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Moby Dick cover art

Moby Dick

Written by: Herman Melville
Narrated by: Anthony Heald
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Publisher's Summary

The outcast youth Ishmael, succumbing to wanderlust during a dreary New England autumn, signs up for passage aboard a whaling ship. The Pequod sails under the command of the one-legged Captain Ahab, who has set himself on a monomaniacal quest to capture the cunning white whale that robbed him of his leg: Moby-Dick. Capturing life on the sea with robust realism, Melville details the adventures of the colorful crew aboard the ship as Ahab pursues his crusade of revenge, heedless of all cost.
Public Domain (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What the critics say

"The greatest of American novels." ( Atlantic Monthly)
"[A]n intense, superbly authentic narrative. Its theme and central figure are reminiscent of Job in his search for justice and of Oedipus in his search for truth."( Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature)

What listeners say about Moby Dick

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
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Full of excitement

Herman Melville has an infectious way of creating images and scenes in the mind. His use of the English language is masterful as he takes you along this adventurous journey from beginning to end.

Some parts of this book are rather dry and long. much of it is taken up with descriptions and classifications of whales and other such details. This will definitely not be an easy read, but if you can make it through those parts, it will be worth it.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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I see why people like it.

It very well may be the great American novel, it is however no matter of light reading - or in our case, listening.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

There are already 100s of reviews of this book

It is a classic and not for me to review. The performer is excellent. The book is very long and like all classics from a different time, rife with racism and outdated points of view. I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody in the Western world that views killing whales as a brave struggle against monsters of the deep rather than a slaughter of innocents. But if you keep that I mind, it is a story that has been told in movies, tv etc forever and it is worth hearing the original tale.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Decent story, buried...

...under an encyclopaedic telling of all things whale and ship.

I have been trying to make my through the classics on Audible, but this one nearly broke me.

The performance was a bright point - very lively and passionate. A more dull narrator would have made this book impossible to get through.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Such a wonderful work

Such a wonderful book. Not only entertaining but educational. I’ve learned more about whales and whaling that I could ever possibly hope to have learned. It’s worth re-listening to again simply for the intelligent understanding of whales and spiritual and psychological concepts of obsession of a man to the Monomania we can all be susceptible to.
Read this ....or rather listen to this

By the way, the narrator is by far and away my favorite. Thanks

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Experiential experience! A world in a different time

After completing Moby Dick, I sincerely feel that I lived a lifetime as a Nantucket Whale Man. Personal Harpoon and all. I am certain I would have made Specksynder! What a glorious read, thoroughly enjoyed! Performance was impeccable.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

the performance saves this book.

to keep this brief, this story feels like a child, was somehow a whale biologist, who was madly fixed on whales, wrote this book. it has so much filler it feels as if it could be 4 hours long, if the story was actually covered. and the story itself is actually fine! but they go on tangents explaining the difference between certain types of whales, and begin to talk quite deeply about how people perceive and respond to the color white. this book was exhausting to me, and i had to speed it up to 1.25x speed to drag myself threw it. i can simply say i read that book everyone references, and say ive actually read it. but this book to me personally feels like it lacks any proper flow.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Mixed Feelings...

The narrator Anthony Heald was fantastic - I can imagine him as a stingy old sea captain retelling this tale. And while the story itself was some of the most beautiful storytelling I’ve heard, these prophetic moments were interspersed with chapters that seemed to go on and on and on and on....... about the most mundane details that had no bearing on the storyline. I learnt a lot about whales and whaling that wasn’t at all necessary for my enjoyment of the story. This whole book could’ve easily been shaved down to 10 chapters (instead of 134). Wouldn’t recommend..... unless you just really want to tell people that you read Moby Dyck.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Horribly overacted

I had to purchase a different version as it was impossible to listen to the completely overboard performance by Anthony Heald.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Long and Dry

The performance is great -animated and talented reader. The story is dry and long though. It took me a while to get through. Certainly more useful as a historical snapshot with a vaguely Hemingway-ish smattering of the philosophy of masculinity.

It was nice to see race acknowledged and not have it whitewashed and I liked how racial comments and views on the part of the characters which would be considered taboo today and framed as terms of endearment and fellowship.

It’s not bad. Think of it as a rite of passage.

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