Am I proud to have finished it? You bet I am. Takeaways below:

1. The book is not too long. A lot could be said on this point, but let me keep it simple. Many readers would shudder at reading more pages on whale anatomy, but who among them would dismiss an extra 15 pages of backstory on Queequeg? For a novel of such heft, I found it surprisingly sparse in some sections and was searching for more. This fact should generally be understood as a success in a work whose chief popular complaint seems to be about its length.
   
2. Relatedly, of all the elements of the story, I find the plot to be one of the least compelling. If forced to rank them, I would say something like the below, but I would not concede that the novel would be better without any particular one of them:
   
   • The philosophical treatises, often delivered via Ishmael’s internal monologue
   • The dramatic monologues/soliloquys of characters like Ahab, Father Mapple, Starbuck, et al.
   • The historical and sociological contextualization of whaling ships and their customs, particularly the social hierarchies
   • The allegory of man vs. nature
   • Whale-chasing and whale-fighting scenes (i.e., the plot)
   • The encyclopedic entries on cetology
     
3. Whether or not one can comprehend all of the elements above as genuinely additive to Moby Dick itself (a feat unworthy of lesser minds), one cannot deny their literary-historical significance in opening up the form of the novel beyond simple storytelling. Sure, there is no Infinite Jest without Melville, but there is no Grapes of Wrath, either.
   
4. One can fairly doubt the importance of the encyclopedic nature of the novel, but this (over)abundance of context is precisely one of the things that makes this novel legible 175 years later. Perhaps we are saturated, at times, with the intricacies of whaling equipment, but how many contemporary readers would do this work for themselves? And isn’t our understanding of the story enhanced by it?
   
5. Despite his centrality to the plot, Ahab is one of the least interesting characters. The most interesting is Father Mapple (criminally underrepresented despite anchoring the best chapter), followed closely by Starbuck, then Ishmael. Ahab is a useful mouthpiece for some very interesting monologues, but even those, one gets the sense, would be better delivered by Ishmael.
   
6. The biggest mistake in the novel, for me, is that the character of Ishmael is not sufficiently motivated to make his choice to set sail on the Pequod. Whatever flimsy economic motivation there could be is undone with Ishmael’s flippancy about his lay (share of the venture’s profits).
   
   I am certain we’re supposed to read his motivation as existential–as an escape from land and a testing oneself against the sea–but without further backstory on Ishmael, it’s hard as a reader to see in Ishmael the level of desperation required for such a dangerous voyage. I have written elsewhere about the idea that perhaps this decision was more easily made (and time more easily sold) in times gone by, but still, I find it unconvincing.
   
   This is only further to point 1 above, namely that the book is none too long. I really enjoyed the first 20 chapters, and a better version of the novel would have given us more time to get to know our narrator before setting sail.
   
   
7. The prose is excellent. When I think of the way critics applaud Cormac McCarthy for his “biblical style,” I am appalled to hold it against Melville’s. Of all the ageless elements of the book, the prose is the most beautiful. It is quotable throughout, and there are some original coinages and turns of phrase that will stick with me forever.
   

Rating: 8/10. We should stop assigning this book to high schoolers and let them discover it on their own. Absolutely deserves its place in the canon.

Edit: if you found this post via Marginal Revolution and liked what you just read, check out this primer on my blog.