Well roared! This reminds me of what the film reviewer Michael Ventura wrote about the Harry Dean Stanton character in Repo Man: He's a landlocked Captain Ahab in desperate search for an ocean, let alone a whale. Which kind of crystalizes what is feels like to be a man in our society these days.
Thanks for sharing a lovely, thoughtful review. I've read Moby Dick--once in college and twice in my adult life. It's such a magnificent novel. Regarding the novel's religious themes, my interpretation is Moby Dick represents the inscrutable for Melville. Through his adult life Melville was I suppose what we'd call today an "agnostic seeker," vexed by questions of God's existence, His nature, and our incapacity to ever fathom Truth in a full, genuine way. Ahab's desire to "Strike through the mask!" suggests part of his desire to kill MD is a belief that doing so will somehow provide him with a greater understanding of existential quandaries that plague him.
Now that this post inspired me to go looking for whaling accounts from the early to mid 19th century, I want to read them all and have no idea how to fit them all into my life. *sigh
There are three novels for which I feel envious of someone about to read them for the first time: Moby Dick, Middlemarch, and Lord of the Rings. The latter two are very English, and yes, Moby Dick is a very American book.
I'm reading Middlemarch in a few weeks, after I finish Demons (Dostoevsky) -- like Moby Dick, I've tried it before (years ago) and it didn't stick, but 19th century British literature is my favorite, so I've got hopes for it
Did you listen to the audiobook narrated by Frank Muller? His narration is one of my favorite works of art in any genre. You can tell he deeply understands the book.
Anthony Heald -- I found he brought out, through inflections and emphasizes, things I had missed. I should check out the Muller one. I follow good narrators like a fan -- often choosing which books to listen to by that alone
I've read Moby Dick several times, in different stages of life, and it's changing as I grow older. Still, as a woman I feel that there are parts of it that I recognize but that don't really chime with me - the search for cameraderie, all that male bonding, that energy put into the chase. It's just not how women roll, in my experience, and when I read what you wrote about men looking for a goal, an adenture, that looks very recognizable to me as an outside observer.
What the book was for me, too, was the juxtaposition of a world of almost unbearable beauty and self-sufficiency - the whales, the sea - vs. the driven, haunted machine of the Pequod - in search of riches, the prey, meaning. Nobody is self-sufficient on the Pequod, they're all driven by some need. I'm sure the Buddha would have to say something about that.
Yes, it can certainly be read as a deeply ecological book -- the descriptions of whales, and nature in general, are much more loving and moving than of people
It very much is the book of a man -- regardless of how much we might ignore gender differences.
It seems to me curiously modern, an almost romantic view of unspoiled nature, at peace with itself, vs. Fallen Man. Very much (fairly) modern man living from nature but not with it grappling with his Christian/Puritan heritage.
I loved this book when I read it one summer at about age 20 - for no particular reason than I liked the library edition I had with Rockwell Kent's illustrations. I intend to read it again.
“I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.”
Ahab is not certain of the whale’s meaning either.
Leaving the themes and plot of the book (which I adore) aside, it certainly taught me a lot about English. For example, until reading it, I always assumed “playing fast and loose” meant something more like “quick and dirty”, where the two terms were meant to complement and augment each other. It was the chapter on fast-fish and loose-fish that revealed it was always “fast” as in “fastened” or “held fast”, and that fast and loose were contradictory terms, changing the meaning of “playing fast and loose” entirely.
Yes, his command of the language, not only in the breath of his vocabulary, but using words precisely, is impressive. I found myself every page looking words up, to learn their exact meaning. I honestly don't know how he did it.
It's the best book. Here's what my students liked best: reading Chapter 23, The Lee Shore, aloud, & then reading aloud again, & then reading it aloud a third time. It's the most extraordinary piece of writing and also amazing advice. "Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
There are so many chapters like that -- which are stand alone poems. I cannot for the life of me understand how someone could produce such a beautiful book. 600 plus pages of poetry.
Well roared! This reminds me of what the film reviewer Michael Ventura wrote about the Harry Dean Stanton character in Repo Man: He's a landlocked Captain Ahab in desperate search for an ocean, let alone a whale. Which kind of crystalizes what is feels like to be a man in our society these days.
