Althouse: "To 'Moby Dickheads,' Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a treasure trove. King situates Melville as a person of his time, writing amid a quickening pace of discoveries about the natural world..."

November 5, 2019

"To 'Moby Dickheads,' Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a treasure trove. King situates Melville as a person of his time, writing amid a quickening pace of discoveries about the natural world..."

"... but, pre-On the Origin of Species, inclined to couch them as further disclosures of God’s design. Still, Moby-Dick prefigures Darwin 'by de-centering the human.' Less convincing is King’s gloss on the book as a 'proto-environmentalist' text, with Ahab as a stand-in for 'Big Oil.' Annexing Moby-Dick to contemporary pieties serves to make it relatable, but defangs and domesticates a confounding work fully in touch with its dark side, as strange as the oil-engorged Leviathan that inspired it, and, to use Yeats’s words, 'as cold and passionate as the dawn.'"

From "As well as being a mythic tale, Moby-Dick is a superb a guide to oceanography," a review (in the U.K. spectator) of the new book "Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick" by Richard J. King.

"Annexing Moby-Dick to contemporary pieties serves to make it relatable"? To some, but obviously not to others (including that reviewer).

27 comments:

The Vault Dweller said...: Wow, early post by Althouse. I never read Moby Dick, but my understanding it that it is a story about vengeance. Is Althouse seeking vengeance by posting this early? If so, who is/are the targets?; 11/5/19, 4:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Early by the clock, 2 days after the time shift.

Don't worry. I got a full night's sleep. This is not an insomnia situation.; 11/5/19, 4:48 AM
Quaestor said...: That second sentence in your title almost put me off a hearty breakfast. Then I realized King wasn't Stephen
King.

All better now, thank you.

My mother read Moby Dick to me, chapter by chapter as a bedtime ritual. Melville's detailed description of the flensing and the operation of the try-works must have been tedious to a six-year-old, yet I do not remember being bored — scared near to death, yes, but not ever bored.; 11/5/19, 4:50 AM
The Vault Dweller said...: Hmm... no mention of vengeance-seeking. I guess we can neither confirm nor deny this is a plot of some sorts.; 11/5/19, 4:55 AM
Quaestor said...: ...my understanding it that it is a story about vengeance.

Ahab discusses his motives, very obliquely, with his First Mate, Mr. Starbuck, who having grown increasingly hostile to Captain Ahab's pursuit of the white whale, demands clarification. (A-hab, you got some 'splainin to do.) Vengeance is a wholly inadequate word for whatever drives Ahab. Nobody would bother writing about Moby Dick 168 years after its publication if it were a story of something as simple as vengeance.

I don't know what its about, and I have better knowledge of Moby Dick and the other works of Herman Melville than the average person. (My favorite is Billy Budd, Foretopman. Now there's a story to bleaken your day, that and Bartleby the Scrivener.) However, if asked I will say that Ahab is one who greatly resents being created a creature whose reach far, far exceeds its grasp.; 11/5/19, 5:15 AM
Darrell said...: To quote Greta Thunberg , "How dare you!"; 11/5/19, 5:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I loved "Bartleby" when I read it in high school.

We also read "Moby-Dick" and "Billy Budd." But "Bartleby" was the one that got me.; 11/5/19, 5:29 AM
Quaestor said...: To quote Greta Thunberg...

Interesting you should bring up little Miss Thunberg when the subject is Captain Ahab.

Ahab had a problem. So does Greta Thunberg. Ahab's problem had little to do with a certain marine mammal, just as Miss Thunberg's problem has little to do with the weather.; 11/5/19, 5:45 AM
Quaestor said...: Bartleby always reminds me why I am not the man who should be put in charge of persons with delicate constitutions.; 11/5/19, 5:59 AM
Chris of Rights said...: I finally read Moby Dick just last year. It's an entertaining read. Heavy on detail, but that was the style then. Certainly no worse than The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (the third book in the The Three Musketeers saga), which is just impossible to read.

There are wonderful characters in Moby Dick, and you'll learn more about whaling than you would ever want to know.

I don't know if the tale is about vengeance. I think it's more about obsession. Vengeance is the lesser part. Ahab is obsessed with getting his vengeance upon The White Whale.

I didn't like the over-use of the "noble savage" trope with respect to Queequeg. But there's a lot in that book that wouldn't make it as PC today. Still not sure what to make of the chapter where Queequeg and Ishmael sleep together in the hotel. I don't know if it's homoerotic or homophobic. It seems impossible that it could be both, and yet..it felt that way to me.; 11/5/19, 6:56 AM
tim in vermont said...: "Nobody would bother writing about Moby Dick 168 years after its publication if it were a story of something as simple as vengeance.”

But still, Liam Neesan as Ahab! “I have a very particular set of skills...”; 11/5/19, 7:29 AM
Rory said...: A guy named Gideon Defoe has written some funny books about "The Pirates!" in various adventures. "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab" is very funny.

"...my understanding it that it is a story about vengeance."

