“Melville strikes me as one of those people who would corner you at a party and talk incessantly about whaling, whaling ships, whales, whale diet, whale etymology, whale zoology, whale blubber, whale delacies, whale migration, whale oil, whale biology, whale ecology, whale meat, whale skinning, and every other possible topic about whales so that you'd finally have to pretend to have to go to the bathroom just to get away from the crazy old man.”

Cover of Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Cover: Open Library

Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Review by Jamie, Goodreads. Read the full review

Added by Johan de Groot on 14 October 2026.