Last month I read Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" in tandem with some of the incoming students in the college program I was working with over the summer. I was as apprehensive as they were once I realized just how long a novel it really is. I was taken back to middle school when I struggled through the dense prose of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." What else could an almost 500-page book about a whale be compared to? About a week in, I think we all realized there's not a lot that Moby Dick can be compared to. It really is one of a kind.
From dualistic imagery and symbolism to discussions of race, religion, sexuality, education, politics and lifestyle choices, Melville was undertaking the work of composing a liturgical piece as large as the Bible, or, as those in my class took to addressing it, the "whale Bible." It sought to portray almost every facet of whaling life and culture in the 19th century, and then some.
While wrapping up the program, the students gave their accounts of their favorite parts of the program, and many listed the novel in some way. I was moved by how this book inspired them, despite being modern readers and despite its reputation for being boring and irrelevant. But we all found something to hold our interest while reading, be it the beautiful language, the wisdom it imparts, or simply a way to relate on a deeply human level to the seafarers in the novel. They traded their homes and families for years on end in exchange for whale oil to make their own living and let others do the same. In an age beginning to rely heavily on modern technology, the use of whale oil could be involved with every career field in some way. However, giving up a life back home was something all college students far from home could relate to, not merely because of the physical distance from home, but also because of that metaphorical space where we have embarked on a voyage knowing the outcome, but not the day-to-day adventures.
Like any epic or other great work of literature, "Moby Dick" is certainly a difficult and challenging book to read, even when you're in a classroom setting. However, if you do decide to give it a try, here are seven tips and tricks based on how our group of readers took on the "whale Bible."
1. Know what to expect...
Knowing the structure of the book isn't a spoiler, right? It'll help you be prepared when you do encounter a completely different style of writing just by turning the page. You will find prose, song lyrics, Shakespearian playwriting, history lessons and encyclopedic entries, among many other things.
2. Skim, skim, skim!
Even if you're not under the time constraints of a class or a reader's group, the extensive passages about the in's and out's of a whaling ship and the multiple pages detailing another whale chase will get to you at some point. The trick is learning how to skim. This means that when you get to a page you can't seem to be moving on from -- or are falling asleep because of a page-- you need to take a step back. Look at the page as a whole and focus only on those things you think you should be spending the most time on.
3. Read. Out. Loud.
This is a great example of a novel that is great to read aloud. You'll be able to pick up the cadence and rhythm in the text and realize how so much will mirror the sounds you might here if you were there. We get to hear the sounds of the ocean sloshing around in the background, mixed with the sounds of the tools used and the voices of the crew and sailors. Acting out the chapters written in play format is always lots of fun, too.
4. Read the footnotes.
Our edition of the novel had some absolutely great footnotes and additional documents like Melville's letters and literary reviews for his work. They helped to contextualize and see the larger picture. The footnotes really helped us parse through all of the Biblical and contemporary allusions, particularly the puns. So much can be lost to modern readers if we do not know the cultural references that Melville -- or any other author, for that matter -- expected his readers to be familiar with.
5. Do some research.
If your edition does not have the necessary footnotes, or if you simply want to get even more context, research everything you're curious about. Look up diagrams of the inside of a whale. Google antique maps of ships' voyages that tracked whale appearances. Read the true story of the Pequot tribe, the basis for the name of the fictional ship Melville's narrator embarks on during the novel. Immerse yourself in the world Melville puts forth in his writing.
6. Proceed with an open mind.
Melville is particularly interested in POC. There are several of them aboard the Pequod, including the narrator's "bosom friend," Queequeg, a South Pacific Islander. For someone so invested in portraying these non-white characters, we would think the terminology he used would be a little bit more favorable. He calls them "savages" and "pagans" while he still subverts all of these stereotypes and often gives their characters more complexities than their white peers. They're heroic, intelligent, kind and generally superior in many regards. Keeping that in mind, it's easy to want to dismiss Melville as another author diminishing the POC in their novels. However, it seems Melville may have been using this language to take it apart, giving us another reason to think this novel was way ahead of its time. Give it a chance.
7. Have fun with it!
Reading aloud and giving the characters voices when we acted the scenes out was only one way we brought the novel to life. We also traveled to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, a living museum that brings to life what a whaling town like New Bedford and Nantucket would have been like at the time. We slept aboard the Joseph Conrad -- a ship typically used for student groups like ours -- to get a feel for a sailor's life, and let me tell you, it was rough. Small rooms were crammed with three levels of bunks with little ventilation, and we never even left the harbor. You might not be able to do all that we were given the opportunity to do, but place yourself in the characters' shoes in different ways. Listen to sea shanties, yell out "Thar she blows!" constantly, watch the movie adaptation and other movies like "In the Heart of the Sea," and simply imagine. Could you survive being a whaler? Would you be the captain, a harpooneer, or a sailor? Reading the footnotes and doing research will vastly help, but I think the best thing you can do is to use all of that knowledge to realize how you would adapt to months and years of isolation, surrounded by people in the same boat as you (pun intended) who also realize they may never return home. "Moby Dick" will challenge you in ways you had never thought about before, so read with an enthusiastic and open mind and you will get the most out of it.
