On Reading Moby Dick

So back in April, a friend mentioned that he had always wanted to read Moby Dick but never had. I happen to love the novel and suggested that we read it simultaneously and meet once a week or so to discuss it. Well, we are now on our third meeting and the first 375 pages, and once again I’m hooked right into Ishmael’s enthusiastic 

romanticism, Queequeg’s exotic heroics, Ahab’s monomaniacal revenge, and Moby Dick’s clandestine existence. 

“Call me Ishmael,” is the famous opening, yet notice that our narrator does not say that Ishmael is his name, only that he wishes to be called this (This reminds me of telling my kids to call me Dunbar!).

So if we looked up who this Ishmael character is, it turns out that he’s pretty interesting and important. It’s all really early Old Testament stuff and goes back to Ishmael’s father that old rascal known as Abraham. If you’re not familiar, Abraham is

important because he is the unifying early patriarch shared between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Although Abraham is married to Sarah, Ishmael’s biological mother is Sarah’s servant Hagar. Thinking herself infertile, Sarah allows this union so Abraham can have a son. All this is well and good until Sarah actually does conceive and give birth to Isaac. So now the trouble starts and the three religions that trace their roots back to Abraham begin to go their separate ways. In Islamic tradition, Ishmael is the ancestor of the Arab people and Muhammad is his direct descendent which makes him a pretty important dude. 

Jews and Christians tend to reject Ishmael and instead side with Isaac and look at him as the true heir of Abraham. In fact some Jewish and Christian people believe Ishmael was actually pretty evil and wicked. The biggest difference between the Jews and Christians when it comes to Ishmael is that he is used in Christianity to demonstrate the rejection of the old ways and Isaac is seen as the beginning of the new tradition leading to Jesus.

I’m not writing a religious blog, but I tell this because I’m fascinated that Melville wants some guy who demands to be called Ishmael to tell this story. Ishmael, the narrator, is multicultural and a religious multi-theist. He’s this cool mixture of mainstream traditionalist and outsider rebel. And, like many who will come after him, he 

establishes that objective voice which can be in awe of the eccentric and foreign Queequeg, yet at home in the Christian whaling chapel. Although many aspects of Moby Dick are incredibly modern, this non-judgmental first-person narrator is there from the start to let today’s reader know that this book isn’t just some dusty classic with little relevance. 

When the whalers spot a whale, they break up into squads and go after it in small row boats. Standing at the front of the small boat is a harpooner. This is what Queequeg is. The harpooner hurls the harpoon at the whale. The tail end of the harpoon is tethered to a very long rope. The whale takes off when the harpoon hits it and the rope line quickly uncoils. If you’re sitting in the boat, you have to be very careful not to get tangled up in this rope. So with that, here is a great line by that guy who demands to be called Ishmael.

“But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.” 

Redemption: Part IV (Last)

IV.
    Not really ever thinking I was even going to get into the house, you’ve probably guessed I didn’t really have any plan on how I was going to get out, but I really wasn’t thinking about it then, I guess I kind of thought getting out would be a lot easier than getting in, and anyway I was still weirded out by what I’d seen, and before I even got over that, Joyce came back to the bedroom and fell face down on the bed and started to cry, and I mean cry hard. Her body was kind of shaking under the robe, and I know she must have made quite a wet spot under her face. She stayed like that for a long time, I don’t know exactly how long, but it was a long time, and then I heard the front door, and then Frank came in the bedroom. Joyce sort of straightened herself out on the bed when he came in, but she never turned her face to him even though he was saying crap like how’s your headache, and asking if anyone called. Joyce didn’t answer, and I guess Frank was used to that because he just kept on talking about stupid stuff until he was undressed down to his boxers and tee shirt and climbed into the empty side of the bed. He

didn’t say anything like good night or I love you or any of that crap, he just flicked off the wall switch and lay with his back to hers and soon began a low grunting-like snore. 

I don’t know if you smoke, but if you do, you can imagine the nic’n that I was going through with all this crap I was watching, and even though I knew I was asking to get caught, I lit up. I tried to blow the smoke into some heavy coat that was hanging there beside me, and it did mostly keep the smell down, at least down enough not to wake up anybody. The nicotine helped me think and calmed me down a bit. I figured after another cigarette, I could most likely kind of tip-toe out of the house without waking them. I thought even if they did wake up, I could bolt out of there before they recognized me and they’d probably think they were being robbed or something. By the time the police would show up, I’d be fast asleep. I really think it would’ve worked but right before I was ready to spring into action, the phone rang. It was Janice calling Joyce and waking her up and causing a big stink about not knowing where I was and how my mother had twisted her knee or something while coming out of the bathroom and how Janice wasn’t able to help her off the floor. I knew Janice well enough to know that staying in that closet was the best option I had for the next few weeks when I heard all that mess, but then I heard Frank ask what was going on and tell Joyce to tell Janice that he’d be right over. Well, I guess by that time I was on my third cigarette, I mean with Mom’s knee, and Janice being all hopped up and all. I suppose my filtering system was starting to get overloaded because when Frank got up to get dressed, he asked Joyce who’d been smoking in the bedroom, and then he kind of like just went

off. He started calling her a whore and all that kind of crap and accusing her of messing around with some guy named Stan. Joyce just lay there at first, but when Frank demanded to know who the SOB was that had been smoking in the bedroom, Joyce sarcastically said that maybe it was my mother and started firing accusatory remarks about Frank’s extramarital affairs. By then it started to hit me that these two were playing games on a level that I never even considered existed. I mean Joyce seemed to know what Frank was doing with my mother, and Frank seemed to know what Joyce was doing with that guy. I don’t know how that kind of knowledge goes unspoken, I mean I can never keep stuff secret, but it seemed that they just turned a blind-eye to it and only brought it up in times like these. Anyway, I really was getting more than I bargained for. I mean this fight was the last thing I wanted to watch, especially when it progressed to hollering and name calling which it quickly did. Then Joyce threw an empty water glass at Frank. The glass broke against the wall, and Frank got really mad. His face got dark red and his hair stood straight up. I know I was stupid to do it, I mean it got me into all this deep shit I'm telling you about now, but right before I figured Frank was about to really hit Joyce, I opened the closet door and, like an idiot, stood there holding my cigarette.