Dissertation and Melodrama... Both Great

Moby Dick is amazing in many ways. More than half the chapters form an extended dissertation on the whale (leviathan) that covers a great sweep of literary and historical references. The other part - intertwined with the dissertation - is a bold and strangely told story of the obsessed Captain Ahab and the White Whale, a story most of us know in outline from the cinema if we have not read the book. Yet the unconventional telling is a bonus: characters talking aloud to themselves to advance the story, elements such as the mad boy Pip that seem to come straight from Shakespeare, and the rather gothic line-up of omens and portents, give a genuinely disturbing tenor to the story.

The prose rises to brilliance at times and there is great humour in the narrator's way with words. Not an easy read but one that rewards persistence and also illustrates why Moby Dick occupies the place it does in the Canon.

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I tried

Starts well but rapidly became impenetrable. Added to my Ulysses list of supposedly great books that, to put it mildly, I don't get.

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This is the one

Yes, its long, and sometimes you want to give up, but dont because duration is its theme and this is a novel you live with while reading and thereafter. And there are several audio versions, but Muller's the definitive one.

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1 person found this helpful

Good book but too much detail

This book is 136 chapters long and although the chapters are not long most are dedicated extreme detail which frankly is rather unnecessary. abridged version may be a better option. well read though

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Just incredible

Melville takes us onto the Pequod as if we were really there. The wealth of descriptive narrative and knowledge in this book is unparalleled.

A remarkable tale of the men who were whalers. For the rest, just listen to it. It took me three months.

A special mention to the narrator who brought this epic to life. Wonderful voice and inflection, perfect measure, all of the drama is there for pennies.

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An amazing classic

I came to listen to this book having seen the film and with some knowledge of the story. But the book has more in it than I could ever have imagined. It is truly a work of great fiction. The main story itself is only probably a tenth of the book. The other nine tenths contains tales and facts which will entertain, amaze, inform you and even make you smile. Reading the book would always be a daunting prospect but not so listening to it read by a master story teller, Frank Muller, it is sheer joy. I heard his voice in my head long after I stopped listening. I cannot recommend this audio too highly.

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The Reader makes it.

Would you listen to Moby Dick again? Why?

The depth of interpretation from Muller is magnificent.
I am British born Irish, maybe we hear differently ? I too tried to read this as a youngster, and gave up. This rescues the book for me and the relevance of all sections of the story are clear.

What did you like best about this story?

The story is a wonderful attempt at the Classical; Odysseus and all that.
But it is tied to one era and serves that well. It is educational from the need to take your harpoon to bed with you to the nature of ships' captains houses and of the chapels.

Have you listened to any of Frank Muller’s other performances? How does this one compare?

All Muller did was very, very good. This is the most demanding and the most successful.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I think not possible; it is too long. But in the sense that once in you do not want to let go - Yes.

Any additional comments?

Don't be dissuaded by the length of the book nor the departures into emotional description.

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3 people found this helpful

Thank heavens for audio

What did you like most about Moby Dick?

It is genuinely funny in places. It's interesting. It's atmospheric. At times it feels like you're travelling to distant parts of the globe. There are great characters. Melville varies the storytelling format.I can't say I loved every chapter, and there were occasions when I felt like screaming, "Enough already with the whale documentaries!" And just when you thought there was really nothing more to say about that particular species of fish (and yes, Ishmael insists whales *are* fish, several times) he comes out with something else to say about them. He tells us all about their heads, their noses (really!), their teeth (did you know they don't have fillings? thanks, Ish, I never would have guessed), their tongues, their tales and so on and so on and so on...As other reviewers have noted, only a fraction of the book is actual narrative. But when Melville is in storytelling mode, he's amazing!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Moby Dick?

A scene quite late on [so SPOILERS] when Ahab's obsession has got way out of hand. He's just pulled a gun on Starbuck, his first mate. Starbuck, knowing he can't impress Ahab himself, says, "Ahab, beware Ahab!" And Ahab responds as if he's received a deserved slap, and actually changes his behaviour. A little. For a while.

What does Frank Muller bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

The simple matter is, I would never have persevered. I'd been meaning to read the book since around 1980 because Philip Jose Farmer had written a sequel to it, but was put off by its huge size (it's a whale of a book - ha ha, bet nobody else has ever made that joke!), its age, its subject matter (I was wearing a Save The Whale badge at the time) and the fact that I didn't read anything other than science fiction at the time.So, three and a half decades later I thought, hey, maybe I could listen to it instead!I've given Muller 5 stars because his reading is excellent. Not only does he do different voices for each character, he manages to convey a bantering double-act. ("I never drink--" "Water!") He never sounds bored, not even when he's got to the bit where Ishmael describes every last bone of a whale's skeleton. When Melville decides to write a chapter in the form of a play, Muller differentiates between dialogue and stage directions.Despite all this, I still recommend having a copy of the novel to hand and dipping into it from time to time, sometimes reading and listening at the same time.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not exactly. Although there was a chapter title quite late on which gave me a jolt. It's a two-word title; the first word is "Queequeg's".

Any additional comments?

I am just so happy to have this monster of a classic under my belt. I expect I'll dip into the printed novel from time to time, and maybe listen to a dramatised or abridged version - one that doesn't have a chapter on the size of a blow-hole, or a chapter on things other than white whales that are white.

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2 people found this helpful

Tends toward the florid

This book may have been better in the abridged format, I have found it over descriptive and kept loosing interest before the real action started. The narrator has a nice voice but tends to the over dramatic even when there is no drama going on. I think it is worth persisting with though as it is an epic tale and one of those books everyone has heard of but few have read.

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Essential listening

Two things i've been doing for many years; listening to audiobooks and trying to read Moby Dick-normally getting about 3 pages in and giving up, and then telling people what a load of rubbish it is. Frank Muller is for me the king of narrators, and he deftly brings each of the characters in Melville's masterpiece to life,as a result i now consider Moby Dick to be the best book i've ever 'read', and by a nautical mile the best audiobook i've ever listened to. Essential.

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7 people found this helpful