"A highlight of world literature." The time Ahab, the captain of the "Peqoud", has been obsessed with finding a giant white whale since he lost a leg in battle with it. An allegory of man's eternal hubris in the face of the forces of nature, and at the same time the stirring story of a man cast out of the community, his thirst for adventure and his search for independence. "Oh, if I had written that." Thomas Mann.