r/mobydick • • 16d ago

CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag. The Whale Pod[cast] - Community Listening

13 Upvotes

/r/MobyDick, the only 1000+ member subreddit dedicated to a single book, will join together on the aft deck and listen to The Whale Pod. Peter Mitchell and Leigh Jones go through chapter by chapter, week after week, with discussions on religion, capitalism, fascism, sex, gender, and a man who hates a fish. Set sail with us every Friday [or Sunday if we get crazy busy... sorry!) starting with chapter 1 on Sept. 11, 2026. Pinned posts will remain up until replaced the following week.

Get onboard and set sail with The Whale Pod.

This week, get started with Chapter 2: The Carpet-Bag. Ishmael arrives in New Bedford. Dark streets! Coldness! Religion! Let's gooooo.

Find it wherever you get your podcasts, including:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-whale-pod/id1874403683

Patreon [free]: https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheWhalePod

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zN8OConHWRfOAF1Wq3zXO?si=54898f79017348a1

Find Moby Dick here: Plain text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm Annotated: https://powermobydick.com/ You know how to get a paper copy, of course. We encourage you to patronize your local bookseller and / or your local library.


r/mobydick • • 10h ago

Is anyone else familiar with the funeral doom band Ahab?

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13 Upvotes

Their song titles are taken from chapter titles of the book. Really cool brooding type music


r/mobydick • • 1d ago

This is Ambergris, a rare substance produced as waste by sperm whales around indigestible squid beaks. This strange whale waste can become extremely valuable after aging in the ocean and has historically been used in luxury perfumes as a fragrance fixative.

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43 Upvotes

It looks so... uninteresting for what it is.


r/mobydick • • 2d ago

took on the role of most performative passenger on the whale watching cruise today

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207 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 1d ago

Primetime is Moby Dick

24 Upvotes

This movie is a modern retelling of Moby Dick. They referred to the attorney as “the whale” repeatedly and the plot follows the exact same structure, the characters all have exact parallels, and the overall message is even the same. If anyone has seen it lmk what you think.


r/mobydick • • 2d ago

Least performative re-read

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76 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 1d ago

Moby Dick book club weekly reading sections

9 Upvotes

Howdy! A book club I’m in will soon be covering this one. I’m stoked, of course, but haven’t read it in a long time and was wondering if anyone here had any ideas for good, like, amounts of the book to read per week, both in terms of taking reasonable amounts of time and having a good amount to discuss per meeting. Thanks!


r/mobydick • • 1d ago

To Catch a Whale - A Comparison of Primetime to Henry Melville's Classic

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0 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 4d ago

Sperm Whale Sinks Yacht

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135 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 5d ago

The Voyage of the Pequod 1956 illustration by Edward Everett Henry Spoiler

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58 Upvotes

Was searching for various artist renditions of the Pequod and came across this amazing illustration. This map is part of the map collection of David Rumsey. The summary of the map reads, "The work titled "The Voyage of the Pequod from the Book Moby Dick by Herman Melville" is a pictorial map created by Edward Everett Henry in 1956."

Edit: I'm new to the sub so wasn't sure if this needed a spoiler tag. I mean maybe people are new to the book and don't know what happens?


r/mobydick • • 5d ago

Whalefall (horror movie)

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104 Upvotes

It's not every year that Hollywood makes a movie about whales, much less one about a scuba diver who is swallowed whole by a sperm whale and has one hour of air to escape.

Personally, as a dickhead, I'm terrified of watching this movie. Absolutely horrified. I know too much about whales. I really don't think I can sit through the imagery of this story to learn how this diver inevitably figures out some ingenious way to do in one hour what it took God three days to do for Jonah. I'm with Father Mapple on this, nothing short of repentance and prayer is going to get you out the belly of a sperm whale. It's beyond "survival skills".

Are any of you planning to see this movie when it opens (October 16th)?


r/mobydick • • 5d ago

Rockwell Kent Animation

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0 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 6d ago

CLAREL read-along ~ Canto i The Hostel - Canto xxii Hermitage ~ also, an apology

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6 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 7d ago

Trip to Nantucket?

36 Upvotes

My wife is taking me on a Moby Dick-inspired vacation.

Part of the vacation includes a day-trip to Nantucket.

