What a whale of a book!  On this my umpteenth try, I finally finished with Ishmael, Ahab, the White Whale, Queequeg, Tashtego, Starbuck, Flask, and Stubb and the rest of the 30 men on the Pequod which I began on Nantucket this fall, the original departure point for the ill fated search for Moby Dick.  This is a rather incredible book—822 pages of prose, often quite majestic and beautiful, but also quite often deadly detailed about cetology, whaling, and the ocean.  Saved by the vivid characters whose observations about life are often profound, by Ahab’s quest for vengeance, by the whaling industry and its role in Nantucket, New Bedford and New England, the book wanders all over the sea for 800 pages before the final 1.5% finally gets to good old Moby, who of course wins the battle and all hands are lost except for good old Ishmael who manages to hang onto the coffin life-buoy until he is ironically picked up by the Rachel which Ahab had refused to help earlier in the book when it was searching for the Captain’s 12 year old son, lost in a whaling boat.  Dedicating the book to Nathaniel Hawthorne and a poor seller in his lifetime, Melville now lives on as the author of the great American novel.  Kent’s illustrations were a wonderful addition to this edition and kept me going when things go slow.  Worth the time and effort.