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I'd sooner read MD than UTC for fun, simply because I take greater pleasure from Melville's writing style, actually. And if I were reading it for pleasure, I would read it, as you say, 'mindlessly'. When reading for pleasure, I become utterly superficial regarding style; for a couple years, one of my comfort reads was Dead Babies by Martin Amis which is a satire on the 60s (a satire with a strong Gothic note ...) and it's impossible to like any of the characters and everything is utterly fucked up - but zomg the PROSE!

Over break, I read UTC standing in line waiting for the Greyhound, and I was the only white person in that line. I read the chapter in which Topsy is introduced while standing two feet from an African-American girl Topsy's age; she was traveling with her grandmother, and her mother met them when we got to Philly, no Ophelia needed there.