Herman Melville, ; or The Whale
Review of Contemporary Fiction, special issue, Summer 2009
In 2007, Orion Books produced Moby-Dick in Half the Time, a Compact Edition “sympathetically edited” to “retain all the elements of the originals: the plot, the characters, the social, historical and local backgrounds and the author’s language and style.”
; or The Whale is an abridgment that preserves the elements missing from that list—digression, texture, weirdness—by keeping every chapter, word, and punctuation mark of Melville’s original Moby Dick; or The Whale that was removed from Orion’s edition.
Press release / Excerpts / Interviews I / II / Facebook / Amazon
Believer magazine cover story (“funny and fascinating”)
“Decidedly quixotic.” —The Globe and Mail
“There’s a touch of Pierre Menard about [it].” —London Review blog
“Weird, atmospheric, and compelling.... Once you begin reading this, it’s bizarrely difficult to stop.” —The Rumpus
“All Moby, no Dick.” — Adam Gopnik