Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

#1120
Title: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Author: Herman Melville
Illustrator: Rockwell Kent
Year: 1851
Publisher: ICU Publishing/Kindle
Pages: 669


I've been reading classics electronically or on audiobook to fill in the gaps in my non-English Literature-major background. A lot of them have sermonizing sections. I was shocked to re-read Robinson Crusoe again and see how much religious discourse it includes. I think when we're younger, we blip right over the philosophizing, especially if the book is required reading. Moby-Dick, while rich in this regard, manages to incorporate the material effectively. It's funny and astute. I had deja vu for the first chunk--I'm not sure if I might have read the first chapters at some point, or read something where this was part of a pastiche, or just hung around New Bedford too much as a younger person.

Lemur 866 on The Straight Dope suggests reading as if Ishmael is a blogger. Some days he'll tell you about his friend, while some he'll talk about religion, and on others, the crafts and practices associated with whaling. This works for me (though I also see the novel as using both  documentary and natural and philosophical sciences approaches, a la Justine, 120 Days of Sodom, The Golden Bough, or any natural history of its era).

Ishmael's many descriptions and reports serve two functions: To establish verisimilitude (i.e., that this is a factual report), and as a contrast to Ahab's monomaniacal obsession--Ishmael has wide-ranging conversations, is interested in all aspects of whaling, and has a relationship with the reader, whereas Ahab only wants to kill Moby-Dick. In this regard, it makes sense that Ishmael as a character fades from importance in the story, which increasingly focuses on Ahab's all-encompassing obsession. In a way, Ahab is already consumed and dead, while Ishmael, who will live to tell the tale, is engaged and alive.

I enjoyed this well-performed audiobook, and followed along in the linked Kindle edition for the pleasure of Kent Rockwell's illustrations (of which the below is a wonderful example).