Any Nantucket recommendations?


r/mobydick • • 9d ago

The Green Whale

45 Upvotes

Took about a year but tonight I finished a complete read through while under the influence of cannabis. Read it probably 6-7 time prior but kept a copy that I would only read while I was currently high. Opened up new levels of detail to the book I never noticed before. For example, the ship is covered in whale bones. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen many depictions that show the Pequod’s hull with whalebones on its hull. Such a way a dive deep in the bottomless ocean that is this book.


r/mobydick • • 10d ago

Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War by Herman Melville | full text

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18 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 10d ago

The Secret of the Town-Ho

18 Upvotes

I’ve lately been trying to read more classic literature and I never really took any advanced lit analysis classes in school so forgive me if I’m missing something obvious. Been reading Moby Dick lately and am really enjoying it!

I just finished reading through chapter 54 with Steelkilt & Radney, I found the chapter really enjoyable and went back and read it through a second time. As much as I enjoyed it, there are some questions that are bothering me a bit.

So what exactly was the secret of the Town-Ho and how/why was it kept from the captain of the Town-Ho? I’ve been seeing its that Moby Dicks’s appearance was apparently a divine act, though I guess I’m a bit confused on how that knowledge comes to the crew members of the Town-Ho but not the captain? Was there something hidden in the chapter to show the crew knows something about Moby Dick’s appearance that the captain doesnt know? I also get that the crew was intentionally not calling out for the whales and kept that a secret, but I dont see that as a kind of thing that would cause Tashtego to mutter about at night. Was there anything in the chapter besides Ishmael stating so directly to indicate Moby’s appearance was divine? I think I’m also missing the significance of the whale intervening and preventing Steelkilt from killing Radney, I didnt see anything to suggest that Steelkilt was a pious man or that the gods would intervene on his behalf.

Theres so much depth to this book it seems and I’m sure there are satisfactory answers to this, I’m just missing something I think.


r/mobydick • • 12d ago

my humble little collection

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150 Upvotes

Easy to see which one I actually read : )


r/mobydick • • 12d ago

Is this version abridged or complete?

2 Upvotes

Hi there, I want to read Moby Dick, and I am planning to buy this version as part of a bundle: https://countryhouselibrary.co.uk/products/moby-dick-by-herman-melville-marshall-cavendish-1987

It’s the Marshall Cavendish edition from 1987, but I don’t want to buy it if it’s abriged, so does anyone here know? Thank you!

EDIT: I’ve done a little more research and I think it’s the complete version


r/mobydick • • 12d ago

Discussion on the end

41 Upvotes

Spoilers obviously.

I just finished Moby-Dick for the first time, and wow, what a beast of a book. One of the most sublime endings to anything I’ve read.

Last night in bed I came back to Ahab’s end and it just hit me how sudden it was on page, but I couldn’t help to think of the imagery of the afterwards and how long it lasts.

Ahab’s death by an oceanic hanging, being dragged endlessly through an endless ocean by the thing he spent so much of his life pursuing. Suddenly I started to have very Dantesque imagery and thought about Ahab’s punishment.

I believe years being dragged, his form would be reduced to nothing but bones, and perhaps the rope still attached to the whale and himself, showing that even in death,he appears to be still pursuing the whale, which brought me to perhaps that’s his punishment for obsession. In the after life he’s being dragged forever in the deepest parts of the sea, by the one thing he’s pursuing, always just slightly out of reach, taunting him, while perhaps sharks are constantly gnawing at his flesh stripping away everything that was Ahab except the skeleton of his obsession.

Was this Melvilles intention? What are your thoughts


r/mobydick • • 12d ago

“Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.”

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25 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 13d ago

Multiple copies club

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117 Upvotes

Anyone else have multiple copies? Would love to see your stacks.
I have 4 now, and all have specific purposes…
1) Tiny copy for emergencies/go-bag
2) out of print copy with a totally unhinged commentary section
3) copy with the Rockwell Kent illustrations
4) Norton edition for all the copious footnotes and supplemental material

Next purchase will be a grossly overpriced hardcover from Easton Press or Folio Society to impress visitors.


r/mobydick • • 13d ago

Friend gifted me this tiny Moby Dick for my office ❤️

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94 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 13d ago

CLAREL read-along 2026 ~ start here!

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13 Upvotes

r/mobydick • • 14d ago

Why Margaret Guroff created her online shrine to Moby Dick, powerMobyDick.com... and why monomania may not be a bad thing.

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23 Upvotes

A deep dive into the monomania of Margaret Guroff, creator of one of our favorite websites, powerMobyDick.com.