The Salt-Sea Mastodon: A Reading of Moby-Dick

Salt-Sea Mastodon: A Reading of *Moby-Dick, by Robert Zoellner, offers a bold and original critical exploration of Herman Melville’s great novel. Written, as Zoellner explains, “in sheer self-defense” against the terrifying power of *Moby-Dick*, the book seeks to understand the sources of the novel’s unique intensity and the paradoxical combination of fear and delight it produces in readers.

Zoellner proceeds through a systematic analysis of the constitutive metaphors, philosophical underpi...