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Title: More than a novel
Review: Probably anyone who picks up this book already knows the story of the whalers against the whale, driven by Captain Ahab's obsession with killing Moby Dick. But there's a lot more in this book besides: it's a treatise on whales and whaling, it's a novel about friendship, and it gives you all the excitement of an adventure story. In some ways Moby Dick is very much a nineteenth century novel along the lines of the work of Jules Verne--it is full of lengthy asides intended to instruct the reader. Although this tendency slows the pace, it makes Moby Dick a more substantial novel than it would otherwise be, and worthy of its status as a classic.
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