Moby Dick

By: Herman Melville

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

One of the great works of American literature, Moby-Dick is the epic tale of one man’s fight against a force of nature.

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 maniacal 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. This masterfully symbolic drama of the conflict between man and his fate has a special intensity that listeners will not soon forget.

(P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The greatest of American novels.”

(Atlantic Monthly)

“Even tenth-grade-me could have appreciated the book as read in Anthony Heald’s sardonic, Silence of the Lambs intonation. Generally speaking, witty books seem to have the most to gain in audio form…particularly when read by great voice artists.”

(BookRiot (audio review))

“Narrator Anthony Heald not only creates vivid characterizations—Captain Ahab’s gruff mania, Starbuck’s doubtful sensitivity, the prophet Elijah’s visionary shakiness—he also dramatizes the many moods of the Pequod crew and the mercurial ocean itself. Heald’s voice has the range of a piano, and he uses it like a virtuoso…Heald’s voice bristles dryly with humor or sinks with dread—a range necessary to tell this complex story.”

(AudioFile)

“An epic, rewarding, sea-worthy journey awaits you in one of literature’s classic tales.”

(Amazon.com)

“A work tantalizingly subversive, and yet somehow if not affirming at least forgiving of the blind destructiveness of human nature and of nature itself.”

(Elizabeth Hardwick, American literary critic)

“Responsive to the shaping forces of his age as only men of passionate imagination are, even Melville can hardly have been fully aware of how symbolical an American hero he had fashioned in Ahab.”

(F. O. Matthiessen, literary critic)

The Narrator Brings the Book Alive

I can't believe some found the narrator sub par. This guy did a great job with tough material and did so in a way that kept the story moving. I could never have read this book by myself and finished it. My hat is off to the narrator, excellent job. Bravo.

As for the content of the unabridged book, be prepared for lengthy dissertations on what the color white means, how whale is best prepared and whale anatomy. This book is best listen to in small segments but in the end you will be left with a sense of accomplishment for sticking it through. You will also be rewarded with a much better understanding of what it must have been like to be on a whaling vessel in the late 1800's.

Wow! This is so surpringly geeky and adorable!

Many people warned me of this book so I ended up being quite apprehensive before starting. But I ended up loving it. It surprised me with its geekiness, humor, queerness, and its experiments (e.g. suddenly shifting into drama form instead of prose for a chapter). And then the gorgeous prose just bowled me over.

I think that Moby-Dick is just perfect as an audiobook, especially: with a skilled, dramatic narration, it just comes to life and envelops you in its world of the sea. While I had to rewind and listen to a few passages more than once to understand them completely, I still think it was the right decision to listen to this instead of eye-reading it all: just like Shakespeare's plays, this just gains a whole new dimension when performed well, and Anthony Heald does so masterfully.

I did have the advantage of being familiar with the Aubrey–Maturin series and Hornblower, so the sailing terminology didn't bother me. But even if you don't know all those words, I don't think it matters. I can imagine students forced to read this book and forced to look up all of these words being super bored, but you can just as easily simply just forget about it and enjoy the story and characters without worrying about the exact details of 19th century whaling. Just imagine that whalers back then were basically what Top Gun pilots or astronauts are for some people today: the epitome of freedom, adventure and daring (plus gory carnage). It also depicts a group of people outside of "civilized", straight-laced society back then: a diversity of ethnicities, cultures, and (strongly implied) sexual orientations. The depictions aren't what we'd consider woke today, but *for its time*, it was clearly progressive and open-mindedly curious. You can also tell that it's based on the author's own first hand experience on whaling ships, which just adds so much authenticity and flavor.

And then the dark exploration of the depths of the human soul and its tendency to project all the world's evils and difficulties onto a rather random foe, fixation, obsession, madness, all described in the most gorgeous prose ever. What's also funny is that the book breaks so many rules: it suddenly shifts to stage play! It suddenly features events or private thoughts the first person narrator cannot possibly have witnessed! And for some inexplicable reason, it all works anyway. All the "mistakes" I'd usually condemn harshly, committed here with impunity, because it somehow works. I think this is why this novel is studied like no other: you just want to find out how and why this works so well even though it shouldn't. Plus it's beautiful.

I didn't even mind the geeky "here's all I know about the various different kinds of whales" chapters at all, even though we now know much more and know much of this information actually wasn't correct. But it's presented so engagingly, it's like when you're listening to a friend who's absolutely crazy about airplanes telling you all the things he finds exciting about them, and his enthusiams is just contagious.

Anyway, I loved it! If you've been avoiding it because teenagers told you it's boring: give this wonderful audiobook a try.

Come on it's Moby Dick!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Of course its a classic. it really gives you an inside view of the whaleing industry in the days before oil from the ground. All machines and lamps used whale oil. No industrial revoloution without it.

What about Anthony Heald’s performance did you like?

I have listened to some horrible narrators but this one is definatly one of the good ones.

Please… read more, Mr. Heald!

Anthony Heald is an amazing reader. Different voices, amazing cadence. Not to mention… a classic that I can finally say I earnestly read.

Classic for a reason.

I've avoided reading this for too many years. First of all, it was thoroughly engrossing. Not at all the slog that many people make it out to be. Even the parts that are universally feared, the dreaded anatomy sections, I enjoyed listening and felt they genuinely shed light on our humble narrator. Speaking of narration, Mr. Heald was phenomenal. He truly brought Melville's words to life. I will definitely be adding this to my books to read again.