Thursday, January 2, 2014

Call me Ishmael

It's about time I returned to this here blog. Forgive me, whoever is out there in cyber world, for not keeping my promises.

However, regardless of my lack of blogging about the books I've been reading, I do feel pretty dang accomplished. I mean, like, I-should-win-a-medal accomplished. Why?

Because I read Moby-Dick. All of it.

Moby-Dick is by far the biggest book I've read (I think Ulysses is somewhere around there in page length, but who am I kidding, I didn't actually "read" it). It was by far the most challenging book I've ever read, too. I dare say it perhaps was the most rewarding as well.

I had heard so many things about Moby-Dick, especially about its significance. And that's why it intrigued me. But for some reason, out of no where, I woke up one day and decided I would do it. I would read the whole thing and return to the very purpose of this blog: figure out why it's such a classic.

Thank goodness the library allowed me to renew it!

Throughout the whole book, I was troubled by a few things. One, mostly I was troubled by the narrator. The infamous first line, "Call me Ishmael," sets the stage that this is a first-person narrator and that Ishmael will be the means whereby the story of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick are told. Usually, this character-narrator is an interesting choice for me, but it can be dangerous, as the narrator can become flat and not go through any sort of change – not exist for any other reason than to tell the story that they are not wholly  apart of (i.e., Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby). Then, as the story (or rather long description of whaling) progressed, I noticed the narrator was no longer Ishmael but this disembodied, all-knowing, all-hearing being – the narrator knew the thoughts of the crew, recounted scenes where it would have been impossible for Ishmael to be apart of, and simply went places Ishmael would not be able to go. This, Herman Melville, would have gotten you bad marks in any fiction workshop.

It wasn't until I read the introduction to the book (which, by the way, take my advice and never read an introduction before you read the book. It will invariably ruin it for you. I'm so glad I waited until the end for this one) that I heard another perspective on this very frustration. The writer of the introduction argued there are two distinct narrators, and the "strange brilliance" of the novel is that it weaves in and out of them so seamlessly – that the choice of having the limited-perspective first-person Ishmael narrator and the omniscient, disembodied narrator at the same time is part of what made this a masterpiece. After reading that, my mind opened a bit, and every negative thing I felt about the book almost evaporated.

Oh, but then there were a bajillion pages on the color of the White Whale and what exactly the skeletal structure of the Sperm Whale was like and how pictures of whales tended to be back in the day, so  maybe not everything negative. I understand Melville's reason for this – the addition of real-life whaling facts and figures gave significance to the rest of the story, so that we as readers would buy everything else. Because if he can get as authentic as how wrinkly the forehead of the whale is, surely we can buy some of the other crazy stuff that happens.

Which leads me to the tale's resolution. I loved the ending, and I especially loved the imagery of the coffin in the sea as a life-buoy. Absolutely splendid, and one of those images I'd probably get tattooed on my body if I were the tattooing type. And gratifying, too, the ending – how even though I didn't exactly know what to expect, I felt fulfilled. Like this was supposed to happen.

I am being vague on purpose. If you have an inkling, even a small curiosity, please, read this book. You will at times wish you were reading something else, and you will at times be so engrossed in it, you'll forget about Facebook and all the other pointless stuff out there. There will be times you don't understand what's going on, but keep pressing forward, because you have to go there, too. You have to go with the crew of the Pequod and hunt whales and become so obsessed with something that all you think about is your very own White Whale.

Now that I've done it, I feel like I can read anything. And although that might not be the mark of a "classic" novel, it certainly means it's a classic for me.

P.S. Did you know Herman Melville, due to his lack of success as an author (critics didn't like him very much), gave up writing and became a customs inspector for 18 years? Yes, ladies and gentleman, the man who wrote Moby-Dick faced rejection. Hang in there. Your time will come someday.

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