Among other things the unabridged version includes information about:
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Types of whales
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Types of whale oil
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Descriptions of whaling ships crew pay and contracts.
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A description of what happens when two whaling ships find eachother at sea.
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Descriptions and stories that outline what every position does.
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Discussion of the importance and how a harpoon is cared for and used.
Thus far, I would say that discussions of whaling are present at least 1 for 1 with actual story.
Edit: I knew what I was in for when I began reading. I am mostly just confirming what others have said. Plus, 19th century sailing is pretty interesting stuff in general, IMO.
Also, a lot of you are repeating eachother. Reading through the comments is one of the best parts of Reddit…
by Not_An_Ambulance
48 Comments
Abridgement is a desecration. Either read a book or don’t.
Does the abridged version come with a coloring section too?
The abridgment does read well. But you are missing more than whaling information if you read the abridged edition. You are missing the parts of the novel that transform it from an ordinary adventure story into a great book. You are missing the development of themes of obsession, friendship, duty, and the slow and inevitable journey towards disaster and death. You are missing the detailed prose that makes you feel like you are living on board a whaling ship, and getting to know this ensemble of fascinating characters heading towards their doom.
If you only read the abridged version, would you even care about them when you were done? I mean, you could read the abridged version of *The Lord of the Rings* or *War and Peace* as well, but you would not be transported to Middle-earth or early 19th century Russia. (And if none of that convinces you, just start rooting for the whale.)
It must be 25-30 years ago that I read it – the unabridged version – and it is all of that historical whaling material that has stuck with me over that time – that actually gave it it’s unique atmosphere at the time and that I still think of now when anyone mentions it.
The whole metaphorical white whale obsession and so on I really wasn’t that concerned with at the time and has been done to death in so many other forms anyway. The whaling trivia is where the interest was and still is for me.
And, yes, I am perfectly serious.
Either read the whole book or don’t bother.
I thought the whale chapters were among the best parts of the book.
So if you want to read Moby Dick, read the first 100 pages, then skip the rest of it except the whale chapters. How To Care For Your Harpoon is important information.
Cetiology? Is that right. The very core of the novel – do not skip.
But the details about whaling are never just about the craft, they are always about something else. When the actual practice doesn’t meet the metaphor, he changes the actual practice. At one point Melville tells you, ” This isn’t how it’s really done, this is just how we did it on the Pequod. ” Melville never plays straight with the reader, there is always levels of meaning.
Well, this is modern thinking for you. If a paragraph doesn’t drive the plot forward in some way, then *why is it there*? This concept is hammered home over and over again, and makes us think that’s the only way a book should be, or could ever be. We can’t enjoy any book written before the modern era because this is a modern way of thinking.
Authors of an earlier age weren’t in any hurry to get to the plot, it will happen, but along the way you just get transported to another world. Maybe it wasn’t all about Ahab and the whale, it was about vicariously living a life of a whaler. Kind of like the Ice Road Trucker of the 19th century. Today we have TV for that, so the whole “use your imagination” thing gets dismissed as irrelevant B.S.
Tolkien gets a lot of shit for this too.
Nice try, Mr. Harpoon Salesman.
I haven’t read Moby Dick yet but oddly your list of bits that are skipped in the abridged version have piqued my interest!
Once I read this book in a seminar on “encyclopedic discourse” aka the effort to contain the whole world, or all of knowledge, between the pages of book(s). We also read Pynchon. From this POV, which seems in line with Melville’s themes, the whaling parts are everything! It’s like a philosophical/novelistic encyclopedia.
Noooooo!!!
I read this book (unabridged) for the first time last year and it immediately became one of my three favorites of all time. What no one tells you is it’s funny. As in hysterical. Especially the whaling stuff. It’s full of personality and satire and knowing falsehoods, all that build thematically on the text itself. And it’s bizarrely post-modern feeling, especially the meandering asides and self-awareness (which is why it was a critical and commercial flop when it came out, way way way too ahead of its time). It’s magical, magical stuff, every paragraph is a delight.
But those are the best bits! Ahab? Boring compared to three hours on arguing that a whale is a fish!
I’m suddenly more interested in reading this
The “whaling stuff” is observations on humanity, philosophy, humor. Reading the book without it would be a lesser experience in my opinion.
…yeah, welcome to Literature. It isn’t the Hardy Boys.
Other fantastic literary tips:
– Rip 10 pages (at random) from The Grapes of Wrath and then read it without them.
– Drop your copy of The Great Gatsby in the bath until the ink runs and then read it like that.
– Read Catch-22 over a period of 10 years, reading 2 pages every month.
…or how about just read these masterpieces as they were intended to be read, and enjoy some of the best literature ever penned. Moby-Dick is an acquired taste, granted, but it’s utterly sublime, and if you miss out the whaling chapters then you’ve missed the point of the whole thing.
IMO, if you don’t read all the details about whaling you go into the final chase scenes somewhat unprepared.
I also really am surprised that people hate the whaling stuff so much. There is humor and insight woven into all of it.
If you do not wish to read the cetology chapters, there is no point in bothering with the abridged version either. The gist of the story is part of our collective knowledge.
