We’ve all heard the jokes but this is really a phenomal book that deserves its place as an american literature classic. In fact you could make an arguement that it is three books in onw. Book one: an exhaustive accounting of the sperm whale and the whaling industry. Book two: the story of Captain Ahab. Book three: half essay half rhapsody. A book like Moby Dick is so rich in story and theme that like hamlet even centuries later it is hard to say definitively what Melville theme attempted when writing Moby Dick. Merely as marine exposition the book is unmatched, merely as action narrative the story is a good one.