Moby-Dick, or the Whale by Herman Melville (Part 1 of 2)

People who pay attention to my reading stats (lololol) might notice that I have not completed an ebook on my Kindle since September. This is because I have been reading Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. This is a classic I've been meaning to read forever and since this was the year of Big Books, I dove in. 

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I think I'm going to do this review in two parts. Today I'll talk about Melville and do a review and then tomorrow I'll do my lines of note, things I looked up (SO MUCH), and hat mentions. Strap in. I've been reading this book for literal months. 

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Does anyone actually know the plot of Moby-Dick? (I sure didn't.)

It starts with the sentence "Call me Ishmael" and immediately you're on guard. Okay, fine, but is that your actual name, Ishmael? Are you an unreliable narrator? You sound unreliable from the first three words!

Note: All page numbers come from the Kindle ebook I used. 

So we're calling the narrator Ishmael and we're basically introduced to him through this very, very hilarious description of his state of mind:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. (page 17)

(My husband and I used to tell each other not to murder anyone when we go into a crowded situation - usually the grocery store - but now we've taken to reminding the other not to knock people's hats off. We are amused if no one else is.)

So Ishmael goes to sea with a ragtag assortment of folks on the Pequod. This includes Queequeg, a harpooner who just happens to be a cannibal; Starbuck, the Quaker mate from Nantucket; and Captain Ahab, an absolute batshit crazy guy who is obsessed with finding a white whale - the one and only Moby Dick - who had bit his leg off and forced him to use a fake leg. 

“Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye.” (page 190)

A handful of adventures ensue, but it's mostly Ishmael's deep dives into whales, whaling, and life on a ship, Ahab's insane rants, and some incredibly repulsive descriptions of killing sea creatures. 

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Who is Herman Melville? 

Melville was born into a financially stable family in New York City in 1819. His father died, however, and his family was broke as a joke, so he signed up to be a common sailor on the merchant ship St. Lawrence and then to a whaler named Acushset. He wrote a couple of books based on his travel adventures, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), and that set him up financially for a time.

Moby-Dick came out in 1851. Trivia alert. Moby-Dick the title of the book has a hyphen, but no where in the book itself does Melville use a hyphen. So if I'm writing about the whale, I'll use Moby Dick (no hyphen), but if I'm writing about the book, I'm going to be pedantic and use a hyphen. 

The book was first published (in three volumes) as The Whale in London in October 1851, and under its definitive title, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, in a single-volume edition in New York in November. Melville drew on his experience as a common sailor and on wide reading in whaling literature for his vivid and sometimes disgusting descriptions of sailing, whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew. The white whale is modeled on a notoriously hard-to-catch albino whale Mocha Dick, and the book's ending is based on the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820. 

(For those of you playing along in NGS reading lore, the sinking of the Essex is the basis of my beloved In the Heart of the Sea and is responsible, in large part, for my decision to read Moby-Dick.)

Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Whomp. Whomp. 

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So what did you think?

Um. Hm. That's a good question. 

Ishmael is hilarious. As a narrator, I found his voice to be entrancing. I found his enthusiasm for all things whales to be contagious. 

So I was on board, truly, for his in-depth discussions of everything whale - a biological classification, fictional stories, a breakdown of the skeleton, detailed anatomical structures, how to catch one, flensing whales (NOT FOR THE FAINTHEARTED), ambergris, barrels of whale oil, and everything else. I was mostly on board for his in-depth musings on things that came to mind when he thought about whales, including the symbolism of particular animals and colors (whales and white, mostly), man as the top predator, fate, free will, and obsession. 

What I was not here for, it turns out, was Ahab's monomaniacal obsession. As soon as Ahab started talking, I'd find myself zoning out. I also found myself zoning out about religion, but that's par for the course with me. 

While this book is nominally about whaling, it's obviously really about man versus nature and who is top dog. Nature isn't just the white whale, but taking to the sea to collect oil so that people on the shore can light their way at night. It's about loyalty, revenge, and problem solving. It's about life and death, light and dark, and, of course, killing that fucking whale. 

