Moby-Dick (Everyman’s Library CLASSICS)

Sumptuous edition of a wonderful novel
Firstly, let me say I adore these Penguin Classic Deluxe Editions. They are about as sumptuous as you get in paperback, and although it’s hard to say why, definitely enhance the reading experience. In the case of Moby Dick, you definitely feel as if the edition is worthy of the text.Moby Dick is one of those books on almost everyone’s reading list, but many will never actually get round to reading it, perhaps because of its sheer length, and perhaps because it has become so embedded in our consciousness and our cultural landscape, that we don’t feel we actually need to read it. We know the story already – man chases whale, whale chases man, whale wins. That was certainly my feeling before I started reading it. But my scepticism was quickly replaced by open-mouthed awe at what a remarkable acomplishment Moby Dick really is. The first thing you notice is that Moby Dick is a careful balance of conventional narrative fiction (the man/whale story) and very real depiction of every possible facet of life on a whaling ship. There are some other surprises too, such as the strongly homoerotic relationship between the narrator Ishamael and the savage harpooner Queequeg, although this curious sub-plot then settles down into a normal bond of friendship. Another surprise is the late introduction and relatively low-key role of Captain Ahab. It is his obsession with pursuing Moby Dick, rather than his actual presence in the story, that dominates the narrative. Instead of the madwoman in the attic, we have the madman in the cabin – largely unseen, malevolent and brooding, and yet somehow omnipresent at the same time.Moby Dick is a magnificent tale as well as being a remarkable feat of literature, and deserves its place in the canon of truly great reads.

“Poet, painter and philosopher” a reviewer once called Melville. His subject matter and writing style are welded together as firmly as the 12 intertwining steel rods that make up Ahab’s harpoon and the fate of Ahab and the whale itself. The epic process of trawling through until the final confrontation mirrored The Pequod’s journey to same.As the end approached and I caught whiff, through one nostril, of the white whale’s proximity in the final pages, I deliberately slowed down my reading to more fully appreciate the journey, and because by now my reading eyes had synced with Melville’s Shakespearean rhythms, swirling poetry, dry wit, and grandiloquent turn of phrase, the final chapters were more joy than reward.The wit – after the crew had hauled all the heavy oil barrels up on deck:“top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head”.and:“The (whale’s) milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries.”The poetic:“In the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and softcymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.”The tormented Shakespearean soliloquizer:“what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.”The philosophical:“consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life”And the haughty self-referential:“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”Never was a book’s plot more secondary to its themes. It’s man versus everything; fate, circumstance, demons, ego, expectation, classism, religion, God, nature, empathy, understanding, brotherhood, the universe.An unforgettable and hard-won experience.

La edición es increíble, tapa dura con sobrecubierta, buena encuadernación. El precio es buenísimo sin estar de oferta. El libro en sí es increíble, pero la lectura de este clásico es exigente, pero vale la pena.He visto algún comentario que la sobrecubierta viene raspada, pero no es cierto, es el diseño original que simula el impacto de la ballena y al estar en blanco da otra impresión.

A metaphysical fever dream disguised as a whaling manual. Bible + Shakespeare + Sea