This sprawling, mysterious novel rewards absorption, the kind you can offer when you have nothing to do except sit by the pool with a book. Ishmael is less a narrator than an old sailor in a faraway bar spinning a yarn; suddenly you realise that hours have passed, but you also know that you’re going nowhere until the tale is told. Moby Dick is all travel, all adventure, all exotic, and if you can read it with salty air on your skin, so much the better. You'll learn more about whales and whaling than you thought possible, but you'll learn even more about what it is to be human.
In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound enquiry into character, faith and the nature of perception.
