Quora Answer: Why is the novel Moby Dick regarded so highly?

I suggest you read All Things Shining by Dreyfus and Kelly
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age: Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Dorrance Kelly: 9781416596165: Amazon.com: Books

Basically they say that his work was really the beginning of the Postmodern age before Nietzsche, and the first really important expression of the disillusionment with Monotheism and its devastating effects on  our worldview.