You’ve heard of ‘No Fear Shakespeare’! Now introducing: ‘No Fun, Less Well Done, What The Hell(ville)? Melville’. Listen – I tried hard to love this book, and if not to love it than respect it. I am a big big fan of Moby Dick. I have to assume the author of Call Me Ishmaelle is too.

But unfortunately: I didn’t enjoy this at all. I’ve rounded up to 2 stars but really in terms of my enjoyment it sits at about a 1.5. And retellings and reimagining are always complicated business for me: there has to be the exact right balance of something old / something new. It has to capture the spirit of the original and simultaneously transform it, in form or style or perspective, to tell a new story.

And I felt like that balance was not pulled off here. For the first three chapters, it introduced an English girl, swiftly orphaned and almost alone in the world: it bore very little resemblance to Moby Dick, but I was enjoying it in its own right! And then, Ishmaelle... goes to New Bedford. Why? Well, mostly because Melville’s narrative dictates it, I guess – that’s the starting point of his story, and so our Ishmaelle is buffeted along by the winds of fate or the puppet strings of Moby Dick, stuck in the long shadow of the narrative that came before because ??? I don’t know. Why would this English Ishmaelle not go whaling in the North sea or something instead? Why do the rest of the events of the plot unfold as they do, in Moby Dick’s very particular beats? It just never feels driven by the characters in quite the same way here.

And if the plot is hardly ‘reimagined’, the rest of the characters aren’t either. Names are changed, and Ahab’s background is slightly altered, but essentially Queequeg becomes Kauri, Starbuck becomes Drake, etc: the off-brand stock versions of themselves. Guo’s additions to the original are: a little more political correctness in describing race and religion, although the diversity is not new; a new focus on Taoism, with Muzi’s character, which I liked and thought WAS inventive!!; and the gender-swapped main character, along with some added rape.

I have already read a fair few books of women/non-binary/genderfluid/trans men running away to sea to explore their gender (e.g. I read that Mary Read retelling just last year; Ally Wilkes’ All The White Spaces has a trans MC), and while I DO like a ship as a cool microcosm of a setting for it, the execution of this gender exploration here really didn’t sit well with me?? It all felt oddly bioessentialist and reductive? Her womanhood is usually considered in regard to her period; being penetrated; collecting herbs for healing purposes; being surrounded by a world of violent men. By the end, Ahab is calling her a witch. And yes, this all aligns Ishmaelle with the white whale – hunted, harpooned, mystical. Maybe I’m missing her point. Maybe that was the point?

No, I’m not done yet. Let’s talk about the writing, why don’t we? I would love to say Guo is a good writer (particularly as I think English is her second language)... but it’s hard to fucking tell!!! Here is where the novel again cleaves too closely to the original: almost every time I actively enjoyed the cadence of a sentence or a thought or a funny line, it wasn’t one of Guo’s. It was cribbed directly from Melville. SO MUCH of this novel – the full trajectory of the plot, and whole sentences and paragraphs and scenes – is just a condensed and simplified rewriting of Melville,. (I ended up essentially reading them in tandem, pages side by side.) So all the character and humour and eccentricity and philosophy is often more to Melville’s credit than Guo’s, which is kind of disappointing, because again: where is the imagination in the reimagining? I liked that Guo kept the moments of eccentric experimentation with form and style – that felt like a homage to Melville without just being a word-for-word reproduction – but I also wish she had let Ishmaelle breathe a little on her own whaling quest instead.

So in the end I felt like this version actually lost more of the magic of Moby Dick than it gained in the reimagining. And I might be in the minority (and maybe if you hated Moby Dick this is a better book for you), but I’d rather read the original any day.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The story follows Ishmaelle, who grows up in a small village on the windy Kent coast, swimming with dolphins. After losing her family, she disguises herself as a cabin boy to pursue a life at sea and makes her way to New York.

When the American Civil War breaks out, she boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the troubled Captain Seneca. Amid the chaos of whaling, Ishmaelle finds unexpected allies in her diverse crew and forms a mysterious bond with a white whale that changed Seneca's life.
I loved this story, actually more than Melville's. I may be a bit biased, as a female. I could feel myself in the story..
Highly recommend.