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Moby Dick might be the best novel I’ve ever read, arguably the greatest American novel of all time. That being said, god damn. That book is pretty hard to get through. I never got to read it in an English class setting, but would have loved some guidance along the way. I think it’s worth it to read the unabridged version at least once
Sorry, but stay away from abridged classics. Or read a different book. The book is the way it is for a reason, and stands as a moment in history when someone made something important, to themselves or others. You’re just cheating yourself.
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I personally do want to know everything possible about 19th century whaling. The unabridged Moby Dick is my favorite book! I even have my grandfather’s copy of it.
then again I am writing this from the international marine mammal science conference, and am presenting a talk tomorrow on 8 species of baleen whales, so I may be just a wee bit out of the norm re my interest in whaling. (BTW I just saw a talk today that presented evidence that whales had high levels of stress hormones during the whaling era, with stress hormones only declining after whaling was banned. I thought immediately of Moby Dick)
Alternatively, if you don’t want to read about whaling then don’t read Moby Dick. It’s in there for a reason.
What DO whaling ships do when they meet at sea?
Nowadays, what with us not needing books to get us through long isolated winters without entertainment and with us having all kinds of entertainment at our fingertips every hour of every day, the prevailing philosophy in writing is “less is more”, “Tighten up your novel by throwing away half of it and keeping only the very best stuff. Then do it again”, and “murder your darlings.” Brust commented on this in one of his afterwords, IIRC, and said that he’d ignore that entire philosophy in his Paarfi books because sometimes it’s fun to *read* a story, and that it’s not entirely what the story is about but rather how it is written.
I loved every word of the Paarfi books.
I think I loved every word of Moby Dick too, but it’s been a whole year since I’ve read it. I should go back and be sure. Or I can listen to the audiobook again; I remember it being excellent.
tl;dr: Some people read for stories and knowledge, some people read for wordsmithery, and some people read for any combination of reasons.
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No, I love this about the unabridged version. Same with 20,000 Leagues and Mysterious Island. The taxonomy is fascinating and really conveys a certain worldview that I’m nostalgic for.
You can’t miss the WHOLE CHAPTER ON CLAM CHOWDER
Oh hell no. Read the whole thing. It’s amazing.
An abridged book is like expecting a really good steak and getting a fucking McDonald’s cheeseburger. Nope.
> Just read the abridged Moby Dick unless ~~you want to know everything about 19th century whaling~~ you want to read Moby Dick
fixed it
And completely ignore Melville’s commentary about the futility and inanity of trying to understand and talk about God?
Honest question here, but why would you ever consume a piece of art by an artist in any form other than what they intended? (Assuming the intended form is available).
Not to over simplify, but it’s the difference between seeing a 3″ .jpeg of “Liberty Leading the People” and standing in front of the the full 10′ canvas.
Cliff Notes: A man loses his leg to a whale and can’t forget about it.
I am glad to see that so many people here have been defending the whaling section stuff. One of my biggest pet peeves is the whole “the whaling stuff ruins moby dick argument.” It fundamentally misunderstands the book. The ENTIRE book including so called cetology sections are fictional and written by a fictional narrator, Ishmael. Additionally, the “science” chapters couldn’t be less scientific, at one point referring to dolphins as “huzzah porpoises.” The entire book is Ishmael’s effort to understand the whale and his own trauma, which includes so called “scientific” or factual information, even though the book is almost entirely concerned with poetic and metaphysical features, which is the point because no one in the 1840s understood whales or a whole lot of science so the effort to understand is a failure, which is where Ishmael leaves it.
But then you miss great passages like this one:
> The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and, reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks’ allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. Now, whether these gin and beer harpooners, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat’s head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the harpooner sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.
If you’re really a Moby Dick nutcase go to its real world setting in New Bedford, MA. Seamen’s Bethel is actually a place. The whaling museum there has 4 complete whale skeletons including a fucking 66-foot blue whale that spans the room above your head. The high school sports teams are the New Bedford High Whalers and the schools logo is a guy throwing a motherfucking harpoon.
And miss out on Melville’s impassioned wordplay, sometimes bordering on manic but always impressive to experience. Miss out on dreamy meandering chapters that let your mind drift out on the open sea, like a whaler on a long journey over hypnotic, becalmed waters. Do yourself a favour, skim the whaling chapters if you must – it almost seems ok for them to be experienced that way – but read the unabridged version. Give yourself the chance.
> A description of what happens when two whaling ships find eachother at sea.
nigga this sounds interesting as fuck
“He piled upon the op’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole sub from mods down; and then, as if his comment had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s downvote upon it.”
Why would you ever read an abridged version of anything?
The book was intentionally written that way to make it seem like you were out at sea. It’s intentionally boring, with a few pages of really exciting stuff, and then boring stuff again.
The chapter entitled “The Whiteness of the Whale” is among my favorite things I have ever read. Melville’s description of the color white is couched in epic prose about white stallions galloping across primordial plains. 10/10 would recommend.
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If you’re gonna ignore the world building aspect of a story why not just read the moby dick cliff notes?