# Y'all, can we talk about Moby Dick? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840 "2015-12-31T18:26:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/21 "2015-12-31T20:37:18Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “Moby Dick” was Led Zeppelin’s worst song. And It’s probably Melville’s worst book. But I’ll never know, because I refuse to give it a chance. I think that would be _The Confidence Man_ or _Pierre_. I had a seminar on Melville in grad school, and those were the ones I found the most trying to get through. I liked a lot of his earlier, nautical stuff. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/22 "2015-12-31T20:37:51Z")
I experienced it differently. I listened to it as an audiobook during my daily commute. I enjoyed it, all of it, but I suppose it’s not exactly the same experience as reading it. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/23 "2015-12-31T20:46:41Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Sage Rat: > > You don’t like to watch talented persons/persons of genius showing you what they do best? Jesus, you are ONE tough audience. Well listen to this guy: His spiel is interesting, but I still wouldn't buy his album of body-triggered sound effects. Fundamentally, there's a point at which an artist has ceased trying to entertain and create for his audience, and if the artist can't do that, he's basically stopped being an artist and has instead become a curiosity. ---
**Author:** ![TheFaerie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/24 "2015-12-31T20:52:40Z")
I’m listening to the audiobook of In the Heart of the Sea! How timely. I’ve never read Moby Dick because of the reputation that it has of being kind of a slog, but perhaps I’ll do the audiobook now. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/25 "2015-12-31T20:54:00Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > The book. > > I’d never read it and picked it up a few weeks ago, just finished it today. (Kept texting my husband “70 pages to go and still no whale!” “40 pages and still no whale!” “NO WHALE AND 30 LEFT!” Whale shows up with 25 to go in my edition.) > > And I really don’t know what to make of it, except that it’s quite a book. I mean… _quite_ a book. I don’t even know if I liked it or not, but I also couldn’t have put it down. > > I dunno, I suppose people probably call it “the first postmodern novel” or something, but can you really be a thing if you’re the only thing? Doesn’t that just make you a weirdo? People say “oh it’s about obsession” or “oh it’s about futility”, but I think those people haven’t read it recently, because if Melville wanted to write a book about Ahab’s obsession, the hunt for the whale, his opposition with Starbuck at the end, etc. then he could have done that. Probably would have sold buckets of them, at about a hundred pages. > > But he didn’t write that book, he wrote a 600 page book about the nature of the whale, the meat of the whale, the classifications of the whale, the whiteness of the whale, the flensing of the whale, the dipping out of the spermaceti of the whale, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. He hardly did it by accident. So what do we make of it? To my mind, it’s about obsession - and _written obsessively_. It isn’t written the way it was by accident! In Moby Dick, he isn’t just telling, he’s also showing: this is what true obsession looks like. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/26 "2015-12-31T21:12:35Z")
Coincidentally, I came across this recently: > [@](#): > > New Bedford, Massachusetts: Moby Dick Movie Whalers’ PulpitAfter the 1956 movie of Herman Melville’s book, tourists visiting the “Whalemen’s Chapel” expected to see the exaggerated ship’s bow pulpit… so this one was built in 1961. > … > You, too, can deliver a fire-and-brimstone sermon from the Seamen’s Bethel prow-shaped pulpit, made famous in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” The pulpit didn’t exist during Melville’s time (it was his literary invention), however, it was prominently featured in a 1956 movie directed by John Huston. Thereafter, visiting tourists grumbled when their fantasy didn’t match reality, so a prow-shaped pulpit was added in 1961 and now everybody is happy. On the inside walls of the church, over 30 cenotaphs (“empty graves”) are hung, bearing epitaphs for whalemen lost at sea. You think your cubicle office job is killing you? At least you didn’t fall overboard into a whale’s mouth. > **[New Bedford, MA - Moby Dick Movie Whalers' Pulpit](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/31364)** > > Visit reports, news, maps, directions and info on Moby Dick Movie Whalers' Pulpit in New Bedford, Massachusetts. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/27 "2015-12-31T21:49:33Z")
I read it about twenty years ago. I thought it was brilliant. Favorite line: “Angels are but sharks well govern’d.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/28 "2015-12-31T21:53:01Z")
Moby Dick is three books. 1. A book about the friendship about Queequeq and Ishmael. This contains the early chapters of the book, but is dropped. 2. A book about Ahab and his search for Moby Dick. This shows up in various disconnected chapter throughout the book. Much of this is Ahab finding another whaler and asking if they saw the white whale. They’d say “no” and he’d move on. There are only a handful of chapters dealing with this story. 3. A nonfiction treatise on the mechanics of whaling, with all the details of the hunt, live aboard the ship, and philosophical musings on the process. This is most of the novel. #2 also contains most of the main theme and is most of the movie version (with some of #1). I found #3 to be a fascinating historical document of a forgotten type of work and life. #2 is ok, but a bit too preachy. #1 could have been a fascinating story, especially if Melville had done more with the homosexual subtext (but, of course, he wouldn’t, not only for propriety’s sake, but because “homosexual” was not a word (nor was “subtext”)). ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/29 "2015-12-31T22:05:01Z")
