What more could we ask of a novel? : Moby-Dick

Great to get back to "Moby-Dick" last night, which I had to put aside for some "required"
reading - and getting back I fall immediately under its spell and can see how great this massive, curious, strange book can be - I'd left off just before the encounter with the Rose and the blasted whale - and Melville so effectively captures the oddity of encounters on the open sea, and the strangeness of floating whale carcasses. The French ship the Rose took on two "blasted" whales, and as the whalemen from the Pequod approach there's an incredible stench, but they know the dead whale may have a cache of the valuable ambergris, which they purloin - such amazing descriptions here - possibly the best writing ever about noxious smells - and then in the next chapter when the whalemen "squeeze" the coagulating sperm oil to soften it, and Melville/Ishmael gives a mystical account of how squeezing the oil brings about a narcotic effect, under which spell the men seem to grab each others' hands and fell a universal peace and brotherhood - it's mystical, sexual, unctuous, peculiar all at once - I remember a friend from high school commenting on this passage and it's stayed in my mind as among the highlights of this long novel. Friend Peter mentioned the scene in which the mincer strips the skin of the whale's penis and don's it like a priest's robes (an obvious parallel with the sermon early in the book) - another really funny and strange scene at this point in the novel. Also worth noting the poor cabin boy Pip (?), whom Melville treats with unfortunate condescension, but also he cars about him and pities him - floating alone in the sea after he slips off the whaleboat, and when he's rescued - never in any real danger - he has lost his mind. The book full of such vivid, striking vignettes - a whole world evoked. What more could we ask of a novel?