Moby-Dick (Norton Critical Editions) Paperback – July 27, 1999

I read Moby-Dick several times in college almost forty years ago. Now I'm taking a night class and reading it with life experience of forty years. Awe is the feeling that constantly gets evoked as I read. Why awe?Capacious. That is the word that repeats again and again in my head. Moby-Dick is a vibrantly colored hot air balloon that keeps growing in size as I read it. First, Melville's subject is the sperm whale, one of the largest creatures on earth. But we don't just learn about the sperm whale but about all whales. Then we learn about whaling and its nobility. Here is where it gets very interesting. We participate in whaling, its skill, equipment, courage, risks and economy AND about how it results in the gruesome destruction of the whale. We feel the horror inflicted on the whales and we feel the nobility of the activity that slaughters them. Melville doesn't allow us to avert our eyes either to the daring of whaling or to the viciousness of the slaughter. That is where the book inflates even more because he holds both perspectives equally which is a much larger place than if he had taken sides.The book also foreshadows modernism by using a variety of narrative techniques; theater, pure narration, encyclopedic explanations and subjective interior monologues. Melville is constantly breaking up the narrative with omniscient recitations of fascinating information about his subject matter. And like Ulysses or the Waste Land, he piles on the reference to Shakespeare, the Greeks, Christianity and the Hebrew traditions.There are many references with regard to Ahab and the Whale regarding evil and Satan. Yet Ahab has great respect and reverence for Moby Dick. Ahab himself knows he is obsessed and but can have great compassion like his feelings for the lowly addled Pip. So yes there is evil afoot in the book but it isn't the kind that that creates simple polar opposites. As Ahab describes Moby-Dick (has) `an inscrutable malice sinewing through it' that describe the book as well. There is evil and there is also goodness that coexists in the book making the reader feel that he has to take sides. If the reader resists this temptation he or she will experience the awe of a deep and ever expanding mystery.

Moby Dick is not an adventure story - it is an allegory of the human condition amidst the setting of the whaling profession. Mankind's varied quest for greed, lust, longing, vengeance and fulfillment. Moby Dick is all of these human yearnings and more in one book. If you want an adventure story there are other books out there that will quench your thirst. If you approach Moby Dick the same as most unwilling High School students do, you won't even get a 100 pages into it and will become disillusioned and discouraged because it wasn't quite the adventure story you were hoping for and the end result, You Will Never Finish It! Leave your expectations behind. Moby Dick is great Literature! But it isn't the formulaic rhythm we find in today's bestsellers. In fact in 1851 it wasn't the normal piece of literature people EXPECTED it to be. Cast aside these expectations, and take your time. This will not be a quick read. If it takes you a couple of months or a year, stay with it. In fact read other books while reading Moby Dick. Like I mentioned before, it is not a quick read, it will be one you savor and slowly digest. Think of a glass of fine Cabernet. You sip that glass, you don't gulp it. Just keep reminding yourself when you come to certain parts of the book that do not seem to have anything to do with the overall narrative thread of the story that Moby Dick is an allegory of the human condition of greed, lust, longing and vengeance. This piece of literature is an overall experience that will linger with you for years to come - if you allow it to do so.

Best book I've ever read in my life.That said, I read it with the help of notes I found elsewhere (on the internet and in other editions, such as Penguin's). The extremely large amount of notes of this edition doesn't help that much: they deliberately avoid suggesting any interpretation whatsoever, and then the amount of information they give is quite irrelevant: basically information for scholars that work in the biographical details of the author (I've been a bit rough now, but essentially is that).

This is the edition preferred by high school AP Language teacher. Contains commentary that is helpful to understanding Melville's magnum opus. Worth the extra cost for added ease of working through the novel.