Now, the Count of Monte Cristo is about vengeance. I'm currently watching the French miniseries adaptation with Gerard Depardieu. It's excellent, if you have six hours some weekend this winter.; 11/5/19, 7:36 AM
narciso said...: Its a story of early 19th century america, about whales going back to the byzantine peeriod, a character study.; 11/5/19, 7:41 AM
Expat(ish) said...: I took a class in college *specifically* to have to read Moby Dick, having taken a few runs at it in high school. Back then I had the energy and will to just pick up any book and read it. And if it was a series, I'd read that. I've never forgiven the person who gave me Hesse's books.

Anyway, Moby Dick defeated me, so I sat through a semester of Joan Didion and other lessers to have to read it. I do not recall being happy I finished it, nor did I choose to write my final paper on it.

But I agree with Quaestor above that it's not a simple story and something in it, besides the flensing, still draws people to it.

-XC

PS - None of my children have ever come within a mile of reading it, and one of them is finishing up a degree in English. How the world has changed.

PPS - The English major is taking a class in Science Fiction (historically my favorite genre) and they are reading tremendously good books, with no apparent "softening" to get a quota author in. For example, they just read Bester's "The Demolished Man."; 11/5/19, 7:47 AM
traditionalguy said...: It's the story about man fighting with God. There is lots of collateral damage.; 11/5/19, 7:51 AM
Roughcoat said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/5/19, 7:57 AM
Roughcoat said...: I don't know if the tale is about vengeance. I think it's more about obsession.

It's about the meaning -- or meaninglessness, as the case may be -- of life; and the mystery of being and existence.; 11/5/19, 8:03 AM
Wince said...: I never read Moby Dick, but my understanding it that it is a story about vengeance.

Maybe a Trump allegory about a fat white guy being chased relentlessly for denying the leviathan's antagonists what they thought was theirs?

But in the end only lashing themselves to and being taken under by the mighty beast.; 11/5/19, 8:11 AM
Roughcoat said...: Edited:
"Moby Dick" ranks very high on the list of great novels. Close to the top, I should think. Right up there with "The Iliad," "The Odyssey," and "Blood Meridian." To say it succeeds on several levels may be a cliche, but it's true. I can't say how many times I've read it; and I discover new things in every reading.; 11/5/19, 9:00 AM
rcocean said...: i enjoyed Moby Dick but its not even my favorite Melville novel. Also, I didn't need all that detail about whales and its a little too long. My favorite Melville is an obscure novel called "White Jacket" which tells pf Melville's experiences as a US Sailor. I also like Tyee and Ommoo better. I've never read "The confidence man" or his novel based on his European experiences.; 11/5/19, 10:00 AM
rcocean said...: Moby Dick reminds of "The Searchers". People used to think "Shane" or some other film was the greatest Western, and then mysteriously, some mysterious somebodies suddenly decided "The Searchers" was THE WESTERN. Same with Moby Dick, it sank like a stone when it first came out, and then was rediscovered in the 1920's and then mysteriously became ONE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS.

Its funny how those things work. It goes the other way too. I notice no one talks about Sinclair Lewis anymore, but when even as late of the 1980's Babbitt and Main Street were GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS.; 11/5/19, 10:06 AM
rcocean said...: The problem is they write what they know. And most of them don't know anything exciting or world shaking. So, you get a lot of novels about College Professors, or well-to-do suburbanites, or smart Jewish intellectuals. Joyce knew only Dublin - so that's what he wrote about. Melville was lucky, he went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, was a Sailor on US Navy Sailing ship, and had plenty of adventures. After that, he popped off to Europe for several years. So "what he knew" was pretty interesting.; 11/5/19, 10:10 AM
Jeff said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/5/19, 10:20 AM
Jeff said...: One thing modern audiences miss is the numerous Biblical references. Melville knew the audiences of his time were Biblically quite literate, so there were many allusions that did not have to be explained, from the opening sentence reference to Ishmael, to the meeting of the ship Rachel, to the implication of Ahab's name, etc.

Also, strangers sleeping together in beds in inns was common in those times, putting a sexual spin on Queequeg and Ishmael sleeping together is a modern imposition. At the time, it would have been more like one of those internet stories found under a heading like: "Weirdest Hotel Experiences."; 11/5/19, 10:21 AM
Bilwick said...: "Certainly no worse than The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (the third book in the The Three Musketeers saga), which is just impossible to read."

Maybe for you. I enjoyed it. It was the second book of the "Bragelonne" trilogy (I think it was called "Louise de la Vallere") that I didn't care for, although as I recall it has an interesting part where D'Artagnan makes like Sherlock Holmes nd exhibits some good powers of deduction.

MOBY DICK was, for me, tough sledding. I started out finding it an interesting read, but then it bogged down until the final fifth or so. But I can see why academics like it. Plenty of grist for the mill.; 11/5/19, 10:27 AM
Roughcoat said...: Well, okay ... I'm no academic but I nonetheless think Moby Dick is one of the greatest novels. I love it through and through, from start to finish. I especially appreciate what Melville was trying to do. He was hunting big game. Very big game indeed.; 11/5/19, 11:34 AM
Jon Ericson said...: Sorry I'm late, but it's tangentially related; 11/5/19, 1:20 PM