A Novel Idea: White Whale of a Book
Well, today I finished reading the novel Moby Dick. I believe I began the book back in July 2017. I know I was reading it up in Lake Placid in mid-August but I think I had started before then. The Kindle App says that it takes about 13 hours total to read. I can't imagine reading it in a weekend though (13 hours worth, straight, no chaser). Better to bite off small pieces and chew. Or sip, to continue the liquor allusion.
I promised myself that I would read at least some of it every day and I think I did. Except a couple of days ago when the end of the book, like land, was in sight. The tide of the narrative would carry me to port at that point.
Although I have read many books, it is pretty rare for me to read a novel. When I was a kid, I would read a novel that my parents would have on the bookshelf or maybe pick a book off another sibling. I recall reading the Stephen King novel The Dead Zone which I borrowed from my older brother. First and last Stephen King novel I ever read. It gave me the creeps which I suppose is why people read him. I don't enjoy being given the creeps. Never understood that mentality frankly. I have liked several of the film adaptions of his books including Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
Besides reading, as an adult approaching 40 until 50 something, C.S. Lewis's fictional works like The Chronicles of Narnia or Until We Have Faces or Pilgrim's Regress or Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit (which I had attempted to read in Junior High but thought it way too weird, like the game Dungeons and Dragons), I have leaned heavily to the historical, biographical. and the theological side of books . I guess I find real life more interesting than fiction. Yet, I have seen the genius and necessity of fiction. It can be real in substance even if partially or totally contrived in the mind of the writer. I like documentaries more than films.
I had read Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan probably fifteen years ago and derived a lot of theological insight from it. Jesus's parables were not true in the sense that they had actually happened (or maybe some of them did but we have no way of knowing and proving that). So, in reading Moby Dick, I sailed waters that are foreign to me.
I feel like I should get a merit badge or something. Reading the book itself was a White Whale but I gave myself permission to go slow and steady. Word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, and chapter by chapter. Reading on my Kindle App was a giant plus. Accessible and easy to read, for me who has eyesight so poor that I can't read real books without magnifying glasses well anymore. I believe lighted screens have been detrimental to my vision to the point where it is hard for me to read a conventional book.
So what did I distill, like whale oil, from reading the tome? Hmmmm.
- Ahab was driven by revenge. I surmise Melville was making a point that the White Whale had just as much a right to survival as those who hunted him. So, if Moby could chomp off Ahab's leg in the conflict, good for him. It is only fair. But Ahab was consumed by his loss of limb and Moby Dick's infliction of amputation upon his leg. As if, it was crime only countered by the killing of the White Whale as some cosmic pay-back. Rather, than his just desserts.
- The entire story is steeped in biblical thought. Although Melville seems to have had some kind of beef against Christianity, he certainly employed a lot of names, ideas, and lessons from the Bible. It is one thing to know the Bible and deny its ultimate message, it is another thing entirely to be ignorant of it and its wisdom. Skeptics of an earlier age knew the Bible but didn't buy it hook. line, and sinker. Us moderns don't even know the Bible. Highly-educated people can be practically entirely ignorant about the Bible. Regardless of where one lands faith-wise, we are much poorer as a civilization to not know our past and what has shaped it. I hear all kinds of downright dopey things that even Christians say because they don't know the Bible.
- Melville takes an extraordinarily long time to let the story build into its ultimate conflict. Unlike modern storytellers who say you must hit your readers hard with the unexpected right off the bat to engage them, Melville discourses into the mundane throughout the book. But, you know that the White Whale is waiting patiently and menacingly. swimming in the waters of the book. Lurking, alluded to, only to swim away. Melville is also funny, and trenchant, and poignant.
- The characters in the book are neither knaves nor knights. Almost all have a dark side. Even Ahab has some sensitive moments despite being driven towards destruction. I think even Moby Dick dies in the end but all that is left is ruination. Only Ishmael survives of the crew, that is it. A lust for retaliation ultimately costs the recipients more than they bargained for. Like almost all wars. I couldn't help but think of our Ahab-in-Chief in his petty and poisonous ways. Billionaire, Victim. It just doesn't add up.
So, I am not sure of the next novel that I am going to read. But I think I am going to keep on sailing this type of ship. Any suggestions?
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