Herman Melville: Moby Dick

Heteronym

Heteronym

Reader
It seems we don't have a thread on this novel yet.

I finished it in August, after a two-month hiatus, during which time I read War and Peace. I figured that if I could read that, I could read anything. But no, Melville's novel, although only half its length, is a much harder read. I'm still ambivalent about it - I recognise its greatness, innovation, and humor: it has a lot of humor, Ishmael is one of the best narrators of literature, no doubt, capable of mixing vast erudition with absurdity and irony.

The novel has amazing passages, the best of which are Captain Ahab's rants:

What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but YE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!

This is crackling with dark, satanic energy. And then:

"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw—thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this hand—a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.—Stand round me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab—his body's part; but Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, yell hear me crack; and till ye hear THAT, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick—two days he's floated—tomorrow will be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,—but only to spout his last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?"

I've re-read this passage many times, in awe of the music of the words, of their sinister intensity. Speak them aloud, they're like poetry.

What are your thoughts about this rather odd novel?
 
Stevie B

Stevie B

Current Member
Heteronym said:
It seems we don't have a thread on this novel yet.
What are your thoughts about this rather odd novel?
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I was fortunate enough to read this early on in college. Although my mind was but a pea, the professor was a Melville scholar who helped who was able to inspire the majority of students to actually read the novel (I'll admit to skimming some chapters like the one on knot-tying). I would say the class participation helped me to better appreciate Moby Dick, but I didn't necessarily enjoy the reading experience back then.
 
Hamlet

Hamlet

Reader
I've read this book over many years, as well as straight-through. I had an old Wordsworth edition and then for the head-on read treated myself to a new Penguin edition which comes with excellent notes.

It's a hard read and remains so, but I think it kind of rewards a continous re-visiting and dippign in approach.

I was also prompted after reading Moby Dick to acquire some of Melville's poetry, after his lack of initial success with Moby Dick, or The White Whale, he turned once again to poetry, and then his health begain to fail and his wife left him and the usual fate of the genius soon followed. Sadly, he died without ever knowing what this book would become.



I'd like to read some of his other work, and more criticism, as he's an author, both on and off the page, who continues to intrigue me.

I'm surprised we haven't got more Melville fans around here!
 
K

kpjayan

Reader
Hamlet said:
I'm surprised we haven't got more Melville fans around here!
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There are. But like you, I have read this book many years ago. So is the case with most of the 'essential' literature that stood the test of the time. Starting these threads, or someone young reading these books now, can help in recollecting what I read long ago and at times prompt for a re-read.
 
Hamlet

Hamlet

Reader
kpjayan said:
There are. But like you, I have read this book many years ago. So is the case with most of the 'essential' literature that stood the test of the time. Starting these threads, or someone young reading these books now, can help in recollecting what I read long ago and at times prompt for a re-read.
Click to expand...

I've found it's a good one to dip into Kpjayan, you know, you see it on the shelf gathering dust, and read only a chapter or two and flick through it and just enjoy it.
This is the only book that I originally read over 5 or more years, csasually, I never read it as such: just kept taking it off the shelf when back at my parent's house, and reading some more, and then some more. As mentioned above, I only gave it my full attention recenlty and read it over a month or so; but I get the feeling that even then I may have missed a few chapters out, not like me, but you know, it's a complex book.

And an 'essestial' as you say!


Btw, I'll always read the opening pages, they're such a tour de force, just good to pick up MB and read those initial pages every so often...
 
waxwing

waxwing

Reader
I've read Moby-Dick three times over the years, love the novel and Melville. I read most everything he wrote when I was in my twenties, perhaps the best time in one's life to appreciate his romantic longings. Especially Pierre, or the Ambiguities, one of the weirdest novels ever written.

I once spent a long afternoon wandering NYC trying to find the home where he lived while working in the Customs office. I don't believe his wife ever left him, she remained loyal to him through his bouts of insanity. I have been to Melville's farmhouse in the Berkshires, where he wrote some of Moby-Dick, you can see a distant mountain in the shape of a whale from his study window.

I'm quite fond of a short novel of his - Israel Potter- His Fifty Years of Exile, and, of course, all the great stories.
 
Hamlet

Hamlet

Reader
Interesting...

Yes, that sounds correct thinking about it now, I have it the wrong way around... her relatives continually urged her to leave him and I think that's what I'd mistakenly switched over into actaully physically leaving him, although I gather that the marriage was unhappy but she continued to nurse him, possibly after a family suicide, or some such event prompted her decision to remain...


I's like to see a facsimile of MB, if such exists, do you know what eventually happened to his papers Waxwing?
 
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Hamlet

Hamlet

Reader
Thanks, I'll dip in.


I did a quick search and found the web's usual motley collection of references, and it seems a very early draft of the unfinished Billy Budd was discovered in recent times, and a 'collector' who'd set up his own site says that amongst Melvillle collectors there's always the hope of discovering the MB edition addressed to Hawthorne, say, or original manuscripts of the other novels, perhaps, so it's looking like it was all pretty much lost.
 
