Moby Dick is an unnecessarily long book with a mediocre plot line. Despite Herman Melville actually traveling and extensively whaling for five years there was not much seafaring life in the book. The chapters in the book varied: some seemed fictional while some seemed like a second or third-hand story. The book essentially breaks down to pages and pages of endless digression on whale speech, quotations, explanations, descriptions, and infinite ocean tide rants. If Melville removed all illustrations, quotations, and whale research the action would end in about fifty pages. Much of the book is explained by Melville with scholarly knowledge and biblical quotations. The story is rendered abstract, perhaps dream like, making the characters - rough whalers - speak and think like printed books. Essentially I was reading hundreds of pages of descriptions and biblical passages waiting for something that never happens. Somehow it is representative of a long and tedious wait in vain, which I guess is what it is like being on the seas.
Despite the dissatisfaction I had reading Moby Dick, I can see why it is regarded highly in American Literature. Moby Dick has the substrate (Bible, Shakespeare, classical culture) which is that of high-American culture. It has an epic theme of that epic that certainly could not be the ancient epic of knights and ladies - like European tales - but a newer epic, one that is more contemporary. If Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter (another one I did not really like) is a "true American history" because of it’s intrinsic and foundational role to the American spirit, it’s fair to say Moby Dick deserves the honor as well. American Classics usually include a protagonist who has to face nature, deal with sin, addresses the harm. Evil that is out, that is intangible, that can not be beaten and that erodes from within. The American Classic is powerful, but conscious of the evil that is called to challenge, tirelessly, relentlessly. All in all Moby Dick is a true American Classic.
In short, this is one of the most famous American Classics of all time and should be at least conceptually understood. The impact it has had on modern culture and literature as a whole makes it worth the read. However, we can not pretend that this reading may be the least interesting or funny or enjoyable (yes of course, there are also beautiful moments of humor, but not much). It is quite evident how much passion Melville had for this book, but be prepared for an amalgam of subpar plot, gratuitous and pleonastic dialogue, and cetaceous anatomical jargon.
Despite the dissatisfaction I had reading Moby Dick, I can see why it is regarded highly in American Literature. Moby Dick has the substrate (Bible, Shakespeare, classical culture) which is that of high-American culture. It has an epic theme of that epic that certainly could not be the ancient epic of knights and ladies - like European tales - but a newer epic, one that is more contemporary. If Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter (another one I did not really like) is a "true American history" because of it’s intrinsic and foundational role to the American spirit, it’s fair to say Moby Dick deserves the honor as well. American Classics usually include a protagonist who has to face nature, deal with sin, addresses the harm. Evil that is out, that is intangible, that can not be beaten and that erodes from within. The American Classic is powerful, but conscious of the evil that is called to challenge, tirelessly, relentlessly. All in all Moby Dick is a true American Classic.
In short, this is one of the most famous American Classics of all time and should be at least conceptually understood. The impact it has had on modern culture and literature as a whole makes it worth the read. However, we can not pretend that this reading may be the least interesting or funny or enjoyable (yes of course, there are also beautiful moments of humor, but not much). It is quite evident how much passion Melville had for this book, but be prepared for an amalgam of subpar plot, gratuitous and pleonastic dialogue, and cetaceous anatomical jargon.