s.penkevich's Reviews > Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Love it or hate it, whenever someone asks if Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is worth reading I always enthusiastically say yes you should, yes it's worth it, yes, yes like some weirdass library Molly Bloom. An epic seafaring quest—one that is a prime example of how a major theme in literature is Don’t Get on Boats (my rant on that here)—to fight the emptiness and meaninglessness of the world symbolized by the white whale. Even if we the reader may be like Cpt. Ahab trying to find our own sense of purpose in our pursuit of the novel, it is a voyage of beautiful prose worth setting out on. C’mon, who doesn’t want to hang out and possibly die horrifically with this complete fucker:

Sure, I see how you can find the middle sections on whaling facts to be dry, but the ending of this slaps. It’s as hard hitting as a whale ramming a boat like, say, the Essex which inspired this novel (Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is an excellent read on the tragedy). If you don’t end up liking it, you aren’t alone as the reviews upon its release in 1851 are rather harsh (you can read some excerpts here) and at the time of Melville’s death it had sold only a third of what his first novel, Typee, had done, but it has since become a heralded classic with many other “classic” authors spouting praise (William Faulkner wrote ‘I wish I had written [Moby-Dick]’) and had a rise in popularity following WWI with expatriates living in 1920’s Paris describing it as ‘a sort of cunning test by which the genuineness of another man’s response to literature could be proved.’ But also it is because both Moby-Dick the novel and the symbolism of Moby Dick the whale (the title is hyphenated, the whale is not and the reason might be as much a hunt as for the whale himself), have become so analyzed and debated over and over again on the many themes such as the power of nature and the frailty of humans, the dangers of monomania and self-assuredness (some critics cite Ahab as a criticism of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas of self-reliance or what Melville wrote as his ‘transcendentalisms, myths & oracular gibberish), and more. Perhaps it is partly the way Moby-Dick is interpreted as a map through the soul of the early US and its issues around race, religion and false promises, all told in a powerful prose that flows like the waves on the sea. This book has lasted for a reason and there’s likely nothing new to say about it but I’m gonna ramble at ye.

‘My favorite book is Moby-Dick. No frou-frou symbolism. Just a story of a man who hates an animal. And that's enough.’
-Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation

Greil Marcus has said that Moby Dick has lasted as ‘the sea we swim in.’ It has been a staple of pop culture for a long time, and likely still long to come. In music Moby Dick gave us that epic John Bonham drum solo, that Umphrey’s McGee jam, or even Melville’s great-great-great-musician nephew, Moby, who acted a dick towards Natalie Portman. Bob Dylan went on about the book in his Nobel Lecture and references it in many of his songs.The character’s became code names for The Baader-Meinhof Gang in prison (ironically, Moby Dick was their code for the State which, like in the book, outlived them all) and the doom-fated character Starbuck’s namesake has become a major coffee chain and a character in Battlestar Galactica. It has been many films, and film references, such as the other whaling ship, Rosebud, being a key name in Orson Welle’s Citizen Kane (he would attempt, but never finish a 1971 film adaptation). The coffin surfacing in the flood in O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a direct reference, and recently there was a whole scene as a blatant allusion to the book in the second Avatar film. It was also a major source for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), with Khan going to his death quoting the book: ‘From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee… for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee…’

Gregory Peck as Ahab in John Huston’s 1956 Moby Dick film, with a screenplay written by Ray Bradbury

While pop culture is full of references to Moby-Dick, the novel itself is overflowing with allusions to other great works of literature. Ahab himself is often argued to be a composite reference to Oedipus, Narcissus, Prometheus and his biblical namesake. Ahab—who is temporarily afflicted—comes across the head of a sperm whale hanging from the ship (‘it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert’) and demand of it ‘tell us the secret thing that is in thee,’ a pretty on-the-nose reference to Oedipus (also he frequently uses his spear as a crutch and to murder whales, not unlike Oedipus murdering his own father with his walking stick). Also the whole prophecy thing that occurs to Oedipus and Ahab, because the two chariots that will lead to his death bit is pretty excellent when it comes about. The tale of Narcissus is directly referenced in the first chapter and foreshadows Ahab’s own fate, failing to see that the evil he sees in the whale is a ‘wildly projected’ image of himself (well and the whole drowning aspect). The Prometheus bits are my favorite though, with Ahab often associated with fire such as his flaming spear and, with respect to him symbolizing the white whale as a god of sorts, stealing from the whales the oil for fire (for which he was punished). King Ahab was punished for worshiping false gods (whales as gods again).

