Moby Dick or, the Whale

Herman Melville's Moby Dick is perhaps the greatest of all American novels. The story of Captain Ahab's obsession with destroying the white whale that crippled him in a previous encounter, Moby Dick transcends its subject by exploring the bigger picture of man and his precarious and often contradictory relationship with the universe he inhabits, a universe of the greatest good and the most profound evil. It is a timeless epic parable that is by turns amusing and unsettling, but always fascinating. The vocal performances of a solid cast add to the listening excitement: Charlton Heston is Ahab'tyrannical, God-ridden, and consumed with his quest; Keir Dullea is the laconic and mysterious narrator, Ishmael, and George Rose delivers Father Mapple's tremendous call to the whaling men.