Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick by Herman Melvilleby Herman Melville
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 6 of 122 novels by recommenders
People recommend it as a great, stylish and funny classic that rewards patient readers. Critics call it self-indulgent, meandering and tedious in places.
People recommend it as a great, stylish and funny classic that rewards patient readers. Critics call it self-indulgent, meandering and tedious in places.
31 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Great book with rewarding reading
“Moby-Dick remains perhaps the best reading experience of my life.”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Short Little Difficult Books” “it was doubtless one of the most enjoyable I've read”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Moby Dick Workout” “part of why it's considered great, not merely good”
Comment from 6 Jul 2026 in “Moby Dick Workout” - Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin's Unretirement Is a Lesson for the Rest of Us”
- Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works”
- Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Short Little Difficult Books”
- Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works”
Funny and stylish writing
“But I really really love Moby Dick. It is so funny!”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Making a 88x31 button book using ImageMagick” “It hilarious, it's pause encouraging, I love it!”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Short Little Difficult Books” “Moby Dick is actually pretty funny.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “I benchmarked Claude Code's caveman plugin against "be brief."” - Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “To become a better writer, read as much as you can”
Digressions into whaling and whale facts
“I love how Moby Dick suddenly puts the story on hold and diverges into a chapter dealing with the classification of whales.”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Moby Dick Workout” “the obsession with whales itself, both Ahab’s and the author’s, was maybe more important than the plot”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “I benchmarked Claude Code's caveman plugin against "be brief."” “I loved every bit of it, even the (in)famous chapters about whaling and knot tying”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “KOReader” - Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder”
Central to American literature
“if I had to choose one mythic work in American literature that corresponds to Homer, I would choose Herman Melville's 'Moby-Dick'”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Who Is America's Homer?” “I'd rather someone spend a year interrogating Plato or Moby Dick”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Reading is a vice: US student reading abilities and habits are declining” “I find it hard to look beyond Melville”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Who Is America's Homer?” - Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Every book recommended on the Odd Lots discord”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to read or finish
“I'm able to process the themes without being subjected to the torture of actually reading it”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you reading?” “Many of them were literally unreadable (hello Moby Dick).”
Comment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” “could only get halfway through though”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” - Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “I benchmarked Claude Code's caveman plugin against "be brief."”
- Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)”
Boring or tedious for long stretches
“chapters ~6 through ~85 seem to be extremely boring”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Short Little Difficult Books” “it was all so tedious and utterly, utterly boring”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Dostoyevsky Isn't Difficult” “absolutely boring from start to finish”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Making a 88x31 button book using ImageMagick” Too long and self-indulgent
“there's a much smaller yet better novel that could be extracted from it. It's just way too self-indulgent and meandering at times.”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Making a 88x31 button book using ImageMagick” “Moby Dick had a much worse ratio of "size of good novel trying to get out / actual size"”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Moby Dick Workout” “both (IMHO) are much longer than they need to be”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Moby Dick Workout” Disappointing to some readers
“I'm not the biggest fan of this actually but it's way better than Gatsby for me”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel” “I read it a few years ago and was severely disappointed.”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Short Little Difficult Books”
Other novels people recommend
The four most recommended other novels, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crime and Punishmentby Fyodor Dostoevsky | 39 | 9 | 81% | 6 | — | Approved |
| The Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoevsky | 28 | 8 | 78% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Infinite Jestby David Foster Wallace | 26 | 5 | 84% | 9 | 10 yrs6 owners | Approved |
| The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald | 24 | 9 | 73% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Moby-Dickby Herman MelvilleThis page | 22 | 9 | 71% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
33 of the 34 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“there's a much smaller yet better novel that could be extracted from it. It's just way too self-indulgent and meandering at times.”
“But I really really love Moby Dick. It is so funny!”
“absolutely boring from start to finish”
“I'm able to process the themes without being subjected to the torture of actually reading it”
“Moby Dick is unexpectedly stylish”
“I loved every bit of it, even the (in)famous chapters about whaling and knot tying”
“I find it hard to look beyond Melville”
“if I had to choose one mythic work in American literature that corresponds to Homer, I would choose Herman Melville's 'Moby-Dick'”
“But straight fire either way.”
“A high bar with complete follow-through.”
“part of why it's considered great, not merely good”
“I love how Moby Dick suddenly puts the story on hold and diverges into a chapter dealing with the classification of whales.”
“it was doubtless one of the most enjoyable I've read”
“I'll stick with the investigation into finding purpose in a purposeless sea.”
“Moby Dick had a much worse ratio of "size of good novel trying to get out / actual size"”
“both (IMHO) are much longer than they need to be”
“it was all so tedious and utterly, utterly boring”
“the obsession with whales itself, both Ahab’s and the author’s, was maybe more important than the plot”
“found it really difficult to read”
“Moby Dick is actually pretty funny.”
“Moby Dick is too hard to read.”
“I love that part of Moby Dick, it's so perfectly true.”
“Glad that Moby Dick is in there.”
“one of my favourite lines in all literature”
“I'm not the biggest fan of this actually but it's way better than Gatsby for me”
“I'd rather someone spend a year interrogating Plato or Moby Dick”
“could only get halfway through though”
“Many of them were literally unreadable (hello Moby Dick).”
“I read it a few years ago and was severely disappointed.”
“chapters ~6 through ~85 seem to be extremely boring”
“Moby-Dick really is a great book.”
“It hilarious, it's pause encouraging, I love it!”
“Moby-Dick remains perhaps the best reading experience of my life.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.