Week 8 (Sort of) - Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Well, I may be behind, but I'm definitely not out of the running. My goal is 52 books in 52 weeks, not 1 book a week for 52 weeks, although I really need to keep up with a book a week if I'm going to succeed. I think I'm on track to finish my latest book by Saturday, which will be the book for week 9, but I'll still need to read two next week to catch up. I think I can do it.

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

This is one of the books I had to read for my American Literature class. It's a long book, written in very dense 19th century english, and it's chock-full of nautical terms which are completely foreign to a landlubber such as myself. In my version of the book, which is the Longman Critical Edition, the text of the novel is 500 pages long. There are 70 pages of explanatory notes, in which the editors explain biblical, historical, and cultural references which they have deemed more involved than a normal footnote (of which there are plenty) would allow. There are also 40 pages of revision narratives, in which the editors explain differences between 3 key versions of the novel: the original American version of the novel, the English version which was released a month later and contained numerous changes and deletions by the British censors and Melville himself, and a 1988 scholarly version which attempts to incorporate some of the changes they felt Melville wanted into the original American text. The Longman editors start from scratch, working with the original text. They note whenever there is a difference between the versions and explain what the difference is and why they think the change was made. If all this sounds a bit obsessive and pedantic - it is. Which is exactly why I had to read every word of it.

That's just how I roll.

Personally, I abhor the industry of whaling. These are magnificent, intelligent creatures that deserve our respect. But the whaling world of Moby Dick was vastly different from today. These were sailing vessels, with no power but the wind, and expeditions would often last for several years. The smaller boats that pursued the whales were powered by oars or by sail. The harpoon was thrown like a javelin. It was hard work, but profitable industry, at least for those who had major stakes in the journey. Whale oil was used to light lamps and lubricate machinery, ambergis was used to make perfumes, spermacetti to make cosmetics. Of course, none of this justifies the hunting of these creatures, but it is what it is.

Ishmael, the book's narrator, tells the story of the journey of the Pequod, a Nantucket whaling boat, and it's obsessive Captain Ahab. Ishmael, an experienced seaman but a first time whaler, is eager not to just tell the story of their fateful voyage, but to explain to us all about whales and whaling, and to demonstrate to us his vast knowledge of biblical scripture and history. Ishmael is all over the place. In one chapter he'll be telling the story, and in the next he'll be attempting to explain different whale species or whale anatomy in textbook detail. Some chapters are written as a play complete with stage direction. Other chapters may start as narrative and morph into Shakespearean soliloqies.

The driving force behind the book is the obsessively vengeful Captain Ahab. Ahab lost his leg to a white sperm whale named Moby Dick on a prior voyage. Rather than recognizing it as simply a wild animal doing what wild animals do, Ahab assigns to this particular whale the embodiment of evil, and will stop at nothing to destroy it. He keeps this to himself until ship and crew are well underway, and then uses a combination of charisma and bribery to get his crew to go along with it. He leads the crew on a chase to the other side of the world, and while he is single-minded in his vengeance, they still catch plenty of whales on the way.

Queequeg, one of the Pequod's harpooners, is south pacific native and an experienced whaler. He befriends Ishmael in New Bedford when Ishmael is forced to share a bed with him at the local inn. They become very close friends, and undergo a marriage of sorts. They go to Nantucket together and both sign up for the Pequod. Queequeq is an interesting character. Covered with tatoos, he is a pagan and a cannibal, who nonetheless seems to be deeply religious and moral. A good deal of Christ imagery is associated with him: he tells parables, saves lives, and even "dies" and rises again. In many ways he seems to be a pagan who was sent to preach a gospel to the Christians.

Well, I'm not going to break down every character of the book, or tell you the whole story. Even if you haven't read it, I would think that you would have a general idea of how the book ends. If you don't, that's all the more reason to read it. Let's just say it's the story of an obsessive monomaniac who will stop at nothing to destroy an angry creature that's over 70 feet long, weighs over 50 tons and has a history of destroying every whaling vessel that comes in contact with it. What could go wrong?