Herman Meliville’s Moby Dick, originally just named The Whale, is a famously philosophical and famously long swashbuckling adventure story about an eclectic group of whale hunters who sign up for what they think is going to be an ordinary three year whaling assignment. Little do they know that the ship’s captain, Ahab, is dangerously obsessed with hunting down the unusually large and violent albino whale that had maimed him on a previous voyage and too late do they learn that there is no sacrifice the captain will not make in the name of revenge.
The book’s length owes much to the author’s somewhat rambling approach to story telling. He’ll spend one chapter talking about the whaling crew’s journey, then spend the next discussing religion, and the next explaining whale biology before finally returning to the crew for a few pages. While the writing style certainly has its charm it does take some getting used to and can be frustratingly slow going for someone who just wants to read an exciting story about sailors fighting against stormy seas and violent leviathans.
But I’m no literary critic, so let’s see the numbers:
Word Count: 218637 words
Average Word Size: 4.39 letters
Median Word Size: 4 letters
Longest Word: uninterpenetratingly (20 letters)
Sentence Count: 10212
Average Sentence Length: 21.41 words
Median Sentence Length: 16 words
Longest Sentence: 475 words long
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Cæsarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things—the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.
While the book as a whole is very long you’ll notice that the median sentence length is actually a fairly short 16 words. I believe this is because the narrator’s tendency towards long dramatic sentences is balanced out by extensive dialogue sections in which sailors chat back and forth with fairly short sentences. In many ways it almost feels like Herman Melville had two separate writing styles: one for telling his main story and another for talking about the story he was telling.
Finally, I think it’s amusing to note that the text was so long that spaCy actually refused to analyze it by default. I had to manually increase the character count limit of the system and sit through a strongly worded warning that memory usage on very large texts could become unmanageable and it would be my fault if I insisted on continuing anyways and things broke.
There are a lot of books that people consider too long to read, but it’s quite an accomplishment to produce a book so weighty even a computer has to think twice about whether it really wants to read through to the end.
