[Old North State]

instructions on how to cut up a whale ...
I suppose that's true, and Melville does have Ishmael decide that whales are fish. Editors aside though, it's still great story and leaves you with an idea of what life at sea was like. I have a feeling that long after Liza Klausmann is forgotten(maybe next week?) the book will still be read.

[null and void]

And not just life at sea, a hotel putting strangers in the same bed? Oh my...

[vbmoneyspender]

My favorite version of Moby Dick is The Wrath of Khan with Kirk playing the role of Moby Dick and Khan playing Ahab. Nicholas Meyer even has Khan quote Ahab at the end:

To the last I grapple with thee. From hell's heart I stab at thee. For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

[dr_lew]

I suppose that's true, and Melville does have Ishmael decide that whales are fish.

What's the opposite of a plankton? Ans: a nekton . A whale is a nekton, that is a free swimmer, and in this sense it is a fish. It's just a matter of usage. Just a word. Similarly, among the plankton, which by definition are drifters, one finds many classes of organisms, including crustacean larvae.