Today we’re reading Herman Melville’s classic Moby-Dick, or the Whale, originally published in 1851.
Okay, I think you all know this one already! Maybe you’ve read it, maybe you haven’t. I was never required to read Moby Dick in school, and I felt a little left out. I wanted to know what the fuss was all about, and I’ve always been fascinated by whales (why are they so big?).
I read this quite a while ago now—about 6 months since I finished. I went back and forth about whether I should bother sharing my thoughts on this book. It’s a classic many were forced to read, and I don’t think I have anything particularly unique or profound to say about it if I’m being honest. But since this is essentially a reading journal for me—and a writing practice—I want to allow room for casual reflections and notes, in addition to the more thought-out pieces.
So please, read on if you like. Let’s go a-whaling!
Synopsis
Ishmael embarks on a whaling expedition aboard the Pequod, headed by Captain Ahab, and joined by a cast of characters. But Ahab, who lost his leg to a sperm whale during a previous expedition, is set on revenge. He becomes increasingly eccentric and maddened as he hunts for the White Whale.
Review
I’m finally here to talk about Moby Dick—which I started in September, abandoned in November, and finished in December. I’m not sure why I felt the need to read this in the first place (something about the ocean and isolation), but it was a sudden and deep-rooted calling that I swiftly answered.
If it weren’t for this passage on the first page, I may never have committed to it:
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
I understood this sentiment so clearly, I knew there must be something here for me.
While the first ~50 pages of the book, before the ship set sail, were really entertaining to read, I was bored a lot of the time through the rest of the novel.
Long, encyclopedic chapters set out to explain whales, whaling, ships, rowing, and harpoons. I think these sections are partially a joke, and partially Melville’s opportunity to show off his own experience and knowledge (or perhaps pure love) of these topics as a former whaler.
Plot-wise, you could probably get away with skipping those chapters completely, but there is some fun to be had there. In fact, I think some of the most humorous and most unassumingly profound aspects are hidden in these sections.
Besides that, there was a ship full of characters I could barely keep straight: Starbuck, Stubb, and plenty of names I could never remember. Queequeg was an early introduction, and therefore one of the most memorable to me. But most important to the theme of the novel is the vengeful Captain Ahab, who was on the hunt for one specific sperm whale (the titular Moby Dick, of course!) who took his leg.
“Here, then, was the gray-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge.”
And then there’s Ishmael, of “Call me Ishmael” fame, who is essentially just our narrator. He could be called a protagonist, but once we set sail, he seems less and less central to the story—though his perspective is the balance we need against Ahab.
Did I care to read about a years-long whaling expedition? Did I enjoy the chilling feeling I got whenever I imagined the crew sailing on a big old boat (I hate being cold)? Did I really want to know how a ship works? No, surely not.
So why read it?
I guess I kept reading through moments of boredom because Melville’s humorous yet ringing declarations on life/existence/whatever did occasionally knock me back with that sort of “yeah, exactly” kind of feeling. Finding stuff like that sprinkled in between the parts that made my eyes glaze over started to feel like one of those optical illusions—if you just keep looking, eventually you’ll see it.
“All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”
Also, Melville is funny. This book made me laugh a lot.
“tell him to paint me a sign, with—’no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;’—might as well kill both birds at once.”
The super short chapters were also encouraging. While the old language could be tiring, having it broken into easily-digestible sections meant I was willing to give it a try. If I began to skim over a page, I knew I could reconnect at the start of the next chapter without missing much.
This novel is ripe for interpretation, the whale easily made to fit a million different metaphors.
“The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung…All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.”
And my personal takeaway is perhaps the most obvious one to take—or at least not unique enough to write an entire essay about.
Humans always seem to be on the hunt, chasing destiny, obsessively, as if it will somehow make us immortal. We want to find a reason to be here, a reason to live and to die. Some would call this hunt a search for purpose… (all porpoises are whales, but not all whales are porpoises).
There’s a part of us that wants to believe we can fight death—perhaps if we face it head on, with enough anger and vengeance, we can win in the end. I’m so attracted to the Life as Vengeance Against Death perspective, and maybe it’s good to have that energy every now and then.
But Ishmael’s view of life as a grand joke, in which Fate has all the power, is more fitting to reality. I don’t believe in destiny or fate, God, or pre-determination of any kind, but I do believe that so much is out of our control, and sometimes you just have to laugh.
Or, head to the sea.
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own…And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke.”
Is it worth reading?
You should read Moby Dick, if any of the following apply:
You like whales and ships;
You like reading classics to understand their place in the canon;
You like to analyze texts and formulate interpretations;
You’re depressed but you can laugh about it.
I’m glad I read this, and liked it overall. As someone who gets bored quite easily by dense text, I had to push myself through it—but I feel like I gained something from it, and that’s as much as I can ask from a book.
Further Research
Moby Dick Part 1 + Part 2 episodes (Better Read Than Dead Podcast)
“The True-Life Horror That Inspired ‘Moby-Dick’” (Smithsonian Magazine)
The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met (1946, Disney short film) — This cartoon has haunted me since childhood. This is only tangentially-related, but uhhhh, whales.
Book Recommendations
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield: This is one of the books I read that led me to pick up Moby-Dick. I wouldn’t say the two have much in common, but OWUTS did such a fantastic job of creating an eerie deep-sea atmosphere, that it made me want to explore other ocean-related stories. And it’s a good book, filled with lots of emotion and mystery.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: If you know me, you know I love to mention this book any chance I get…and if you like classics with big themes about existence, read Frankenstein!
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty: This is the first book in a new fantasy series that seems to be a sea-faring adventure with similar themes to Moby-Dick. I haven’t read this one yet, so consider this more of a suggestion than a recommendation. It’s a bit out of my reading comfort zone, but I’m looking forward to giving this one a try soon.
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