It also took a lot of time before the real "action" started. It wasn't until almost 100 pages in that we actually saw the Pequod:

...were three ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-Dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. (page 91 - first mention!)

Description of the Pequod:

A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that. (page 92)

Then it was still more time before we actually set sail:

At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship’s riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, (page 125 - we set sail!)

Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic. (page 129)

So, the first part of the book was really not that exciting unless you like sermons about Jonah and reading about how cold it is in New England during winter. 

But, just wait until tomorrow when I post all the things I had to look up. Melville had a much more classical and Biblical training than I did and I did not understand a lot of his references and allusions. However, the Internet is an amazing thing and have you heard of Power Moby-Dick? It's a FREE online annotated copy of Moby-Dick. I used the heck out of it. 

I'm glad I read it, but I will not be reading it again. 3.5/5 stars (I guess - this was hard to rate!)

Have you read Moby-Dick? Are you going to?

Five for Friday, Edition #35

Five Hard Things

1. I recruited a friend to be my co-worker. Did I ever tell this story? I had a friend in book club who was looking for a job and I told her to apply to my office and she did and now her office is across the hall from mine. She's sick. And things are not going well for her. On Wednesday she was admitted to the ICU and I feel like it was stuff with my mom all over again. Anyway, she's probably going to be fine, right?

2. I used to listen to a podcast called Let's Go To Court. It was two women who had been friends since they were in elementary school discussing true crime cases. But the podcast ended and so did the friendship. One of the hosts has a new podcast with her husband called An Old Timey Podcast and at the end of an episode they discussed how hard it was to lose that friendship. She said that in many ways ending that friendship was harder than if she had ended her marriage and I think that's right. When you get divorced, people around you rally around. When a friendship ends, no one really knows. Anyway, I've been thinking about this because I recently took someone off my holiday card list because I hadn't heard from them in a long time and it was clear they have broken up with me, but I don't know why. 

3. Yesterday when I walked Hannah in the morning, it was rainy and about 44 degrees (about 7 degrees Celsius). Not ideal, but it was fine. By the time I left work, it was 34 degrees and the temperatures were falling fast. By the time I walked her before bed, it was 19 degrees (about -7 Celsius). A winter weather advisory was issued for something called flash freeze, which is not a term I was familiar with, but some jackass on Reddit wrote "this is completely normal for living in the Midwest" and I'm over here going ???? in my brain. How have I ever never heard this term before?

4. Grades were posted Wednesday, so yesterday I spent the day following up with my students of concern to see how things were going. Most of the news was good and I was able to say congratulations and I'm proud of you. But the students who didn't do well. Ugh. I hate having those conversations. 

5. I'm reading a book that has a lot of buzz and has been well-reviewed and I just don't like it. How long do I have to keep reading it? 

Five Fun Things

1. Tonight we're going to the holiday light show at the local botanical garden with our friends. We do this every year and I'm excited about taking a little bit of fun time.

2. Sunday is the Winter Solstice! We have friends who have a Solstice Party every year where we go to their backyard and hang out around a campfire. It is a lovely time to see people we don't always see regularly and to remind myself that the days are going to get longer.

3. In January, I have blocked out days for me and Bestest Friend to hang out together. We haven't exactly planned what we're going to do yet, but it's on the calendar.

4.Speaking of Bestest Friend, I sent her a holiday card with some of my high school senior photos in it and she put those photos on the fridge. This made me laugh.

5. Did you all know Christmas is next week? And New Year's the week after? I'm super excited for time off and to get to hang out with my in-laws on Christmas Day.

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Are you familiar with flash freeze? Did you take anyone off the holiday card list this year? What holiday celebration are you most looking forward to in the next couple of weeks?

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén

I heard about When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzie, on an episode of Sarah's Bookshelves. 