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Chambord

Chambord

Reader
This book has a funny history with me. I first encountered this title on my primary school vacation-reading-list. But reading wasn't exactly something I intended to do on a vacation back then so I gave it No Go. Years after, having finished the "Schools" chapter of my life and not having to read for grades or exams, i began to really discover literature. Moby Dick was one of the titles that popped-up as recommendations. But deep in my mind this was still a title from that childhood books list so never trusted those recommends. I was done with children lit. But the damn book kept appearing on all-time lists I trusted. WTF ? Decided to give it a go ... Surprise ! Major surprise ! This was in now way a children's book. It was a subtle, ironic, intelligent, visceral, insane, ridiculous blast of an odyssey that a child's mind couldn't get 10% of what it has in store. I loved it, I was amused by it, I hated it, I got bored by it. But not even for a second I thought it was less than amazing read. Not even when it turned to reductive restaurant-philosophy/science or made me never want to hear of whales again, for the rest of my life.
 
V

Vazquez

Reader
After reading your comments, I believe I should re-read Moby Dick.

I read, about 5 years ago, almost in sequence Redburn, White Jacket and Moby Dick. Redburn was a good book, White Jacket a even better and Moby Dick the best of the three - but the problem is, I was expecting a lot more. It's really a problem when someone puts in your hand a book saying it's "the best book ever", "one of the best books ever", "the best novel from the XX century" etc. Catcher in the Rye, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - and Moby Dick - were affected by the anticipation. I took Moby Dick as THE NORTH-AMERICAN MASTERPIECE, and I saw it just as the third part of a trilogy: in Redburn we have a merchant ship, some small questions about life itself, and the characters have simple relations between them; White Jacket is about a war ship, with bigger questions and more complex relations in a longer book; Moby Dick is about a fishing ship, the questions runs deeper, and we have here and there some hints of modernism, the book is even longer.

The funny fact is, I have enjoyed Redburn and White Jacket, but Moby Dick not - because every page I was questioning myself: "where is the masterpiece? it's just an improvement over the other two books", and I was so upset by that that I think I have spolied my reading.

Don't get me wrong - Redburn and White Jacket are good, Billy Budd is amazing and Bartleby is (imho) a masterpiece. I'll try to re-read Moby Dick soon and maybe I'll be able to enjoy it...
 
S

Steve

New member
In Moby Dick: Is there a reference to whale songs?

The earliest reference I can find to the existence of whale songs dates to about 1962 or so but they always refer to recording them. The date might be only due to the fact that the technology was such that they could be recorded.

Maybe it was the time when the connection between the sounds and the whale was made.
I recall in "Jaws" that there was a discussion about it but that was much later than 1962.
Could it be that no one knew the origin of the sounds until then?

If I had a citation in Moby Dick then it would explain a lot for me.
 
S

Steve

New member
Re: In Moby Dick: Is there a reference to whale songs?

It is that little burning thought in the back of my brain that keeps me wondering about this. I find it interesting that no reference to whale songs seem to happen intil the early 60s yet I wonder if the sounds were heard through the hulls of old sailing ships out at sea. I wonder what they though of the sounds.

Considering the intensity of Melville's descriptions in Moby Dick, I wonder why they were not discussed. Did not a sea chantey or two reflect on them?
I wonder if maybe they were not audible until they were reworked by recording technology.'

TTKMAWAN.....
 
S

Steve

New member
Re: In Moby Dick: Is there a reference to whale songs?

Maybe it is a matter of terminology. I just learned that it was discovered in the early 70s that the sounds from whales were songs instead of random noises. For the most part, that doesn't change my ambition. It does, however, change the search terms and protocol.

Maybe the real question is: Did the whalers and other sailors, hear sounds through the hull and did they know it was from whales?
Is there anything in Moby Dick that indicates this? If it did then it breaks the 1970s barrier for research on this phenomenon.

Sooner or later, someone will see this and might understand what I seek...
 
S

Steve

New member
Re: In Moby Dick: Is there a reference to whale songs?

I found something:
Whaling Captain Wm. H. Kelly was the first person known to recognize whale singing for what it was, while on the brig Eliza in the Sea of Japan in 1881

So, they DID hear sounds before 1970s as all my research suggested. In the 1880s they finally knew that it was from whales. No wonder there were stories about horrible sea creatures
Now I would like to see passages in Moby Dick since it was written in 1851 some 30 years before Captain Kelley.
 
B

Ben Jackson

Well-known member
One of the finest novels I've ever read (in 19th Century fiction, it's behind Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment), I just loved the encyclopedic vision Melville applied to this novel. The description of the whale, the philosophical insight, Captain Ahab's character, the iconic first sentence (Call Me Ishmael), it's just wonderful. A true classic novel.
 
borderlinemad

borderlinemad

New member
Heteronym said:
What are your thoughts about this rather odd novel?
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It's one of my favourite novels, that's for sure.

It's hard to talk about because of how dense and layered it is, and it can be peeled apart infinitely and still analyzed further. And I think that, in general, the novel is deceptively simple, and that's what tends to turn people off. What seems like a simply whaling book is a philosophically rich novel with characters of profound depth and symbolism, and that scares people. That a novel can reflect life so completely, and rip to the centre of what it means to be a human with desires and purpose and fear.

The classification of whales is also a little funny.
 
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