Book report #4 01/07/08

Melville,Herman, Moby Dick, Los Angeles
Dover Publications: 2003

Reason, Type and Setting: I selected this book, beacuse I have heard about it a lot in the past, the name is really popular. It is an adventure novel with a tragic end, so that makes it partly a tragedy. It takes place in worlds oceans, such as Pacific, Atlantic and Indian in around 1830's.

Plot: The narrator of this book, Ishmael, wanted to sail aboard a whealing boat. He meets harpooner Queequeg, they start working together and meet a old one-leged sailor Ahab, who's leg was eaten by a while whale, Moby Dick. Ahab joins them, they sail all around the world looking for Moby Dick to kill him. At the end, they found him, but he sank their boats, so everyone dies, except for Ishmael, who was far enough to escape from a whirpool made by the sinking boat.

Character: I picked Ahab, because with his evil and passionate characteristics is special for me. He is single-minded in his pursuit of the whale, using a mixture of charisma and terror to persuade his crew to join him. As a captain, he is dictatorial but not unfair. He dies in the end, so he didn't change at all.

Evaluation: I enjoyed this book pretty much, even the sotry line wasn't that complicated. Character of this book was not to inform but entertain, and sometimes it made me laugh. Ahab was an amazing character, almost like a pirate. I would recommend this book to every single lover of action stories, you will like it. I kind of didn't expect the book to end the way it did, I was more like they really are gonna get that whale. If i yould put myself onto the plot, I couldn't play any of those characters, but if I would have to stay myself, we wouldn't probably chase after the Moby Dick.

Author, Context and Trivia: Herman Melvielle was an American novelist, essayist of the 19th century. His greatest novel is obviously Moby Dick but he also wrote novels as Ossle of the Cross, Redburn: His first voyage etc. I definitely plan on reading some other book from him.