Thursday, January 6, 2011

Moby Dick, and Thoughts on Standing the Test of Time

Moby Dick (Oxford World's Classics)So here's the story in brief (as if you needed it): one big angry white whale, one one-legged monomaniacal captain, and a mess of willing and unwilling seamen caught up in a suicide mission.  The book is largely symbolic, of course, treating numerous dark themes, including man versus god, man versus nature, and man versus his own creeping obsessions and internal demons. But in terms of plot, that's basically it--and, perhaps because of its simplicity, the tale has lived in the American consciousness for 150 years.   

In fact, the broad outlines of Moby Dick seem to have become as much a part of American culture as baseball and apple pie, and it is a testament to its utility for selling completely unrelated products longevity that it is used even today to promote, among other products, the Blackberry Torch.  Moby Dick and Melville also appear to be at least partially responsible for the popularity of Melville's great-great-great grand-nephew, techno-artist Richard Melville Hall (a/k/a Moby), who is not shy about repeatedly publicly stating the extremely tenuous family connection.  All of which is to say that Moby Dick remains relevant to the modern age as a cheap marketing tool, if not as the textbook on cetology and commercial whaling that Melville hoped it would become.       


[Cue video of a dusty but copiously-bearded Melville slowly spinning in his grave.]       

And yet, I felt strangely disconnected from the tale during this, my second, reading.  First, the entire backdrop of the story is an industry that no longer exists (except, I suppose, in Japan where it survives under the rubric of "scientific research").  Second, while I'm not a member of PETA or even a fan of Whale Wars, Moby Dick fairly rejoices in a systematic violence that is committed on what is essentially a peaceful creature of the deep.  That Moby Dick gets his revenge on all but Ishmael seems little recompense.  In many ways, it reminded me of reading Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, a treatise on Spanish bullfighting, which likewise left me more concerned about human nature than inspired or entertained.  And third, Melville's long (often chapter-length) passages on the proper classification of whales and the science of whaling are both out of date and seem to unnecessarily interrupt the little action that there is.  I understand that Melville hoped that the novel would be considered a treatise on whales and whaling, but I say pick a genre and stick with it if you want to maintain the reader's interest.

I'd really like your input on this.  Have you ever read or re-read a classic and felt disappointingly disconnected from the characters within?  In this case, I did--I felt quite outside the story of Moby Dick in a way that I do not with other Melville works (Typee, White Jacket, Billy Budd, etc.) or with Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, or even Jane Austen.  So what is it about those classic authors that continues to connect, while others, like Moby Dick for me, seem to fade in their significance over time?  Just wondering ...
  

10 comments:

  1. I read Moby Dick years ago as a teenager. It nearly killed me. I hated it. Clearly, I wasn't ready for Moby Dick and still shudder at the thought of picking it up. I've since read Billy Budd and really liked it so maybe I don't like whales? No, that's not it. I remember thinking M.D. got incredibly boring in the middle and at the end I didn't care what happened anymore and consequently don't really remember much about the book.

    I have to wonder why some books are in the canon, why they're classics. Maybe M.D is one which could stand to be challenged? Having typed that I envision someone having a cow (no pun intended) about downgrading Melville's masterpiece.

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  2. I have absolutely felt this way about some classics and I always wonder if I'm just not "getting" something. But on further reflection, I think some books just aren't as applicable centuries later. Some topics, like poverty/relationships/war stand the test of time, while others (searching for a whale) may not hold up as well.

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  3. I am totally in love with Moby Dick, and consider it among my favorite books, which makes me a strange breed. However, I absolutely don't see it as a book about a whale or whaling, but as a book about desire and obsession and the pursuit of of something unattainable, no matter how much we try to grasp it (through classification, etc), which is certainly something I think we can relate to, even today.

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  4. It’s interesting that you bring up this discussion at a time when someone replaced the “N-word” from Huckleberry Finn in order to make it connect more easily with audiences today.