For a book having over 400 pages, this was an absolute page turner. redefining MOBY DICK in the perspective of a girl who had to pretend like a boy, Xiaolu Guo has shown genuine respect to Herman Melville, creating an epic novel filled with adventure and literary genius. Ishmaelle, a small English girl, after her life is thrown astray due to the cruel play of fate, decides to change her own fate by going against the flow of the customs and traditions. attracted to the act of whale-hunting, Ishmaelle tries to become a member of the whaling crew, but gets disappointed by the fact that women aren't allowed to be part of the crew. left with no choice, she cuts her hair short, put on her brothers old rags and starts to live as a young man. and soon, part of a whaling crew. and the adventure begins there.

Not a moment I felt bored when I read tis book. pages after pages, my curiosity grew, as she met Kauri- a Polynesian prince who took an oath to be the armor of her- and stayed with her, even when he realized she wasn't the man he met. As they rode Nimrod into the uncharted waters, looking for whales, when the crew realized that she was a girl, when they all kept her safe and saw her as one of them- as their equal. and when the white pearl water frothed and streaked, gleaming the tail of the white ghost. MOBY DICK.

I'm grateful to the author that she portrayed Moby Dick as it truly would be, surviving the brutality of humanity a million times and yet living gracefully in the dark depth of the ocean, never once surrendering to the whalers. Carrying the countless harpoons that pierced through his flesh as victory marks and coming up to the surface as the refresher of the instigated fear among the seamen. I hope he had a calm death and finally got a chance to rest in peace. i hope the white ghost finally escaped the eyes of greed that surveilled him on the surface.

this will be one among the books i would recommend to people who love classics and enjoy contemporary fiction as well. i don't think anyone would ever feel this book as anywhere near boring and i'm excited to read the other works of the author!

If you are a fan of Moby Dick, this is a must read for a fresh angle and an infinitely more relatable and engaging read. I felt far more connected to Guo’s protagonist than any of the characters in Melville’s tale. The back story is well developed

A novel rich with detail that will draw readers in and immerse them into this Moby Dick retelling. This extremely well researched and written novel is for readers who enjoy exploring classical stories through different lenses. The novel would appeal to both those who enjoyed Moby Dick and readers who were less enthused by that thick tome. Some similarities include the outsider nature of the the narrator Ishmaelle, the precise details of the whaling ship, hierarchy and life aboard. Both are narratives about people who are seeking meaning to their lives, however, Ishmaelle also explores gender identity, race and our relationship with nature while maintaining the style and substance of the time period. Differences lie mainly in the representation and the construction of the narrative where we're allowed into the various thoughts of the characters, including a stream of thought from Captain Seneca, a Black man who is obsessed with hunting Moby Dick and pursued by a tragedy in his past.

Xialu Guo is a great writer, she's like talking and dissecting her thoughts to enlarge your visions. In Call me Ishmaelle, you have to accept she is creating her own world, like any artist would do, not in this period of life but in the past. Once you accept this element, the book is a pure jewel. The writing is clear and precise, and you are escaping in the imagination of the artist. This is exceptional today to find such quality and personality in the drafting of sentences, very personal, and at the same time the whole book is easy to read. This is quite an amazing reading experience ! I am very grateful to the author and the publisher. All opinions are mine.

This book was well written. Character development is it’s strong point. You become invested in their welfare from the start and as the story progresses that invest becomes stronger. This story has themes of race, gender roles, identity, religion and East meets West. If you enjoyed Moby Dick or even if you didn’t this retelling is so well written you will become a fan. I think the most interesting addition to this retelling was the addition Muzi the Taoist and his calming presence. He added a good balance to the story just as his character did for Ishmaelle.

The characters in this book are beautifully written and their crafting is heartfelt. The addition of diversity in so many forms - sex, gender, race, religion, and more - to a classic story brought a fresh complexity and tragic realism to the tale of Moby Dick. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, though perhaps a little slow, it is well worth the read, especially for those invested in the upheaval of what constitutes a "classic."