Why should you read “Moby Dick”? - Sascha Morrell

A mountain separating two lakes.

A room papered floor to
ceiling with bridal satins.

The lid of an immense snuffbox.

These seemingly unrelated images take
us on a tour of a sperm whale’s head

in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

On the surface,

the book is the story of Captain Ahab’s
hunt for revenge against Moby Dick,

the white whale who bit off his leg.

But though the book features pirates,
typhoons, high-speed chases,

and giant squid,

you shouldn’t expect a conventional
seafaring adventure.

Instead, it’s a multilayered exploration
of not only the intimate details

of life aboard a whaling ship,

but also subjects from across human
and natural history,

by turns playful and tragic, humorous
and urgent.

The narrator guiding us through these
explorations

is a common sailor called Ishmael.

Ishmael starts out telling his own story

as he prepares to escape the “damp and
drizzly November in [his] soul”

by going to sea.

But after he befriends the Pacific
Islander Queequeg

and joins Ahab’s crew aboard the Pequod,

Ishmael becomes more of an omniscient
guide for the reader

than a traditional character.

While Ahab obsesses over revenge and first
mate Starbuck tries to reason with him,

Ishmael takes us on his own
quest for meaning

throughout “the whole universe, not
excluding its suburbs.”

In his telling, life’s biggest questions
loom large, even in the smallest details.

Like his narrator, Melville was a
restless and curious spirit,

who gained an unorthodox education
working as a sailor

on a series of grueling voyages around
the world in his youth.

He published Moby-Dick in 1851,

when the United States’ whaling
industry was at its height.

Nantucket, where the Pequod sets sail,

was the epicenter of this lucrative
and bloody global industry

which decimated the world’s
whale populations.

Unusually for his time,

Melville doesn’t shy away from
the ugly side of this industry,

even taking the whale’s
perspective at one point,

when he speculates on how terrifying
the huge shadows of the ships must be

to the creature swimming below.

The author’s first-hand familiarity with
whaling is evident over and over again

in Ishmael’s vivid descriptions.

In one chapter, the skin
of a whale’s penis

becomes protective clothing
for a crewman.

Chapters with titles as unpromising as
“Cistern and Buckets”

become some of the novel’s most
rewarding

as Ishmael compares bailing out a
sperm-whale’s head to midwifery,

which leads to reflections on Plato.

Tangling whale-lines provoke witty
reflections

on the “ever-present perils”
entangling all mortals.

He draws on diverse branches of knowledge,
like zoology, gastronomy, law, economics,

mythology, and teachings from a range
of religious and cultural traditions.

The book experiments with writing style
as much as subject matter.

In one monologue, Ahab challenges
Moby Dick in Shakespearean style:

“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying
but unconquering whale;

to the last I grapple with thee;
from hell’s heart I stab at thee;

for hate’s sake I spit my last
breath at thee.”

One chapter is written as a playscript,

where members of the Pequod’s multi-ethnic
crew chime in individually and in chorus.

African and Spanish sailors trade insults
while a Tahitian seaman longs for home,

Chinese and Portuguese crewmembers
call for a dance,

and one young boy prophesies disaster.

In another chapter,

Ishmael sings the process of decanting
whale oil in epic style,

as the ship pitches and rolls in the
midnight sea

and the casks rumble like landslides.

A book so wide-ranging has something
for everyone.

Readers have found religious and political
allegory, existential enquiry,

social satire, economic analysis,

and representations of American
imperialism,

industrial relations and racial conflict.

As Ishmael chases meaning and Ahab
chases the white whale,

the book explores the opposing forces
of optimism and uncertainty,

curiosity and fear that characterize human
existence

no matter what it is we’re chasing.

Through Moby Dick’s many pages,

Melville invites his readers to leap into
the unknown,

to join him on the hunt for the
“ungraspable phantom of life.”