In the same way that captain Ahab stirs his crew into a fervour and makes them swear a vow to kill the White Whale, so we in reading this book must trust Melville and follow his vision. As he sways from anecdote to anecdote, description of whale species to an explanation of the workings of a whaling ship, Melville’s talent lies in the variety of language he uses. We float between archaic, educated, slang, and narration. It forms a mosaic of speeches, international torments and descriptions of the natural world. I am unsure whether has or ever will again describe such a bleak environment as the endless ocean horizon in so many ways. Melville keeps us on edge with the White Whale so long that we ask whether we will even see it., In one swift swoop he dispatches of it in the final pages leaving us as empty as Ahab, questioning, questioning.