I woke at 5 this morning, one hour late for my pre-quarantine time but over an hour closer to normal than I have managed since this plague set upon us.
I have been reading Moby Dick as intentionally as possible. This is slow work, like Stubb pulling the Sperm whale back to the ship, but I am trying to understand the writer, the subject, and the text. And things make sense when I go slow.
Not every chapter is brilliant. Some are just Melville arguing with Emerson or Thoreau or lord knows who but their points are so oblique or hidden in the subtext that I fail to see what he’s really saying. And yet, there is something oddly enthralling about the book and I think I know what it is, it’s the whales and whaling.
When I was a photographer my philosophy was that a great photo is made by a great subject. It’s possible to take a bad photo of a great subject but if you are well-trained and in the right place, with the right equipment, and you have any kind of eye, a great subject makes things easier. And what’s greater, more captivating, than the unknown?
Whaling is still not a well known topic and Sperm whales still mysterious. For example, they have teeth, but they seem to be merely decorative or used for displays of male aggression. Their teeth are merely pegs on their bottom jaw, and Sperm whales have sockets in their upper jaw where those teeth rest when the mouth is closed. Since they don’t use their teeth for chewing, Sperm whales “chew” their food in a primary stomach lined with massive muscles that crush their prey and pass it to a second digestive stomach.
Sperm whales are also record-holders in many categories: the largest predators on the planet, loudest creature on the planet (their clicks are as loud as a Saturn Rocket), they have the largest brain of any creature on earth, and possibly even the deepest diving mammal.
And this is the thing, they are mammals. Their brains have complex speech segments and extremely well-developed sections for emotions like compassion and love. They can communicate over vast distances and when humans swim with them, there is growing evidence that Sperm whales actually take caution not to hurt the humans. They could easily kill a human with a loud click.
Whales and whaling makes for a compelling subject and Melville dives into it in incredible, gory detail. This isn’t a story per-say – it has a few story-like elements but – it’s more of a ship-board journal. The first ever blog, written by someone who loved whaling, the bible, and hated transcendentalism.
I am rooting for the whale. Not because of what he represents (god) but because nearly all of the men on the Pequod and all of the other ships are awful. I include Melville in that category.
Choice Quotes from this week’s reading
“It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the Equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.
But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!”
– Chapter 68 “The Blanket” in which Melville describes the process of ripping the blubber off the whale in giant strips or “blankets.”
“So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connection with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.”
-Chapter 72, The Monkey-Rope in which Melville has his “it takes a village” moment. Are we all incredibly aware of this right now?
“You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or grasp the workings of the human mind; how then can you fathom God, who has made all these things, or discern his mind, or understand his plan?”
-The book of Judith 8.14 (Bible, apocrypha). Melville alluded to Judith and Holofernes in chapter 70, the Sphinx – in which he describes the process of beheading the great whale. He said that the ship hung the head on its side like Judith hung Holofernes’ head from her girdle. I took a side journey and read Judith (Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha) and nothing like that is described in the text.
Holofernes besieged Israel and cut off their water supply until they were nearly dying of thirst. The elders then gave God an ultimatum, he had 5 days to help or they would surrender and be enslaved.
Judith was a beautiful widow who confronted the elders and asked them who they were to try to figure out God’s plan and tell him what to do! Instead, she concocted a plan (which ironically is sort of usurping God’s plan!): she dressed up in her finest garments, brought along some Kosher food, and seduced Holofernes (the general of Nebuchadnezzar’s Assyrian army). Then one night when he got ripping drunk and tried to copulate with Judith she cut off his head with two whacks.
Then she stored the head in her lunch bag, not on her girdle. She didn’t even wear a girdle.
Melville was fond of making fun of Emerson, saying that if Emerson had been alive at the time of the creation he would have given advice to God. And here in the book of Judith, she specifically warns against that sort of usurpation of the Lord. This being what is clearly the main theme of Moby Dick – that we are not to know or question God, much less attempt to strike him down.
Im impressed by your determination and persistence to continue reading Moby Dick. Take much interest in your thoughts and theories of Melvilles intentions and beefs :-).
Tim has managed much better than I ever have. I got to 50% on my kindle and consider that an achievement..!
I read it twice both as assigned readings, once in high school and once in college. I didn’t like it any better the 2nd time. It’s wired and inacessable in way that I couldn’t get past.
Ironically Moby Dick didn’t do well commercially upon initial release. It got mixed reviews and was no longer in print when Melville died.
It’s reputation was revived by a number of famous 20rh century authors including E.M. Forrester, D.H. Lawrence, William Faulkner and even Ralph Ellison.
It figures. Aside from Invisible Man, I’m not a huge fan of any of those writers either.
It has a lot of problems.
First, it’s not a book. Not a story in hardly any sense of the word. What story that exists is very poor and covers about 100 pages of the book. some folks have suggested it’s an “anatomy” of whaling – sort of a deep dive on the topic of whaling – and I think that they are right but it’s also very much like a blog.
in fact, I think it’s the first ever blog: sort of rambling, philosophical at times, on topic in most cases about whaling, but also meandering, just writing whatever strikes his fancy.
I think if you approach each chapter like a blog post it’s significantly more readable and more enjoyable. I find myself going back to the book and wondering what nonsense Herman is going to cook up today!
Tim
You must have amazing patience and determination to continue reading Moby Dick. I walk my 2 dogs every morning and I often listen to an audible book. Listening to an audible book is much easier then reading but I tried to listen to Moby Dick and couldn’t maintain focus on what was being said. I only made it part way thru the book before I gave up.
You should try one chapter a day. Like a blog.