Moby Dick

By: Herman Melville

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins

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.

Critic reviews

"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)

Good but..

Where does Moby Dick rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's not the best but it is ranked high

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, It gets long and has slow parts.

Any additional comments?

It's a classic that everyone should read. But there is a reason it was not popular in his life time, but is better as a historical account of the old whalers.

classic conquered

Moby Dick is a book I've been wanting to read for years now. I've picked it up dozens of times but never had the time to get very far into it. Now I've finally been able to with Audible. Great app. Great book.

Wonderfully read!...if you can stay awake.

The narrator does an excellent job making each character distinct, but the text was so antiquated and the subject so foreign to me that I found the detailed exposition meandering. And whenever the action started, it was hard to keep pace with the jargon-laced dialogue.

But do not let that stop you! Keep a dictionary handy, even take notes if you have to! The story is well worth the challenge.

Unless you are educated. Then you should be fine.

Hilarious; sublime

phenomenal performance. amazing story. makes me want to get a physical copy to start underlining and memorizing some of the phrases that were so compelling.

Narration is good but story is lacking.

I thought Anthony Heald did a fabulous job of narrating this very difficult and tedious book.

The story lives in the beginning and end of the book, which are very good. The other 80% of the book is nothing more than a reference manual about whales and whaling with tiny bits of story mixed in that act as bridges between reference material. I found this to be very tedious and detrimental to the overall book.

This is not a story with a bit of reference material. This is a reference manual with a bit of story mixed in.

Ron Swanson quote

"No frou-frou symbolism. Just a good, simple tale about a man who hates an animal."

Loomings

This is the third or fourth time I've tried listening to Melville's classic, a book I read for the first time decades ago, and Anthony Heald's narration is the first time I've managed to finish the audiobook--with great pleasure, I'll add at once. In some ways, the novel does not lend itself to a good listen, chiefly because Melville shuns straightforward storytelling. He offers instead many other literary rewards, but it takes a savvy narrator (and I don't mean Ishmael!) to make the listener appreciate those rewards.

What many readers miss in the novel is Melville's humor (I often joke that Melville was drunk when he penned the thing). The problem for the narrator becomes how to convey this sly humor. It's not, for the most part, a laugh-out-loud kind of humor, but rather the raised-eyebrow sort of humor. Somehow (I know not how!) Anthony Heald manages to capture Melville's voice from the first page to the last--and that's saying a lot, given the novel's length.

In short, I cannot recommend Anthony Heald's reading of "Moby Dick" highly enough.

Moby Dud

Well, turns out this classic was not for me. I listened to all 136 chapters but it was a struggle. Why? Well, there was way too much flowery speech and side story. WAY TOO MUCH. Out of 136 chapters only 5 or 6 seemed to tell the main story. The rest was fluff. I listened at 1.5 normal speed and it couldn’t end too soon for me.

This is a great reason for Audible

I would likely have never read this book in the traditional way. There are long asides concerning whales and equipment that may have lost my interest, but not in this format.

A most amazing book. A classic. a very very interesting tale.

My Favorite Way to Enjoy My Favorite Book

Moby Dick has always been my favorite book, but it can be time consuming to read. Reading the book is best done in chunks. I like to revisit it every few years and this recording makes it easy and enjoyable to get through the entire book in a matter of days. A joy to listen to.