Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

It appears that I am one of a minority who have worked through Moby Dick by Herman Melville – that is the unabridged version. I say ‘worked through’ as I rather skimmed the last 350 pages of the 536 page novel. In skimming I did dip into every paragraph so don’t feel that I cheated in saying I’ve read Moby Dick.
It is a fascinating book when you think about it – which I did having realised there wasn’t much in the story to really keep my attention.
The book was published in the 1850s. This got me wondering about literacy in the UK as that’s where the book was published. Who was his intended audience? UK literacy at the time was about 50%. Twenty years later when the Education Act was passed, it went up to 90% apparently.
Melville must have been using the opportunity to educate his audience. They did not have access to the Internet to do a quick search on the types of whale – so he set it out for them. If he got it slightly wrong with what we know today, it’s likely science has moved on. He explained how others before him were not as developed in their whale knowledge. Similarly, one can trace a knowledge development of travel, the globe and different people.
I was struck at how diverse his little community was – in terms of religion, ethnicity, disability, status etc. It also showed a respect for status and position we hardly know today. Yet, rebelling featured when it was felt superiors overstepped their mark.
Melville served for three years on a whaler – how he kept himself busy during the dreary monotonous days of plain sailing with no whales to see or ships to liaise with becomes apparent in his detailed descriptions of aspects of the boat, their routine and treatment/management of the whale. Today, many critics would say he gave too much description and detail. He might well have; he had time to study it.
He had an astute insight into the different whaling communities – he was from Nantucket, explaining how their whaling differed to that of the Greenlanders, Scandinavians, English and even Spanish.
A large number of pages deal with religion, not least the story of Jonah who was swallowed by a whale for 3 days. The plausibility of this is gone into detail – the likely type of whale, whether Jonah was actually swallowed or whether he hid in the mouth/cheek of the whale – gastronomic juices featuring in this discussion – the speed and distance a whale can do over three days and finally Jonah being spewed out in a dry area… No judgement is made, the reader left to conclude what happened based on the detailed information supplied.
There is an abridged version – the copy I have by Scott La Counte is 90 pages large font… It only has 8 sections of the full version and even then not the complete sections. A quick flick through the abridged version suggests it is only the ‘exciting’ highlights, the beginning to set the context and the last chapters to conclude the story. I’m not sure I would have appreciated this abridged version – perhaps in a year or twos’ time.

If you like long engaging reads, the following by TSL authors are worth considering…