I first read Moby Dick when I was around 12, enjoying the Adventure and Fun Names and Cool Whale Facts, struggling through the passages that I did not understand or were boring - in an attempt to prove to myself or others that I was Smart. Listening to it again 15 years later I am forced to admit that the mere mechanical process of reading, understanding words and plot and making it from the front cover to the back is not necessarily indicative of understanding, appreciation, of Being Cultured. But also, looking back, I did not entirely miss.

I definitely missed some of the cultural context here - I missed the fact that Melville’s work is astonishingly modern for its time, playing so much with form and frame way back in the mid-19th century. I missed a few of the sex bits, which add color to but I don’t think do much to transform the work. And I think I missed what a uniquely powerful story of monomaniacal revenge it is, a gripping and absolute portrayal of a man dragged down into the ocean by (get this) his own attitude towards an uncaring force of nature (the ocean is a metaphor, see, but also real). Key word there being “uniquely” of course, I still heard the echoes of the power of this story, but I feel I appreciate it more now.

Other than that, I still found there to be a few boring bits, a few cool whale facts, lots of cool names. I don’t really know enough to say what the deal with the racial portrayal is, not very impressive now but maybe progressive for its time? The prose itself was half-masterful and half-reminiscent of a high school senior just learning about alliteration. The opening of course is a worthy classic, love “I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.” All in all a solid, stalwart book that has stood the test of time and deserves its place in the literary canon.