2. The book starts out spectacular, with the narrator, Ishmael, waxing on man’s obsession with water and sea travel. The opening of the book takes us along as Ishmael looks for a whaling boat to sail on, and meeting Queequeg, a harpooning islander and my favorite character. Ishmael and Queequeg proceed to fill the early parts of the book with mirthful Odd Couple-esque chicanery, and eventually find their way to Nantucket, and the Pequod and Captain Ahab. Up to this point, Moby Dick is glib, intelligent, and entertaining. The first was fleeting, given the direction of story. The second, to Melville’s credit, was present throughout. The third….well….
3. I need to take this time to mention my favorite chapter, which takes place early in the book, “The Sermon”, where Father Mapple preaches to a Whalemen’s chapel, and erupts with a sermon on Jonah and the whale, and the how one must be true to what one believes, even when it turns others against. The sermon is moving, spectacular, the kind of writing that, were I an actor, I would dream of enacting on the screen. I am normally a ‘read it once” type of guy, I don’t tend to re-read books a lot. I have read that chapter 3 times already, and am thinking about reading it again.
4. So, the middle. Yeah, the middle. Once Ishmael gets on the Pequod, the book switches from Ishmael telling us what is going on with the trip, and then back to various lectures on all different aspects of Whales, and Whaling. And continually goes back and forth, almost an unfunny version of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Cetology”. And I’m not saying that can’t make for a good book, but the recipe is off. I could live with an occasional chapter talking about whale ropes, but having two story chapters followed by 4 or 5 chapters on why artists get Whale portraits wrong, that kept me putting the book down.
5. A friend told me, during a facebook discussion, that most of those chapters are metaphorical, and would make more sense once I hit the end of the book. And once I hit the end of the book, I understood. Some of the chapters are metaphorical, some are foreshadowing, and most are building a mythology, trying to place Sperm Whales, and the pursuit of those creatures, as one of the highest attainable vocations. But, there was so much lecturing, it was almost that a non-fiction whaling book was invading my story as I was reading it. I pride myself on being comfortable with both Fiction and Non-Fiction, but I cannot handle them being stitched together and brought to life in Melville’s dank, ocean-riding laboratory. I have limits.
6. I am currently reading a book about myths around the world, so I spent a bit of time thinking about the mythology of Moby Dick. Specifically, how Melville builds this by explaining as much about Whaling as he can. That, to me, is a very American way of mythologizing. As our country came about just when Science was lifting the curtain of fables and fantasy, and giving explanations to everything that would normally be reserved to the Gods, Our country’s myths have had to been rooted in truth and detail more than ever. It is not enough to know the story, you must know if from every angle, and know the storyteller from all angles too. It’s why fans of The Great Gatsby know the hardships of Fitzgerald, and his romance with Zelda. It’s why the story of Orson Welles is less about Citizen Kane and more of the wreckage he left at movie studios and the control wrested away from his projects. It’s why we watch superhero movies, and constantly compare and contrast to the storylines and continuity of the previous comic books. We can no longer believe the colorful lies, so we mythologize the actual details. Whaling, while not invented in America, was used by Americans to a sharper detail and greater result than anybody else in the mid-Nineteenth Century. Moby Dick is Melville’s call to arms on something we did better, and to a higher degree, than anybody. It is a call to his America.
7. I still, on numerous occasions, put that book away for days at a time. Maybe it’s the fact that Whaling was long dead by the time I entered the world. But any discourse on Sperm Whales mostly just frustrated me.
8. It didn’t help that the actual story spun its wheels during the middle section. I knew, from things people had said in the past about the book, that it focused on Ahab’s obsession with the White Whale, and how he put that over and above everything. But, until the last hundred pages, Ahab seemed like any gruff Sea Captain. Yes, he continually asked every ship they passed about the White Whale, but there was little that spoke to delusion and mania, and I started to wonder if everything I thought I knew about Moby Dick was wrong.
9. Those last hundred pages saved Melville’s story, and were, by far, the best part of the book. Abruptly moving from a crawl to warp speed, Ahab all of a sudden realizes he is close to Moby, and that’s when his obsession becomes unbearable, and the First Mate’s continual worry over his captain turns from useless fretting to understandable. The Pequod chases the whale over 3 days, Ahab almost dies, loses multiple boats, and then finally impales his harpoon in the Moby, only to have the harpoon rope wrap itself around his neck and pull him under the water. The Whale destroys the Pequod, and only Ishmael is left to pick up by another whaling ship, and tell the tale.
10. This book was hard to read, probably the hardest book I’ve read all year. Not for the same reason as Pale King and The Corrections. Those were difficult reads, but I never dreamed of putting off reading them, and enjoyed even the backbreaking sections. Moby Dick made me question why I was reading it. A couple of times. I recovered, and loved the ending, and still loved the beginning. There is a lot to love about Moby, so much Melville does so well. There was just enough that annoyed me that I won’t call this a classic, or a favorite. Moby Dick may be a Great American Novel, but it is not my Great American Novel.
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