But I want to get back to Prometheus for a moment because I have my own Prometheus confession. Silence please. Well…when I was at the university, having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would go the the Barnes and Noble and see the literary part of the world. I was interested in Moby-Dick, but like, whew, should I spend my money on a book? Just then there was a big flash of lightning, a store shaking crash, and we were plunged into darkness as the power went out. People screamed, I ran outside to see the storm, to see the powerline that had been struck, “only to realize” I had “accidentally” (emphasizing the air-quotes while scanning the room for who might be a cop) left with Moby-Dick still in hand under the cover of dark. I’M NOT PROUD OF IT, OKAY (im gonna be real with you—not that bad, honestly) but it had pictures and I did read it all rather quickly sitting under a bridge off campus by the river (would recommend reading this in your early 20s when you A. are old enough to get a lot of it, B. have disposable time to read in big chunks and C. an attention span). Anyways, like Prometheus, I would later find myself chained to a rock AKA the customer service desk of a different Barnes and Noble for several years to be pecked at daily by customers and management alike. They didn’t have to bother with my liver, my good friend alcohol was ravishing that enough on its own. SO I GOT MINE, everyone can back off now.

But this book is just teeming with symbolism and themes. When Bob Dylan delivered his Nobel Lecture, he spoke on how this was one of three books that really shaped him ‘and the themes from those books worked their way into many of my songs either knowingly or unintentionally.’ One of the themes I frequently discussed with a coworker when she read this last year was the representation of race. She pointed out there are some problematic issues but how it’s interesting to remember this book was pretty progressive at its time. We see racism as a major sin, such as the ship, The Pequod, taking it’s name from an indigenous tribe in Massachusetts that perished under the arrival of Europeans and thus makes the Pequod a symbol of death and doom (*jazz hands* fooooooreshadowinggggg!). Melville has often referred to the novel as an allegory, and one prevailing interpretation with critics is that it functions as an allegory for te racial relations around slavery that would lead to the Civil War. Melville lets us know he’s not down with slavery, such as when Pip realizes the price of a dead whale is significantly more than his own price as a living slave and promptly has a mental breakdown. It should be noted that Ishmael’s close friendship with Queequeg (it could be argued it pushes towards the erotic) is highly subversive and the latter fellow and his skills are a critique on the belief of white superiority.

‘There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man,’ states Ahab, and many interpretations of the novel focus on the whale as an evil. I believe Ahab sees Moby Dick this way (a projection, as previously mentioned), and we can certainly view this story as an expression of the fragility of humans in the face of the awesome power of nature. Don’t fuck with nature, it’s going to win. However, so much of this is wrapped up in an investigation of applying meaning, applying symbols and needing purpose in the terrifying face of meaninglessness. The white whale (based on a similar ship-killer whale named Mocha Dick) is no accident, with white often believed to be an absence of color and calling to mind a cold, apathetic nothingness. It is a lack of good or evil, and Ahab is falsely applying evil here, trying to create a destiny and fight against a perceived villain to be the main character hero of his own invention. We also see this all as humans defenselessness against fate. Whales are big, don’t mess with them. You’ll see…

Okay, I’ve spun quite the yarn here and really, just give this a go. Even if you don’t like it, it’s still pretty cool to say you’ve read it. And there are SO many amazing scenes, I promise. Like, okay, I can’t talk about this book without mentioning when Ahab makes everyone do shots out of the cavities in their spears. And that ending. It’s wild. It’s a big book, it’s full of themes and complex symbolism and tons of literary allusions and it may rock you like a ship upon stormy seas, but it’s worth the voyage. And, hey, at least you can read about whales noshing on sailors, that’s pretty fun.