So, there was recently a discussion about the last book that made you cry in my corner of the blogosphere and I couldn't remember. I just don't cry much at books. So along comes When the Cranes Fly South which seemed to accept this as a personal challenge. 

My parents both died young. They died before we had to have discussions about whether or not it was safe for them to drive, it was appropriate for them to live alone, or if they could care for their pets. And I frequently wish I had more time with them, but I'm forever grateful that those were conversations I got to duck out of. 

My mom loved her dog more than she loved me. I knew that in the pecking order of my mom's affections, it was her dog, my sister, her younger brother, and then me. That's fine. I actually think Dusty and Red deserved more love than I did, so she wasn't wrong in that aspect of the pecking order (the others...I might have some beef). But the idea of having to tell my mom that she was not capable of caring for her beloved pet and having to have the responsibility of removing her dog from her house? That seems impossible to me and I don't know if I would have ever done it. My mom would have preferred to die slipping on the ice taking the dog for a walk than in a home alone without her dog. (YOU GUYS. I'm crying just typing this.)

Bo is a retired mill worker. His wife has dementia, the mean kind, and she is in a home where she doesn't remember Bo and reacts violently when he visits her. Bo still lives at the house he lived with his wife with his dog Sixten and carers come in multiple times a day to check on Bo and help him get dressed, shower, eat, and let the dog out. Bo's son Hans is dealing with a lot - he has a high-stress job, his mom is in a home, and his dad refuses to acknowledge that Sixten is too much for him to handle.

How's all this going to play out?

With lots of tears on my part, friends. Lots of tears.

It was a beautiful book. But, I swear to all that's holy, if you are in a sensitive place right now, do not read this book. 5/5 stars

Line of note:

I feel the urge to get up, to hit the table and tell him I'll do whatever the hell I want. That I'm the captain of this ship.

But I don't, because I'm not a captain. I'm a bundle that's been lashed to the mast in a storm. (page 160)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

wearing a big hat with a ribbon (page 102)

who clams up at the drop of a hat (page 151)

big black hat (page 285)

He picks up his hat (page 286)

holds the hat close to his stomach (page 286)

puts his hat on (page 286)

I've only ever seen people wearing hats like that on TV. (page 286)l

man in the hat (page 289 x2)

Photo Every Hour 12/15/2025

I missed some hours here and there. I think you'll all forgive me. 

5:31am - Alarm went off. I turned it off and grabbed my Kindle. Today is the big day. I finished Moby-Dick! You may or may not know this, but I have been reading it since September and I was bound and determined to finish it by the end of the year! I did it!

6:21am - It was seven degrees out (roughly -14 for you Celsius people), so Hannah had to wear her coat and boots for our morning walk. She was very unhappy about this.

7:01am - I just finished breakfast. This is where Hannah is about 90% of the time when I'm eating. 

8:01am - Am I supposed to be at work by 8? Yes, yes, I am. Are we just now leaving the house at 8? Yes, yes, we are.

9:07am - The leftover cookies from last week's Cookies & Cocoa event are still in the kitchen!

10:51am - Tough student meeting. I needed to use all the tools.

11:54am - Walking to yoga. It is so cold.

12:02pm - Yoga! The lady who runs yoga is retiring, which is great for her, but it means she's only going to be around for one more session.

1:05pm - My husband brought me extra tea. He stayed home this morning and only came in after lunch, so he brought me extra tea. I have a very mild cold and I have been drinking lots of tea in an effort to not feel terrible.

(I accidentally forgot during the 2 o'clock hour. I was in a meeting with a co-worker doing a training. Very boring.)

3:27pm - I left work at 3 because we had to important things, including stopping at my eye place to pick up my contacts. 

(During the 4 o'clock hour, we were at the Subaru dealership doing something boring with our new car. I failed to take a photo.)

5:50pm - After the car thing, we went to the grocery store and I accidentally left my phone in the car. *sigh* Here we are getting ready to unpack groceries.

