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A review by mezameyo
Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale by Herman Melville
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
One of my favorite books of all time. Not an easy read by any means; parts of it are a slog. But much of it is fascinating, and all of it transports you to a different world, from which you will return raw and sore and stinking and soaked. The whole is a work of genius.
It's a book about many things, but for me the most salient theme is that of interpreting experience -- i.e., making sense of a harshly indifferent and inscrutable world.
Fundamental to human nature is our need for meaning. We cannot help but try to make sense of things, to bring order to chaos. At a basic level, that is what stories are -- a selective ordering and interpretation of a collection of elements and events into a narrative synthesis that imbues them with meaning. So what happens when a creature that needs meaning as much as it needs oxygen inhabits a world that is chaotic, indifferent, and inscrutable?
Ahab's answer to this conundrum is monomaniacal obsession, to "strike through" the blank "pasteboard mask" that the white whale represents. He is determined to impose meaning upon the world through sheer force of will. And, well, spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for him.
Again and again, characters struggle to understand what they encounter, whether it's Ishmael trying to decipher a "boggy, soggy, squitchy" painting at the Spouter Inn, or a parade of Pequod sailors with different interpretations of the significance of a doubloon (complete with Pip's half-crazed meta-commentary, "I look, you look, he looks, she looks..."). An entire chapter ruminates on the symbolism of "The Whiteness of the Whale" (and includes the longest sentence I've ever seen published in any book, ever -- it is a full page long in the tiny print of my Norton Critical Edition), and offers a range of possible interpretations, some conflicting with each other.
Melville does not offer any easy answers to the conundrum, though he seems to be suggesting that a dogmatic commitment to a single interpretation is not a good idea. Rather, it's best to be flexible, to remain open to multiple lines of interpretation.
I will allow that my own interpretation of this book was colored by the context in which I read it. I took an undergraduate course on Melville during the year that happened to mark the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Moby Dick. My professor helped to organize celebrations on San Francisco Bay. Sir Patrick Stewart, who had played Ahab in a film adaptation, came to hang out with my class and do a chapter reading. He talked about his own life, shared some personal stories with us, and was absolutely delightful.
(Side anecdote: when one of my classmates said, "I hate to put you on the spot, but could you just say 'Make it so,'" Sir Patrick was all class with his reply: "Well, in fact, you have put me on the spot, so I'm afraid I will have to respectfully decline.")
Be that as it may, it's clear to me that Melville's mind was one of febrile imagination and creativity. Only a brilliant madman could have written Moby Dick.
It's a book about many things, but for me the most salient theme is that of interpreting experience -- i.e., making sense of a harshly indifferent and inscrutable world.
Fundamental to human nature is our need for meaning. We cannot help but try to make sense of things, to bring order to chaos. At a basic level, that is what stories are -- a selective ordering and interpretation of a collection of elements and events into a narrative synthesis that imbues them with meaning. So what happens when a creature that needs meaning as much as it needs oxygen inhabits a world that is chaotic, indifferent, and inscrutable?
Ahab's answer to this conundrum is monomaniacal obsession, to "strike through" the blank "pasteboard mask" that the white whale represents. He is determined to impose meaning upon the world through sheer force of will. And, well, spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for him.
Again and again, characters struggle to understand what they encounter, whether it's Ishmael trying to decipher a "boggy, soggy, squitchy" painting at the Spouter Inn, or a parade of Pequod sailors with different interpretations of the significance of a doubloon (complete with Pip's half-crazed meta-commentary, "I look, you look, he looks, she looks..."). An entire chapter ruminates on the symbolism of "The Whiteness of the Whale" (and includes the longest sentence I've ever seen published in any book, ever -- it is a full page long in the tiny print of my Norton Critical Edition), and offers a range of possible interpretations, some conflicting with each other.
Melville does not offer any easy answers to the conundrum, though he seems to be suggesting that a dogmatic commitment to a single interpretation is not a good idea. Rather, it's best to be flexible, to remain open to multiple lines of interpretation.
I will allow that my own interpretation of this book was colored by the context in which I read it. I took an undergraduate course on Melville during the year that happened to mark the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Moby Dick. My professor helped to organize celebrations on San Francisco Bay. Sir Patrick Stewart, who had played Ahab in a film adaptation, came to hang out with my class and do a chapter reading. He talked about his own life, shared some personal stories with us, and was absolutely delightful.
(Side anecdote: when one of my classmates said, "I hate to put you on the spot, but could you just say 'Make it so,'" Sir Patrick was all class with his reply: "Well, in fact, you have put me on the spot, so I'm afraid I will have to respectfully decline.")
Be that as it may, it's clear to me that Melville's mind was one of febrile imagination and creativity. Only a brilliant madman could have written Moby Dick.