Chris Barker

Moby Dick is difficult to summarise in a review because its exuberance seems to overflow the page.

The book is the travelogue of an adventurous whaler named Ishmael in the mid-19th century. It describes his search for a ship, encounter with a Polynesian cannibal named Queequeeg, and fateful voyage with Captain Ahab to seek the fearsome white whale.

It meanders through hundreds of pages of high-sea adventure, interspersed with factual chapters that chronicle everything from different types of whale, to the interesting uses of their removed foreskins. The latter is a sore spot for some readers if you’ll pardon the expression: many people do not want to read long, incorrect, and occasionally penis-related Encyclopedia entries in their great works of literature. Personally, I think more information about whale dicks would liven up Anna Karenina.

Is Ishmael the main character of Moby Dick?

Once the action moves away from dry land, the young whaler stops driving the plot, which focuses on Captain Ahab’s quest for revenge against the animal who maimed his leg. The story becomes deeply mythological and symbolic, with Ahab’s attempt to destroy the whale despite all signs the attempt will kill him standing in for every attempt by humanity to battle an unbeatable force.

Still, the plot is only half of Moby Dick. Ishmael’s personality permeates the book, with the non-Ahab chapters being mostly his feverish attempts to describe every aspect of life on board, from the taxonomy of whales to the methods by which they are hunted, to his observations about the crew, to the culture of mariners in the mid-19th century.

He has, in his own words, ‘swam through libraries and sailed through oceans,’ and written down everything he can get his hands on. Ishmael’s joy at discovery fills the book- he quickly goes from fear of Queequeeg to love and respect and embraces everything from sailing to chowder with manic-depressive intensity. It makes the inaccuracies and occasionally tedious length of his writings seem like puppyish enthusiasm.

Without Ishmael, Moby Dick would be melodrama. With his chapters, we are reminded there is a world outside Ahab’s obsession with a single whale.