Thanks for sharing a lovely, thoughtful review. I've read Moby Dick--once in college and twice in my adult life. It's such a magnificent novel. Regarding the novel's religious themes, my interpretation is Moby Dick represents the inscrutable for Melville. Through his adult life Melville was I suppose what we'd call today an "agnostic seeker," vexed by questions of God's existence, His nature, and our incapacity to ever fathom Truth in a full, genuine way. Ahab's desire to "Strike through the mask!" suggests part of his desire to kill MD is a belief that doing so will somehow provide him with a greater understanding of existential quandaries that plague him.
Now that this post inspired me to go looking for whaling accounts from the early to mid 19th century, I want to read them all and have no idea how to fit them all into my life. *sigh
Very interested in joining the zoom discussion!
There are three novels for which I feel envious of someone about to read them for the first time: Moby Dick, Middlemarch, and Lord of the Rings. The latter two are very English, and yes, Moby Dick is a very American book.
I'm reading Middlemarch in a few weeks, after I finish Demons (Dostoevsky) -- like Moby Dick, I've tried it before (years ago) and it didn't stick, but 19th century British literature is my favorite, so I've got hopes for it
Beautiful review.
Did you listen to the audiobook narrated by Frank Muller? His narration is one of my favorite works of art in any genre. You can tell he deeply understands the book.
The Frank Muller version is my favorite. I've listened to other narrators but Muller's voice really brings out Ishmael.
Anthony Heald -- I found he brought out, through inflections and emphasizes, things I had missed. I should check out the Muller one. I follow good narrators like a fan -- often choosing which books to listen to by that alone
I've read Moby Dick several times, in different stages of life, and it's changing as I grow older. Still, as a woman I feel that there are parts of it that I recognize but that don't really chime with me - the search for cameraderie, all that male bonding, that energy put into the chase. It's just not how women roll, in my experience, and when I read what you wrote about men looking for a goal, an adenture, that looks very recognizable to me as an outside observer.
What the book was for me, too, was the juxtaposition of a world of almost unbearable beauty and self-sufficiency - the whales, the sea - vs. the driven, haunted machine of the Pequod - in search of riches, the prey, meaning. Nobody is self-sufficient on the Pequod, they're all driven by some need. I'm sure the Buddha would have to say something about that.
Yes, it can certainly be read as a deeply ecological book -- the descriptions of whales, and nature in general, are much more loving and moving than of people
It very much is the book of a man -- regardless of how much we might ignore gender differences.
It seems to me curiously modern, an almost romantic view of unspoiled nature, at peace with itself, vs. Fallen Man. Very much (fairly) modern man living from nature but not with it grappling with his Christian/Puritan heritage.
I loved this book when I read it one summer at about age 20 - for no particular reason than I liked the library edition I had with Rockwell Kent's illustrations. I intend to read it again.
Definitely wish to join the conversation.
A leviathan of a review of a leviathan of a book
“I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.”
Ahab is not certain of the whale’s meaning either.
So much projecting going on here. :-) Ahab is all of us, putting so much of his own story into the whale, which is just what it is.
I'd forgotten that -- that is the thing about Moby Dick -- it so rich, you have to read and read and read it to see it all
Leaving the themes and plot of the book (which I adore) aside, it certainly taught me a lot about English. For example, until reading it, I always assumed “playing fast and loose” meant something more like “quick and dirty”, where the two terms were meant to complement and augment each other. It was the chapter on fast-fish and loose-fish that revealed it was always “fast” as in “fastened” or “held fast”, and that fast and loose were contradictory terms, changing the meaning of “playing fast and loose” entirely.
Yes, his command of the language, not only in the breath of his vocabulary, but using words precisely, is impressive. I found myself every page looking words up, to learn their exact meaning. I honestly don't know how he did it.
It's the best book. Here's what my students liked best: reading Chapter 23, The Lee Shore, aloud, & then reading aloud again, & then reading it aloud a third time. It's the most extraordinary piece of writing and also amazing advice. "Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
Bulkington. "The land seemed scorching to his feet."
There are so many chapters like that -- which are stand alone poems. I cannot for the life of me understand how someone could produce such a beautiful book. 600 plus pages of poetry.