Moby-Dick is the epitome of the gothic tradition in North America, and one of the most inventive novels in existence. Though few dispute these facts, many claim that it is, at the same time, a frustrating chore that one must drudge through as a matter of duty to culture. This is all wrong.
The book is, to a person of my own temperament—that is to one in whose soul it is forever a damp, drizzly November—a supreme entertainment, terrifying and hilarious. I read it every year, grinning all the way.
It's like jazz, you see: for all the academics' ink spilled over that divine and most American music, it is dance music, and if it doesn't move you in your blood and bones and joints, you will not "get it".