Moby Dick

While the world forgot about it for three quarters of a century it ranks as one of the greatest of all American storytellings. I have had it as my companion for the past several weeks.

Oh, and it is long: 552 pages in the version I read – and I had to wait 519 pages until Moby Dick actually appeared! Chapters upon chapters built a Himalayan-sized backdrop for the final three chapters called “The Chase.”

It's hard to believe that few readers picked up Melville's novel for three generations after it was published. The world did not rediscover Moby Dick until Melville had been dead in this world for decades. He lived for most of his life unknown to the public.

Now we stand in the shadow of his oceanic achievement. His vivid portrayal of life on a whaler is so engaging I felt like I was a twenty-something young Ishmael by the middle of the voyage. (However, there were some dry sections when the novel turned into a biological treatise on the varieties of whales from Iceland to Tahiti.)

I learned much about whales, how the whaling business is conducted, and the economy and culture of the early nineteenth century. I found the details of whaling operations sometimes tedious, but I was soon convinced in my mind that I was on a whaling ship in the Pacific partnered with men from both civilized and primitive  societies.

I really got a kick out of the opening chapters when Ishmael meets Queequeg. They were colorful, perplexing and warming sequences of getting acquainted and establishing their relationship. Melville progressively developed the traits of all the characters to the point that by the final quarter of the story I knew each one and his likely behaviors. Truly, I found fascinating the characters, the unfamiliar setting, and the steady building of the story to its climactic conclusion.

Captain Ahab's monomaniacal quest to avenge himself of the White Whale's previous victory over him precludes him from seeing anything else realistically. Ahab is the dynamic force throughout - from his mysterious appearance to the final showdown with the White Whale. As an experienced, weathered whaling captain Ahab bears all the signs: scars, gruffness, and a whalebone for a leg.

He sought revenge on Moby Dick in a single, impatient, yet determined focus on his quarry. There would be no obstacle to the pursuit: not time, wind, ocean, food, water or manpower.

His knowledge of whaling, of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and of Moby Dick himself enabled him to seek him like a wily grubstake gold miner who eventually strikes the mother lode.

Woe to him who seeks and finds the foe he cannot abandon. Whether it be the man or the whale, at best only one would have the victory.