The narrative part of the novel is fine. It's about 80-100 pages of a good thriller at sea and morality tale of revenge. The problem is that the book is 500+ pages, not 100. The other 400 are a tome and treatise on whales, whaling, and whaling culture/philosophy, which are truly tedious. You don't have to skip pages judiciously, you have to skip whole chapters liberally.

The criticism of Ahab having no method to his madness is on point as well.