6:03pm - Zelda got fed. She's been very vocal about wanting food and then not finishing her food. This happened again. We don't know if this is something to be concerned about or not. Should I call the vet? Who even knows?

7:46pm - Because I had to wash my hair, I took my shower early. This was my after shower product extravaganza. 

8:03pm - Wandered into the living. Dr. BB and I are going to watch an episode or two of Murderbot. Zelda wants cuddles. Who am I to deny her?

9:03pm - Guess who's still on my lap? Guess who's jealous about it?

9:39pm - One last photo before I went to bed. We did our advent jigsaw puzzle!

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Do you have an advent calendar? When's the last time a cat cuddled on your lap? 

2025 Book Club Picks

Book Club Picks of Past Years
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024

In 2025, my IRL book club met seven times.

In chronological order:

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis - This was universally liked by my book club peeps. Unfortunately,  because of that, the discussion was pretty minimal. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for a book club if you want to actually talk about the book.  

Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood - Split verdict at book club. Two of us were not enamored with it and three people were obsessed. It's not a book for everyone, but it is for some.

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray - Too long; too many POVs that weren't distinct enough. We did learn about the French Revolution, so that was something, I guess.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - I missed book club, so I don't know how it went over, but I loved it. 

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman - Mostly liked by book club folks. One person has gone on to read all the books in the series. Not the best discussion. 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - No one loved it, but we had a great discussion about it. I think I'd recommend it for a book club. 

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen - I don't know friends. This was dark. There were divergent views on it, so there was some discussion. Beware of the violence in this one going in, though. 

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I have been thinking about that cool custom book ornament a lot and next year I might buy an ornament for all my book club peeps with our books of the year. That's a nice way to celebrate book club. You can even get a tag that has Book Club with the year on it. 

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Have you read any of these? If you're part of a book club, what book sparked a good discussion? 

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen was the December pick for my IRL book club.

Let's just start with some cover analysis, shall we?

Doesn't this look like a delightful cozy fantasy about a woman and her magical garden? Isn't that what the title and color scheme makes you think? 

You would be wrong. This book is filled with violence against women and was incredibly disturbing. 

Book club results: One person did not get further than ten pages in, one person thought it was an empowering look at how we can save ourselves, one person (me) was super bothered by the depictions of violence in the book and could not get over the time the husband locked the wife in the basement, one person attempted valiantly to figure out how the magic in the garden worked. So 25% success rate?

(I think the garden is like a dog. I don't control Hannah really. If she wanted to bite someone, she could. If she wanted to smother someone to death, she could. But Hannah doesn't usually do those things - USUALLY - because she wants me and Dr. BB to be happy and that would not make us happy. So sometimes she's erratic and naughty, but generally she reads our moods and does things to make us happy. That's the garden magic. It's really a dog. But that's my reading on it.)

Harriet lives alone in Sunnyside, her London home, after her father disappeared months ago. Her mother is dead, her only friend has moved away, and all that keeps Harriet company is her garden. Well, about that garden. It's wild and crazy and Harriet has to tend to it or it will completely overtake her house. But then there's this inspector coming around and suggesting Harriet had something to do with her father's disappearance. And this charming young man comes around to court her. SPOILER: HE IS NOT CHARMING. 

Anyway. Read at your own peril. 3/5 stars

Things I looked up:

Ellen Terry (page 84) - an English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; she was born into a family of actors and began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured throughout the British provinces in her teens

Henry Pickering (page 167) - English portrait painter in the 1700s

Hat mentions (why hats?):
round hat (page 11, 276)
tipped his hat (page 18, 82, 282)
tipping his hat (page 33)
below his hat (page 47)
tied on her hat (page 59)
top hat (page 69, 141)
did not wear a hat (page 121)
brim of his hat (page 123)
took his hat off his head (page 149)
tugged firmly at his hat (page 152)
under his hat (page 166)
took off his hat (page 72)
funny hat (page 169)
picked up his hat (page 181)
coat and hat (page 191)
wore no hat (page 201)
beneath his hat (page 229)
fetch our hats (page 281)

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Are you sensitive about violence against women? Would this cover make you think it would be a big role in this book?

