Moby Dick online reading group: First chapters

The entrance of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Creative Commons photo, source. 

This week: The Etymology, the Extracts, and Chapters 1-3 ("Loomings," "The Carpet Bag," "The Spouter-Inn.")

In the first chapter of Moby Dick, our narrator Ishmael imagines headlines that mention his decision to go to sea:

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.

"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."

Not bad as a synchronicity, no? And so, as we recover from the latest "grand contested election for the presidency," we embark on the Pequod, and on our Great American Novel, Moby Dick by Herman Melville. We'll be trying to cover about 35 printed pages each week, not a terribly difficult pace, so there's plenty of time to hunt up a copy and join us. There are many ways to do so, as I remarked in last week's blog post. No matter which edition you choose to read, I'll be making the "reading assignments" based on chapters, not page numbers, so it should be easy to follow along, and post any comments you would like to make.

Is there any 19th century novel with a better beginning? The start of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities is justly famous, and I love it, too: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

But I also love the arresting beginning of Moby Dick: "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me."

Ishmael of course is a Biblical reference; as the Wikipedia entry reminds us, the Ishmael in the Bible was the son of Abraham and Hagar, banished to the wilderness. See the entry for useful notes. 

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet ..." It's actually a damp, drizzly November as I write this; it is raining outside. But cheer up, fellow readers: We have an interesting novel to read!

I was struck by a couple of things as I read the first passages. The "sub-sub-librarian" credited with finding the various references in whales in world literature must have worked very hard in the era before the Internet to find so many passages.

There are lots of literary allusions in Moby Dick and much philosophical musing, but the book also can be read as an adventure story, and I found the descriptions very vivid: The icy streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts; the dark interior of the Spouter-Inn, with all of its decorations related to whaling; the meals Ishmael eats, including one in which the dining room is so cold the diners "hold to our lips cups of tea with our  half frozen fingers"; his bed, which features a mattress which feels like it is "stuffed with corncobs or broken crockery," his fright at first seeing Queequeg. 

New Bedford, by the way, has a nice whaling museum; I visited it sometime during the 1990s. 

Background posting from last week offering more details about the reading group. I'll be joined by Eric Wagner and Oz Fritz. The plan is to do this once a week, with a new posting every Monday. 

Next week: Please read chapters four through 14, "The Counterpane," "Breakfast," "The Street," "The Chapel," "The Pulpit," "The Sermon," "A Bosom Friend," "Nightgown," "Biographical," "Wheelbarrow" and "Nantucket." Sounds like a lot, but these are short chapters! 35 pages in my paperback copy of the novel.