Beyond a questionable doubt, Moby Dick is Melville's and American History's Greatest Literary Achievement. No other novel questions our existence as living, thinking human beings better. Though true that the plot chronicles the quest of a mad captain seeking vengeance upon a beast that maimed him, the book's deeper meaning of our relations to the universe cannot be ignored or the literal magic is lost. The novel addresses themes our of souls, relationships with each other, religions, morals, and ideas with such purity and genius that no other medium but the written word can convey it so beautifully. Moby is God, Ahab is Man, Starbuck is caution and religion, Stubb is ambivalence, Queequeg: trust, Fedallah: the devil. Read it or lose out on the best thing that you ever could.