Moby Dick

eBook

English language

Published April 22, 2022 by Standard Ebooks.

5 stars (1 review)

“Call me Ishmael” says Moby Dick’s protagonist, and with this famous first line launches one of the acclaimed great American novels. Part adventure story, part quest for vengeance, part biological textbook and part whaling manual, Moby Dick was first published in 1851. The story follows Ishmael as he abandons his humdrum life on shore for an adventure on the waves. Finding the whaler Pequod at harbour in Nantucket, he signs up for a three year term without meeting the Captain of the ship, a mysterious figure called Ahab. It is only well into the voyage that Ahab’s thirst for vengeance against the eponymous white whale Moby Dick—and the consequences—become clear.

The novel is semi-autobiographical: Herman Melville had had his own experience of whaling, having spent a year and a half aboard a whaling ship and further years travelling the world in the early 1840s. Herman used the knowledge gained from …

235 editions

reviewed Moby Dick by Herman Melville

La realtà umana in un romanzo

5 stars

Tra i classici che ho avuto modo di leggere finora, Moby Dick è sicuramente quello che riesce ad analizzare e sovrapporre più tematiche riguardanti la natura umana, senza che tra esse ci sia alcuna soluzione di continuità.

Quelle che più saltano all'occhio, e tutte trattate in maniera molto più che avanguardistica per l'epoca (1851), sono: - La vendetta (il tentativo di vendicarsi di Dio, del fato o della natura) - L'animalismo (traspare chiaramente che il protagonista si rende conto della crudeltà del trattamento che viene riservato alle balene, tanto da tentare di descriverne la paura) - L'orientamento sessuale (MICROSPOILER Ismaele e Queequeg si "sposano" e da come Ismaele descrive la prestanza fisica del principe isolano appare una vena di attrazione omosessuale) - Il rapporto dell'uomo con la fede (e come ogni personaggio la interpreta) - Il rapporto tra fatalismo e libero arbitrio (e il forzare il corso degli eventi …

Subjects

  • American Sea stories
  • Mentally ill
  • Whaling
  • Science Fiction & Fantasy
  • Whales
  • great_books_of_the_western_world
  • Translations into French
  • Literature
  • Captain Ahab (Fictitious character)
  • American Adventure stories
  • Sailors
  • Sea stories
  • Classic Literature
  • Whaling in literature
  • Young Adult Fiction
  • Open Library Staff Picks
  • open_syllabus_project
  • Fiction
  • Ship captains
  • Whaling ships
  • Juvenile fiction
  • Chasse
  • Whales in literature
  • Shipwrecks
  • Baleines
  • Long Now Manual for Civilization
  • General
  • Children: Grades 4-6
  • American fiction (fictional works by one author)
  • Ahab, captain (fictitious character), fiction
  • Whaling, fiction
  • Children's fiction
  • Whales, fiction
  • Fiction, action & adventure
  • Fiction, psychological
  • Literature and fiction (general)
  • Fiction, sea stories
  • Fiction, fantasy, epic
  • Poetry (poetic works by one author)
  • Melville, herman, 1819-1891
  • American literature, history and criticism
  • Sea stories, history and criticism
  • Large type books
  • Literature and fiction, action and adventure
  • Illustrations
  • Pictorial works
  • Drama (dramatic works by one author)
  • Picture-writing in literature
  • Readers (Primary)
  • Readers for new literates
  • Adventure and adventurers, fiction