It gets a bad rep for being hard to read (which it is because of the sea-faring and archaic vocabulary) but it’s surprisingly entertaining with even a casual/jovial tone at times. I haven’t finished it, but so far like 30% of the book is irrelevant to the plot and is just the authors random musings and philosophies on life. He dedicates entire pages to debating what the most comfortable room temperature and position to sleep in is, or his opinions on random countries like Japan or “Affghanistan”. It almost reads like blogposts or diary entries.
He also has surprisingly modern humor and opinions. He makes borderline gay jokes when he has to sleep in bed with an African man “Queequog”, and then describes how he respects him, saying “the man’s a human being just as I am; he has just as much reason to fear me…better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” and that “It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin”. The two develop this wholesome Rush Hour style partnership that’s pretty funny.
There’s also one part where he states that even though he’s Christian, he respects anyone’s beliefs as long as they hurt noone.
I also really liked how it occasionally shifts to the 1st person perspective of Captain Ahab or Starbuck for a chapter which adds good variety.
It absolutely has a bad rep.
Mentioning Moby Dick to most people, even prolific readers, will be met with responses about how they’d never want to read such a long heavy boring book.
I have been met with a lot of surprise from people when I mention I love it. They all assume it’s this overly deep and “full of itself” epic, which no regular reader would enjoy.
They honestly don’t believe me when I describe how funny it is.
It’s the same reason that this sub has a monthly post of someone discovering how good and funny this book is even though they thought they wouldn’t like it and just see it as a chore to read.
It’s literally one of the most acclaimed books of all time… You’re living far too much in the reddit bubble.