I did it. I got my harpoon and went a-whaling, I went after the white whale and read
Moby Dick. Herman Melville is an amazing author and is very poetic in his writing. I read the unabridged version, so 1/3 of the book was about Ahab and the crew of the Pequod going after Moby Dick. The other 2/3 of the book is everything to know about whales and whaling. Even those parts are beautifully written! It can be a bit of a slog because it goes off tangent and talks about whales. Stories, legends, paleontology, oceanography, history, how to hunt and harvest whales. It really gets into the nitty gritty of it all. I can see why its a classic, the story itself is pretty amazing as we follow Ishmael and his budding friendship with the Polynesian Queequeg as they sign onto a whaling voyage with the bitter old Ahab who wants nothing but revenge!
Honestly, you could probably find the abridged version without all the whale and whaling stuff in it, but I think you really lose out on the atmosphere and foreshadowing that Melville uses with those chapters, to build up tension and under stand what risks are involved when going after the demi-god of whales.
I also have found when talking to other people about this book, that different people get different things out of the story. Sometimes its a vengeance rampage tale, others its a philosophical look on existence, and everything in between. Not only is it a wonderful story, but it may be also worth the read to see what the ink blot shows you. Another book worthy of the title "classic."