
Moby Dick
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Narrated by:
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Duncan Carse
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By:
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Herman Melville
About this listen
Written in 1851, this is the incredible story of the crazed captain Ahab who, consumed by his desire for revenge, drives his crew to scour the oceans of the world for the fearsome white whale, Moby Dick. It soon becomes clear that Ahab will stop at nothing and is prepared to risk everything, his ship, his crew members, and his own life.
Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) was an American novelist short story writer, essayist and poet.
Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.
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Critic reviews
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"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.
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Excellent, EXCELLENT reading!
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Overall
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Performance
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This is the one!
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Overall
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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-
-
Solid narration of a timeless classic
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By: Herman Melville
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.
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Excellent, EXCELLENT reading!
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Overall
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Not bad at all!
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Overall
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Ignoring prophecies of doom, the seafarer Ishmael joins the crew of a whaling expedition that is an obsession for the ship's captain, Ahab. Once maimed by the White Whale, Moby Dick, Ahab has set out on a voyage of revenge. With godlike ferocity, he surges into dangerous waters - immune to the madness of his vision, refusing to be bested by the forces of nature.
-
-
This is the one!
- By Anonymous User on 11-14-18
By: Herman Melville
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- By: Herman Melville
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, was first published in 1851. Known for its famous opening line, "Call me Ishmael," and for its epic narrative, complex characters, and rich symbolism, it is considered one of the greatest works of American literature.
By: Herman Melville
A well done recording of a book I probably would not have enjoyed had it not been for this fine recording.
Excellent version
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Loooooooooong
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Good American classic, but a difficult listen for a commute.
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Exhausting
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Just like I imagined
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Uneven
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What made this reading of the text unique was the spare intensity of Duncan Carse’s performance. Like Coleridge’s ancient mariner, Mr. Carse captured this listener’s attention completely, making it difficult to interrupt his tale and return to the necessities of daily life.
A brilliant performance worthy of so great a work.
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Ishmael begins his narrative by telling us that some years ago, feeling grim and drizzly, he decided to go to sea on a whaling ship to purge his spleen. He and his bosom buddy, the harpooner Queequeg, a cannibal prince with a profile like George Washington's and a body tattooed with illegible hieroglyphs that might hold the key to the truth of the universe, join the Pequod, captained by the soul-scorched and charismatic Ahab. Captain Ahab soon seduces the crew into swearing an unholy oath to help him hunt and kill the famed White Whale, Moby Dick, who by biting off his leg drove him into a monomaniacal quest for revenge.
Throughout that narrative Ishmael interweaves passages about the physical, behavioral, and symbolic aspects of sperm whales and about the history, tools, strategies, dangers, and noble nature of whaling. He relates such passages with vivid descriptions, humorous metaphors, and interesting allusions to myriad eras, cultures, religions, and artifacts. A reader sympathetic to whales may recoil from Ishmael's depiction of their callous butchery or assertion that they will never be in danger from over-hunting. Nevertheless, he also respects and empathizes with the sublime leviathans.
Ishmael, a "subterranean miner," attempts to "pierce the profundity" lurking beneath the surface of the world to attain the Truth about life and its dark realities--and so to appall rather than please his readers--and ambitiously attempts to compass his vast subject, the whale and all it signifies throughout human history. He speculates on fate and free will, belief and unbelief, civilization and savagery, community and alienation, and our brief lives in a dangerous world in which "all men live enveloped in whale-lines."
The reader Duncan Carse speaks with an austere and educated tone for Ishmael's base narration, from which he deviates to amplify the different personalities of the various characters. He handles Melville's many long and complex sentences with agility and clarity. His reading enhances the meaning and interest of the monologues and asides of characters like earnest Starbuck, jocund Stubb, grim Ahab, and divinely insane Pip.
Carse, however, more than a few times misspeaks a word and then quickly catches himself and reads it correctly (e.g., "a wissing--missing boat"). It's nearly unnoticeable, but such moments should have been edited out of the audiobook. Worse, the whale etymologies and literary extracts collected by Melville's "consumptive grammarian" and "grub-worm librarian" that preface the novel are absent.
In closing, I'd like to share some great lines from Moby-Dick:
"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."
"Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright."
"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own."
"One serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea."
"Let us all squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness."
"In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling to the wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!"
"Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal?"
"The rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monmaniac commander's soul."
"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man!"
"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."
"Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand!"
The Appalling Beauty of this Whaling World
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Would you consider the audio edition of Moby Dick to be better than the print version?
well if one has no time to read the book this is the best thingWhat other book might you compare Moby Dick to and why?
Nickolas NickelbyWhich scene was your favorite?
So far; The first time Ismael meets and learns of his savage harpooner room mate QueequegIf you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
American Classic Moby Dick the White WhaleAny additional comments?
I am enjoying listening to this book This version or reader is to my liking!Moby Dick
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Herman Melville touched on many themes, not the least of which is the maniacal leader in Captain Ahab. This is anti-slavery and anti-racist, although subtle enough that some might not get it. I read this about 25 years ago and wanted to experience it again after Cornel West talked about it in "Democracy Matters".
Moby Dick was published in 1851 and Melville talks about whether whales are fish or not. He mentions that whaling as it was in the first half of the nineteenth century was not sustainable.
I think everyone should read or listen to this unique American gem. I picked the least expensive recording during the half price sale. It's an old recording and the narrator is a little too British for this book. There are some times when there is someone coughing in the background. I give the narration four stars because he redeemed himself with the character voices.
Truly One of the Best American Novels
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