Moby Dick (Annotated) (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, poet, and writer of short stories. His contributions to the Western canon are the whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851); the short work Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853) about a clerk in a Wall Street office; the slave ship narrative Benito Cereno (1855); and Billy Budd, Sailor (1924). When asked which of the great American writers he most admired, Vladimir Nabokov replied: "When I was young I liked Poe, and I still love Melville, whom I did not read as a boy." On August 4, 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of Lemuel Shaw, the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The couple honeymooned in Canada and then moved into a house on Fourth avenue in New York City. In 1850, the couple moved to Massachusetts. They had four children: two sons and two daughters. Herman Melville died at his home in New York City early on the morning of September 28, 1891, at age 72. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) is the sixth book by American writer Herman Melville and an epic sea story of Captain Ahab's voyage in vengeful pursuit of Moby Dick, a sperm whale who bit off Ahab's leg at a previous encounter. The book received mixed reviews and became a contemporary commercial failure. Out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, its reputation rose during the twentieth century. D.H. Lawrence called it "the greatest book of the sea ever written." Jorge Luis Borges praised the style: "Unforgettable phrases abound." Today it is considered one of the Great American Novels and a leading work of American Romanticism. -----On the third day of the chase, at noon Moby Dick is first sighted, but now sharks appear as well. Nevertheless, Ahab lowers his boat for a final time. Fedallah, entangled in the fouled lines, is thus lashed to the back of the whale, and so the whale turns out to be the hearse Fedallah promised prophetically. And so the Parsee goes before his master. Possessed by all the fallen angels, Ahab to the socket plants his special harpoon in the whale's flank. Moby Dick smites the whaleboat and knocks two oarsmen to its side, where they cling, and a third man free and clear. The boat splits and ships water. The whale now attacks the Pequod and fatally damages the starboard bow. At this point Ahab realizes that the ship is the hearse made of American wood from Feadallah's prophesy. The whale returns to Ahab, who stabs at him again. The harpoon line loops around Ahab's neck, and as the stricken whale swims away the captain is bowstrung out of sight. Immediately after that the Pequod sinks. Only the third man, Ishmael, survives. Queequeg’s coffin emerges to the surface, the sole element that thus does not sink with the ship. For an entire day Ishmael floats on it, and then the Rachel, still looking for its lost seamen, rescues him.