    Yep, sometimes I feel disconnected from some classics because they feel dated. I recognize their value as a snapshot of a time or as a revolutionary work of art, but don’t really enjoy it. It’s what I call my “Picasso Syndrome” :)

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  5. @Chelle - I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I loved the opening chapters as Ishmael wanders around New Bedford and Nantucket, comes to know the mysterious Queequeq, and signs on to the Pequod. And it's hard not to appreciate the final chapters when Ahab is locked in a death struggle with Moby Dick and the prophecy is fulfilled. But there is an "ocean" of dry, repetitive content in the middle that caused the book to lose all flavor for me.

    @Avid Reader - Thanks for the comment. And that is exactly what I'm getting at, I think. Some universal human themes stand the test of time, while others (no matter how well written) simply fade away. I had never considered that Moby Dick might be among the latter until now.

    @Laura C. - That's the ironic part to me. The further I get from the plot, the more I enjoy the story. But I found it increasingly difficult to join the plot and the symbolism in my mind. I still don't understand what was at the root of Ahab's obsession, especially where others who had lost as much literally ran from Moby Dick. And saying that obsession was just a part of Ahab's individual personality seems an awful cop out to me.

    @Alex - I hadn't made that connection, but you're right that both discussions play around the ultimate question of the continuing relevance of a classic work of literature. I personally don't see how the Huck Finn revision is defensible. And, as much as I want to connect, I would argue against anyone tampering with Moby Dick as well.

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  6. my grandparents had this in their classic library series, that I worked my way through when I was a lot younger & loved it, but would I reread it, I don't know, there's so much other stuff out there, that a book has to be really special to you as an individual to go back.

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  7. That is an interesting point. I guess I don't really see the book as being about Ahab. Ahab is more of a device and his pursuing of the whale is just an exaggeration of Ishmael's obsessions. Ishmael is the central character for me. I'm also the kind of reader that, in many cases, values ideas more than story, which I think is part of the reason this book appeals to me.

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  8. I read it in high school and then reread it about six years later when I was doing some traveling. The second time around, I focused much more on Ishmael's personal journeys, both literal and figurative. Both times, however, I loved the book. I have had the experience of rereading a classic and being disappointed. When I reread A Confederacy of Dunces, I was very sad that it didn't live up to the hilarity that I remembered.

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  9. I 'read' Moby Dick for the first time in high school and absolutely hated it. I skimmed large sections (the endless chapter on categorizing species of whales, for example) and may have given up on the last third of the book all together. When I saw MB on the reading list of my 'Constructions of Race in the American Novel' class in grad school I groaned out loud-- not AGAIN!! But coming at the book from a more mature perspective, and one that actively looked for applications to contemporary issues of race, class, and social psychology, I was amazed at how ahead of his time Melville's writing seemed. While I still sections of the book dated and cumbersome, I found a new appreciation for the political and social arguments the novel makes and was shocked to see how relevant some of its claims were to today's society.

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  10. Hi Patrick. I dug up this post because I'm nearly finished with Moby Dick and thought I had noticed that you wrote about it a while back. I have grown to really appreciate your insight, and I was hoping you'd give me some motivation to push through the last 20% or so. In a way, I'm relieved that you aren't a big fan either; I feel less guilty for not loving it. And your readers' thoughtful comments are quite useful, particularly those who are defending MD. I've been working on this for a long time now and reading a number of books in between, which is probably not helping matters. It's good to remember that I really loved the beginning of it, when Ishmael seeks the sea and enters his unlikely friendship with Queequog. Maybe if I had pushed through the novel more quickly, I wouldn't notice the dry "ocean of repetitive content" as you put it. As it is, I've been sifting through this portion of it for months now and am seeking an escape! I can't put this on my shelf of beloved classics, but I do admire Melville's writing skills and respect those who love the book. Maybe I'll feel differently when I finish it and the plot picks up again.

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