Over a few beers last week, one of my sailing buddies, David Duquette and I were chatting about things
  nautical, as you do on a wet winter’s evening. We got to discussing books about the sea. I was blathering on about all my sailing books and the merits of Robin Knox-Johnston versus Moitessier. A long discussion about Patrick O’Brian’s masterwork ensued. David then said: “..and of course there’s Melville.”  “Ah, yes”, I said sheepishly inspecting my shoes.
Pregnant silence. I had to confess that I have not read Melville or the “Greatest American Novel”, Moby Dick. Embarrassing really, for a so-called lover of books about the sea.
I grew up in England and it was not on the curriculum at school. We had Dickens, Jane Austen and that crowd rammed down our throats. I am sorry, it was hard for me to enjoy something that’s supposed to be a pleasure when it had a test at the end of it. This was made worse in my case as I went to a French school (it’s a long story) and I was forced to read Balzac, Racine and Flaubert at gun point. Like many teenagers, the force-feeding and subsequent interrogation put me off great literature.
Since I moved to the US, I have often heard people talk about Melville with the same facial expression I reserve for George Eliot. They were forced to read it as teenagers, so the vast majority think of Moby Dick as an alternative to water-boarding.
David waxed lyrical about Melville – the story, the adventure, the sea, blabla. I am at a vulnerable moment right now. I have three books on the go and none of them compelling enough to want to commit to. It sold me on giving the Big Fish a go.
He suggested that I start with Billy Budd, one of Melville’s later works – a short story about life in the 19th century navy. If I liked that I should take on The Whale. I took his advice and bought both on Amazon. Moby Dick arrived first and it is a beautifully published edition with a wonderful foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, so I got started on that first. Four chapters in and so far I am genuinely enjoying it. Only another 131 chapters to go.
I am a notoriously slow, highly distractible reader and find long books intimidating. As a child, I was traumatized by being made to read any book longer than a hundred pages. My mother and sister still tease me about this.
I will take my time. I may stop and come back to it if it starts to feel too much like homework. It could be a long time before I find out if Ahab kills the fish. Please don’t spoil the end for me. Â I will need something to keep me going.
Wish me luck. I will let you know how I get on.
Dude, Moby Dick Rocks! Totally. Really.
In all seriousness it’s a blast (don’t mind the slow bits.) I didn’t have it as an assignment, which is probably why I managed to enjoy it. And I’ve borrowed from it more than once on my blog (any time I’m babbling about an “insatiate maw” I’m lifting Ahab.”
Ah now I understand you were babbling on about
‘ve been trying to read Moby Dick for nearly 10 years, I keep going back to it but less and less often.
Perhaps some of the classics don’t suit the modern temprement, have you read conrad’s Nostromo?
Get a copy of Treasure Island, even if you know the plot and the characters, its a great read – think 17th century Elmore Leonard!
Max
http://bursledonblog.blogspot.com/
Growing up, we didn’t read that much classic literature in school, but my mother was a former English teacher and pushed it hard. I used to read a lot when I was a) in grad school, with lots of stuff to procrastinate, and b) not in the same country as my mother. I read a lot of Thomas Hardy on the S-Bahn in Berlin. Oh, c) that was before the Internet, now my procrastination drug of choice.
I actually read Moby Dick a few years ago and found it pretty tough going. A friend has participated in a marathon reading they have in I believe New Bedford, which has got to be an experience.
(The obsessed, depressed, on a highway to hell Ahab speaking to the head of a slaughtered whale:)
“Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there in that awful water-land was thy most familiar home.”
What’s not to like? Colonial Kurtz goes fishing…
Keep plugging away – it is worth it! One of the great American novels
Thanks for the post.
Download “The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville” from http://www.gutenberg.org and read it on your computer at your own pace. The unzipped html version is 1.25 MB.