When I was a student, which was a long time ago, general opinion of students was that these are boring books. Most students skimmed it or read those super shortened tl;dr which you could buy in bookstore. And that was time when reading for pleasure outside of school existed as a past time and quite a lot of those students read a lot by todays standards.
Regardless of what "sophistication" in this context means. Moby Dick is not so much sophisticated as boring.
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world."
That's still a pretty strong start. Especially for literature of the time.
I was a voracious reader and was signed up for honors English Lit.
The teacher gave us a test on Moby Dick, one of the questions was what was the main character's name. I didn't remember because it only appears right there at the beginning.....
My favorite literary hack on that was Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, where he plays on your assumption that an intelligence that is human-like is actually human-shaped.
It's a decent chunk of the book (told from their perspective!) before he starts sprinkling in things that make you realize they aren't actually human-shaped (or thinking) at all.
Regardless of what "sophistication" in this context means. Moby Dick is not so much sophisticated as boring.