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zenithblueLast night, finally, I finished this year's "challenge" book, Moby-Dick. I've been reading it on and off for months now--I deliberately decided to take a lot of breaks, since I plowed through Ulysses and missed a lot. If you're focused on finishing instead of reading, it's hard to give a shit about something like, say, five hundred plus pages of cetalogical explorations.
Well, it's kind of hard to give a shit about that even if you're taking your time, but more on that momentarily.
Instead of doing a whole review, I thought I'd just comment on a handful of things I found sort of interesting. My previous post on the book can be found here, if you care about my spastic ravings about existential/cultural skepticism in American literature (again, I wrote an undergrad thesis on it, and it remains a bit of an obsession).
Well, it's kind of hard to give a shit about that even if you're taking your time, but more on that momentarily.
Instead of doing a whole review, I thought I'd just comment on a handful of things I found sort of interesting. My previous post on the book can be found here, if you care about my spastic ravings about existential/cultural skepticism in American literature (again, I wrote an undergrad thesis on it, and it remains a bit of an obsession).
One of the things I ended up loving most about Moby-Dick was the portrait of the whaling man that Melville takes such pains to paint. As early as Chapter 24, Ishmael asserts himself as an advocate for the whaling man. claiming the right of the whaling man to all the dignity a literary novel can impart. Ishmael tells us early on that if he does anything worthwhile, he "prospectively asribe(s) all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." In some ways this is problematic, since Ishmael proves himself incredibly erudite, and one wonders where on the whale ship he picked up so much classical literature, but that's not a can of worms I'll here open. That said, there is something beautiful about the way the whaling man is depicted. There is not really any machismo to the book. It is not a Hemingway, where you prove your manhood by prodding the bulls. There is rather a sense of necessity, a sense that these men go out to make their fortunes the way they are able, and the value and virtue of it is in their skill and work and determination, not in the act of violence. To cite all the passages that reflect that would drive me to drink (I wrote in my margins but it's a fucking 820 page book, for god's sake), but if anyone cares I'll go back and cite (my academic side cringes at claims that are without page numbers...).
Anyway, it's a very American Romantic idea: the working man as a hero, an adventurer, and as a container of immeasurable possibility. He's not a sisyphean hero as Camus would have it. He's a man who has the capacity for great courage and jaunty spunk, just as much as he has the capacity for passivity or callousness or ugliness. It's an image of the laborer as a man who has the resources he needs, if he chooses to use them. In chapter CIV (brain failing for roman numerals right now), Ishmael asserts his authority upon the subject of Fossil Whales in this way: "I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts." Melville is sort of joking here, but I also think it speaks to his idea of man as ever learning, no matter what act he performs.
Can I just take a moment to say: I love the image of America, now somewhat absent from our popular consciousness, as a collection of intellectually curious, resourceful, ever-learning and -experimenting individuals. It's idealized and has never been a reality, but as a value to reach for and foster, it's beautiful. What the hell happened to that?
Okay, I'll try to wrap this up in a sec, but on the question of length: sigh. Here is a copy of a conversation I've had with a number of people to whom I recommended David Foster Wallace:
THEM: It's too damn long. Why's he use so many big words? And those fucking footnotes.
ME: Yes, it is too damn long, but take just a minute to think why he would make it that long, why he would include footnotes and big words. Don't just dismiss it out of hand, just think how he marries form to content.
THEM: ...
ME: I mean, did you read this part about the head exploding in the microwave? It's awesome!
Usually they don't buy it anyway, but the point is I truly believe this argument, that length is not necessarily a turn-off. So when I ask: why is this damn book so long, I have a few answers, some of which I've gleaned off of other people I can't remember in order to credit. One: the novel as a form was still protean at the time Melville was writing it, and he was free to make up the form as he went along, and free to imagine that it could contain worlds of meanings. Two: the novel is about excess and megalomania, and so he inundates you with image and information. Three: No one had ever seen a fucking whale, and he really wanted to create the whole world for the reader. No one had the Discover Channel. No one had Voyage of the Mimi.
I have absolute respect for all of these reasons. At the same time, I will say that when I read the end, I was just destroyed by the incredible poetry of it. It was some of the most beautiful writing I've ever seen. And honestly, I think if that beauty were laid more bare, it would be more powerful. Far be it from me to determine if that was Melville's goal, or to say it would be a "better" book. I do know it would be more entertaining, with less cetology.
But saying that still gives me the nagging feeling that I'm missing something. I think, what would the story be if it focused more on the tragedy and hubris of Ahab, on the friendship between Queequeg and Ishmael. How would that change it? The book carries so many infinite readings inside of it, and trimming back the excess would at very least reduce the number of those readings, would simplify the meaning. What else would we lose in the process?
No answers here. Definitely a book I'll think of for a long time. And now this post is too long.
Anyway, it's a very American Romantic idea: the working man as a hero, an adventurer, and as a container of immeasurable possibility. He's not a sisyphean hero as Camus would have it. He's a man who has the capacity for great courage and jaunty spunk, just as much as he has the capacity for passivity or callousness or ugliness. It's an image of the laborer as a man who has the resources he needs, if he chooses to use them. In chapter CIV (brain failing for roman numerals right now), Ishmael asserts his authority upon the subject of Fossil Whales in this way: "I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts." Melville is sort of joking here, but I also think it speaks to his idea of man as ever learning, no matter what act he performs.
Can I just take a moment to say: I love the image of America, now somewhat absent from our popular consciousness, as a collection of intellectually curious, resourceful, ever-learning and -experimenting individuals. It's idealized and has never been a reality, but as a value to reach for and foster, it's beautiful. What the hell happened to that?
Okay, I'll try to wrap this up in a sec, but on the question of length: sigh. Here is a copy of a conversation I've had with a number of people to whom I recommended David Foster Wallace:
THEM: It's too damn long. Why's he use so many big words? And those fucking footnotes.
ME: Yes, it is too damn long, but take just a minute to think why he would make it that long, why he would include footnotes and big words. Don't just dismiss it out of hand, just think how he marries form to content.
THEM: ...
ME: I mean, did you read this part about the head exploding in the microwave? It's awesome!
Usually they don't buy it anyway, but the point is I truly believe this argument, that length is not necessarily a turn-off. So when I ask: why is this damn book so long, I have a few answers, some of which I've gleaned off of other people I can't remember in order to credit. One: the novel as a form was still protean at the time Melville was writing it, and he was free to make up the form as he went along, and free to imagine that it could contain worlds of meanings. Two: the novel is about excess and megalomania, and so he inundates you with image and information. Three: No one had ever seen a fucking whale, and he really wanted to create the whole world for the reader. No one had the Discover Channel. No one had Voyage of the Mimi.
I have absolute respect for all of these reasons. At the same time, I will say that when I read the end, I was just destroyed by the incredible poetry of it. It was some of the most beautiful writing I've ever seen. And honestly, I think if that beauty were laid more bare, it would be more powerful. Far be it from me to determine if that was Melville's goal, or to say it would be a "better" book. I do know it would be more entertaining, with less cetology.
But saying that still gives me the nagging feeling that I'm missing something. I think, what would the story be if it focused more on the tragedy and hubris of Ahab, on the friendship between Queequeg and Ishmael. How would that change it? The book carries so many infinite readings inside of it, and trimming back the excess would at very least reduce the number of those readings, would simplify the meaning. What else would we lose in the process?
No answers here. Definitely a book I'll think of for a long time. And now this post is too long.