I also enjoyed the description of the mechanics of whaling. I know a lot of people think that part is boring, but I found it fascinating. Homosexual subtext? Huh. Apparently I was oblivious to that or I just don’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/30 "2015-12-31T23:03:46Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I also enjoyed the description of the mechanics of whaling. I know a lot of people think that part is boring, but I found it fascinating. Another good reason to seek out the Arion Press edition (UC Berkeley Press keeps it in print in paperback). Moser illustrates and diagrams things like the layout of a whaleboat, which makes Melville’s descriptions smoother and more enjoyable reading. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/31 "2015-12-31T23:06:27Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Coincidentally, I came across this recently. [New Bedford, MA - Moby Dick Movie Whalers' Pulpit](http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/31364) Orson Welles plays Father Mapple in the movie, and delivers the sermon based on the Jonah story. Another excellent scene worth re-watching. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/32 "2015-12-31T23:12:54Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Well listen to this guy: > > His spiel is interesting, but I still wouldn't buy his album of body-triggered sound effects. Fundamentally, there's a point at which an artist has ceased trying to entertain and create for his audience, and if the artist can't do that, he's basically stopped being an artist and has instead become a curiosity. I guess we’ll have to make it a case of _chacun a son gout._. I happen to enjoy experimental music (not THAT guy in particular…let’s say Edgard Varese?) and jazz, and people who write weird shit (Melville, Barthelme, Calvino…). I don’t find jazz musicians any more narcissistic than rock musicians or bluegrass players. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/33 "2015-12-31T23:31:49Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Orson Welles plays Father Mapple in the movie, and delivers the sermon based on the Jonah story. Another excellent scene worth re-watching. Gregory Peck returned to play him Father Mapple in the Patrick Stewart remake (also excellent). Apparently Stewart was intrigued by the quote in the _Star Trek: First Contact_ script, read the book, decided he just had to play Ahab, had his people do lunch with their people, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Bonaventure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Bonaventure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonaventure)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/34 "2015-12-31T23:39:01Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I also enjoyed the description of the mechanics of whaling. I know a lot of people think that part is boring, but I found it fascinating. > > Homosexual subtext? Huh. Apparently I was oblivious to that or I just don’t remember. There is a chapter where the seamen have to thrust their hands into the spermaceti (the creamy, viscous white fluid) in the whale’s head and just squeeze and squeeze the lumps out of it. They invariably end up squeezing each other’s hands and feeling very loving and brotherly towards each other. Yeah, I don’t see it either. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/35 "2016-01-01T00:03:20Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > You could try the 1956 movie of _Moby-Dick_ – directed by John Fucking Huston, screenplay by Ray Fucking Bradbury, starring Gregory Fucking Peck as Ahab – it’s a pretty good flick (cough). Bradbury came up with something utterly brilliant for the ending: having Ahab’s dead body appear to beckon to the crew (Arthur C. Clarke actually references this in his novelization of _2001_). It’s such a perfect touch that I had to check the novel to make sure it wasn’t really in there! > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Another good reason to seek out the Arion Press edition (UC Berkeley Press keeps it in print in paperback). Moser illustrates and diagrams things like the layout of a whaleboat, which makes Melville’s descriptions smoother and more enjoyable reading. Excellent advice! I’d suggest that anyone who’s thinking of reading _Moby Dick_ should seek out a good edition with footnotes, a glossary, etc. Free public domain ebooks are great, I know, but in this case you need those extras. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/36 "2016-01-01T00:39:14Z")
Here’s the scene of Orson Welles/Father Mapple Moby-Dicking it up. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/qb-g4O2QDZg/maxresdefault.jpg "The sermon on Jonah from Moby Dick") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb-g4O2QDZg) Ooooooo! Foreshadowing! ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/37 "2016-01-01T00:47:26Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “Moby Dick” was Led Zeppelin’s worst song. And It’s probably Melville’s worst book. But I’ll never know, because I refuse to give it a chance. > > “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Billy Budd” were far, far shorter and STILL the most excruciating literary torture I’ve ever experienced. Melville will never get another split second of my time. I’ve read it during a brief period where I decided to visit the classics on my own rather than whatever the English teacher decided was our required reading for the year. I rank it as the second most painful book I’ve ever read. It doesn’t make the top billing only because I started skipping paragraphs, pages, then entire chapters to speed the fucking story along. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/38 "2016-01-01T00:59:21Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > The chapter on the Whiteness of the Whale just… I mean… wow. That’s the heart of the thing, I think. That was, I think, the chapter where I said, “Of, fer the love a Christ,” and gave up. All respect to Melville for his mad chops and all, and there were great bits of the book up to that point, but god help me, I need a plot, and long before the chapter called “Some Things Are White,” I’d decided that the white whale was a metaphor for the book’s plot: rarely seen, mostly submerged, surfacing only once in a great while and then all too quickly diving back down to unknown depths, leaving me with only the unbroken sea of random contemplations on how there are crow’s nests in ships, and here’s a really detailed description of one, but after three pages of description, oh no, that’s not actually the one on our ship, the one on our ship is much simpler, here’s a page of description of this thing sailors stand on, and did I mention that there are other things people stand on? here’s a list, and speaking of which, there are other things that other things stand on, like, oh, say, pedestals, let’s brainstorm what those are! God help me, I need a plot, and unlike Ahab, I’m not obsessed enough to pursue the plot across all seven seas or seven hundred pages hoping against hope I’ll catch one more glimpse of it. Show me a chapter called “Did You Know There Are Some Things That Are White,” and I’ll say, “Oh, fer the love a Christ,” and go find a different book. But seriously, I’m very glad other folks like Melville, and I wish I could, too. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/39 "2016-01-01T01:07:42Z")
**Left Hand:**. Try the short stories. And “Benito Cerino.” Wait, forget “Benito Cerino.” Having to read it twice (see my above post) might irritate you to madness. ---
**Author:** ![botsgotme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@botsgotme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/botsgotme)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840/40 "2016-01-01T01:33:01Z")
No need to read all 600 pages. The first sentence sums up the theme (“Call me Ishmael”). That’s the whole story, the rest is just window dressing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-can-we-talk-about-moby-dick/741840.md?page=3)