Five for Friday, Edition #34

1) Holiday cards - I put them in the mail Wednesday night. I presume that means my international friends will get them sometime in 2026. Woot woot! YOU GUYS. When I was cleaning my mom's house, I found my high school senior photos and there were a bunch of wallet-sized ones left, so I put them in all my high school friends' cards. Oh, and Allison got a couple. If you want to know what I looked like in high school, just imagine me with long hair and fewer wrinkles. 

I ran out of stickers, so the last few didn't get a sticker. How much am I going to let this bother me? (I think you all know that it's going to bother me, but if you get an envelope that doesn't have a sticker, it doesn't mean I don't love you.)

2) Secret SANta - Sarah was my Secret SANta and look what goodies ended up at my door! A fuzzy scarf and hat set. I think you all know I'm always cold, so what a thoughtful gift.

The deadline San set for us to mail our items was December 6. That seems reasonable, but I wanted to buy something for my swap partner at the local Holiday Market that was on that date, so I went to the market in the morning and got to the post office with five minutes before it closed. I told the rest of the story on Nicole's blog, so why am I redoing this?

3) Weather - Friends. It's batshit here. And do you know what the highs this weekend are supposed to be? I can't even. A high of five (that's -15 to you Celsius folks). Dumb. So dumb. 

4) Murderbot - Well, I am not going to let the weather bother me because my plan for the weekend is to sit on the couch with my favorite cat and watch Murderbot on Apple TV. My husband recently bought a laptop and we have three free months of Apple TV and you better believe we are watching A LOT of things. 

Do you see that car covered in snow? It's an Audi wagon and I'm so jealous of it. It's beautiful and perfect and THEY DON'T SELL IT IN THE US ANYMORE. Ahem. 

5) Cookies - Workplace demerit and gold star incoming. 

Demerit - Our holiday employee celebration was on Tuesday afternoon. It was an event running from 1-3 and we turned up about 2. I trudged across campus with some of my colleagues and arrived to find the worst food spread imaginable. There were meatballs in some sort of grey sauce (*gag*), an empty tureen of soup, some sad looking tiny sandwiches with one slice of lunchmeat (*heave*) on them, and a cheese plate. I liked the cheese, actually. There was a hot cocoa and coffee bar, but I don't drink either, so that was a bust for me personally, but went over well with everyone else. 

But the kicker? They had put a lovely sugar cookie at each place setting at some tables and there was frosting and sprinkles to decorate said cookies. But, hypothetically, if you arrived at 2, there were NO MORE COOKIES. Did I need a cookie? No. Did I trudge across campus with the thought that maybe I could get a cookie? Yes. 

I was actually more insulted with the lackluster food than if there had just been no food. That is all. Are you listening, Big Guy in Charge? (I actually really hope he doesn't read my blog.)

Gold star: The dean of our college

 (This might actually be confusing for non higher ed folks. I work at a university that is made up of six individual colleges. I work for one of those colleges. People frequently say they're going to college and that's technically true, but not all colleges are universities, but all universities have at least two colleges.)

hosts a Cookies and Cocoa event every year. His partner is a baker extraordinaire and she makes SO MANY COOKIES. And guess what? On Wednesday, I got cookies and the leftovers stay in the kitchen on our floor! Woot! Cookies galore at the end of the week. 

Also, I was bringing a friend a meal on Monday, so I made spiced chocolate chip cookies and brown butter sugar cookies AND we're going to a dealio tonight, so I made buckeyes last night. There has been SO MUCH BUTTER AND SUGAR usage in our house. It's going to be brutal when I have to go back to reality in January. But right now? My candy/cookie game is great.

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Are you going to be caught up in this Arctic blast? What's the last cookie you ate?