works of art, the novel would remain unrecognized during Melville's lifetime, selling only 3715 copies and earning the author a mere $556.37 before his death in 1891. A posthumous reprint garnered some critical interest, and slowly a following was built, leading to Carl Van Doren's 1921 claim that Moby-Dick was "one of the greatest... in the... literature of the world." #HistoryGetsLIT

vivastory Have to say I agree with Van-Doren 🐳 2y
LeahBergen I‘ll take that edition, please. 😉 2y
TheKidUpstairs @LeahBergen it can be yours for a mere $65,000! 2y
58 likes1 stack add3 comments
blurb
StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego
Moby Dick: bl velryba | Melville Herman
post image

💯

Ruthiella 😂😂😂 2y
mcctrish 🤣🤣🤣 2y
LeahBergen 😆😆 2y
Chelsea.Poole Omg 😆 2y
MemoirsForMe 😆😆😆 2y
87 likes5 comments