Once you get the hang of Melville writing you can settle in for the story punctuated by the didactic learning experience.
Its a sort of stop start thing that initially was annoying but now I have come to expect it.
Melville's disdain for the havoc wreaked upon the islands from the introduction of Western Civi is amazing. he would be at home today with the questioning of who the good guys are as any of the modern speakers of today.
His ultra dry humor needs to be appreciated...
"This was the place where we expected to obtain the men; so a boat was at once got in readiness to go ashore. Now it was necessary to provide a picked crew—men the least likely to abscond. After considerable deliberation on the part of the captain and mate, four of the seamen were pitched upon as the most trustworthy; or rather they were selected from a choice assortment of suspicious characters as being of an inferior order of rascality."
His opinion of the poorly educated seamen...
"Indeed, it is almost incredible, the light in which many sailors regard these naked heathens. They hardly consider them human. But it is a curious fact, that the more ignorant and degraded men are, the more contemptuously they look upon those whom they deem their inferiors."
His take on the few who stayed in the Islands...
"And for the most part, it is just this sort of men—so many of whom are found among sailors—uncared for by a single soul, without ties, reckless, and impatient of the restraints of civilization, who are occasionally found quite at home upon the savage islands of the Pacific. And, glancing at their hard lot in their own country, what marvel at their choice"
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