I am a historian of 19th-century culture, so I am embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I’ve read ‘Moby Dick.’ The novel lends itself to so many interpretations—environmental novel, political metaphor (as the intro by Andrew Delbanco points out), the Shakespearean fall of an ambitious man—that has made it a must-read American classic. Melville stimulates all the reader’s senses with his descriptions of life on the ocean. His characters are engaging and sympathetic. If there’s any flaw, it is the long digressive passages that break the flow of the plot. But still a fascinating reading experience.