Audio Sample
Herman Melville
Moby-Dick
Read by William Hootkins
unabridged
‘Call me Ishmael’ Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write ‘a mighty book about a mighty theme’ and so he did. It is a story of one man’s obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of the Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history and a mass of information about whaling through the ages. This epic story, here presented in unabridged form, receives an equally epic reading from the outstanding American actor William Hootkins.
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19 CDs
Running Time: 24 h 50 m
More product details
ISBN: 978-962-634-358-6 Digital ISBN: 978-962-954-557-4 Cat. no.: NAX35812 Download size: 362 MB BISAC: FIC004000 Released: July 2005 -
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Reviews
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
William Hootkins, like a skilled conductor, creates a charmed reading that explodes with a symphony of contrasts. Oh, it starts easily enough with a certain playfulness of tone – Ishmael’s surprise at Queequeg and the frothy bluster of Captains Peleg and Bildad. But the reader soon plunges into deeper seas. The almost childish voice of Ishmael, as if on a skylark, alternates with the later excitement of the chase. The enthusiastic study of the parts of the whale contrasts with the darker innuendos on God; the colorful excitability of Stubb butts up against the diabolic indifference of Ahab’s Fedallah. Overall, the mad ruminations of Ahab himself, initially undervoiced, like a recurrent theme, build to a mounting crescendo. Hootkins, exercising perfect control, orchestrates all these voices into the symphonic whole that is Melville’s dark masterpiece.
P.E.F., AudioFile