Moby-Dick

          I recently finished a library book about the novel, Moby Dick.  It was called, “Why Read Moby-Dick?” and written by Nathaniel Philbrick.  He has written other historical books on the Mayflower and the whaling ship Essex among others.  This book was a short, 131-page, 28 short chapters, about the book and how and why Melville wrote it.  Philbrick has read the book about a dozen times according to his count and unabashedly tells the reader he loves the book.  

          While often I got lost in some of the heavier stuff, I did enjoy it enough to attempt to read it – again.  That’s try to read it because I never finished it. I learned something whaling and how the ships would clean the whales while still at sea.  I never really thought about that, but it makes sense.  Shipping out of Nantucket, which was the whaling center in America in the 19^th century, the boats would go into the Pacific as well as the Atlantic Ocean.  The language was not the easiest to read, but now that I have a taste for it, it will be easier I believe. I think the main thing is to read slowly.

          The author talked about several of the main characters, including Ahab the captain.  Of course, it is written from the standpoint of Ishmael, ultimately the only survivor.  He also talked of making coffin-canoes, tribal safety rafts-of-sorts.  He talked of how Ahab seduced the crew with magic-like words and actions to get them to support and follow him on his quest to find the “White Whale”.

          Some of the best parts I enjoyed were where time was spent explaining how the whales had to be stripped and cooked so that the oil, blubber, and skin could be saved.  In one particular incident, Pip, a young boy was put in a whaling boat because one of the normal seamen couldn’t go out.  Instructions were given to him to not stand in the boat, but when the whale surfaced it scared Pip and he jumped up and the whale knocked him overboard.  The whale had to be let loose so that Pip could be saved.  Pip was told the next time that he would not be rescued.  The whale was worth more than he was.  It didn’t matter – he fell over again, and was left on his own!  He did survive that only to be present at the end when the White Whale sank the Pequod.

           All in all, it would have to be read along with something else very different.  One reason this book was a little difficult was that I was reading the story of the HMS Endurance and Shackleton’s South Pole adventure.  It was difficult keeping the two boats and their stories separate.

(Book Antiqua 11)