Moby Dick

The Whale

By: Herman Melville

Narrated by: Alan Munro

Length: 26 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Moby-Dick is widely considered to be the Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story details the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whale ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale: Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg. And Ahab intends to take revenge.

Public Domain (P)2013 Trout Lake Media

This narrator MAKES - ...senseless and ANNOYing - ... emphases - ...as he READS.

Like a bad grocery cart wheel going whomp-whomp-whomp...
I took a chance on it. Should have listened to a sample first!
Alas... Lesson learned & money lost in the sea.

wondering story

the performance about put me to sleep. the reader was almost monotone, and the story went off on tangents, you had to pay 100% attention to follow along.

Yes, bad narration

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Ha! Well, I'd tighten up the writing some, maybe add a boy wizard... That captain is really a downer.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator has a lovely resonant voice, but he seems to be coming upon the words for the first time as he reads them. He mispronounces some fairly common words as if he doesn't quite know where the story is going from one phrase to the next.

Not for everyone. Grew on me after a couple times.

Struggled to pay attention. By the third time through I was enjoying the dense poetic writing, but it is still unsatisfying to know I missed much of the plot from distraction.

Unfortunate narration

The other reviewers saying the narration is bad are correct. I labored all the way through part I before becoming frustrated by the arbitrary pauses and inflection. The reading is in fact so poor that I found it very difficult to follow the story, one i read many years ago and loved. Finally i gave up and downloaded the version narrated by Mark Nelson. What an improvement! I began at the beginning-- again-- and am astonished at the wonderful difference. For a mere $1.80 more, the very good Mark Nelson version is a fantastic value.

Snorefest!!!!!

I loved this story growing up but this was the worst reading I've ever heard! It was so monotonous and monotoned that I couldn't listen for more than 10 min at a time without falling a sleep or just tuning it out completely!

Narrator was fine. Book goes off in tangents

Most of the book is spent relating detail of the whaling industry that are not necessarily for the story. I was bored with all but about 5 or 6 chapters.

Worth the effort.

Very glad to have read this very eloquently written classic. However, it took me a while to get through not because of its length, but it's sometimes educational/manual like description of the whaling industry. It's dated because of this, not the wonderful adventure story that it truly is.

Felt like torture

Okay, so I loved Grapes of Wrath. I loved the Odyssey. I love descriptive narrative. But this just went too far. I did not need multiple chapters describing a whales head. I listened to the entire thing, although I switched to the podcast version at about chapter 100. The best thing I can say is that I did it, but I certainly wouldn't do it again.

Great voice, bad narration

When I listen to the sample, I immediately noticed that the narrator has one of those amazing, booming voices that rattles around inside your head. But after having made it through the entire 25+ hours, I found his style extremely sleepy. His use of accents is impressive, but he keeps the same tone and attitude throughout the entire book, even as the drama is ratcheting up. So even in the climactic final chapters, It feels as if you’re being read a bedtime story.

As for the book itself, what can you say? It’s Moby Dick. Lots of beautiful imagery, but I could have skipped a few of those chapters on whale anatomy.