Hello book club!
It’s time to begin our read-along of Melville’s Moby-Dick, arguably the Great American Novel. We will read it over the next 6–7 weeks, and discuss it in three parts:
Discussion 1 (Oct. 13) — ch. 1–40
Discussion 2 (Oct. 27) — ch. 41–86
Discussion 3 (Nov. 10) — ch. 87–Epilogue
Along the way, we’ll send out weekly reading guides for the chapters in question. To begin, here is our first weekly discussion thread focusing on the opening chapters…
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While Moby Dick is known as an infamous epic on the high seas, its first third is a narrative slow-burn, and this can put many readers off. The first forty chapters emphasize building the world, introducing crew members, and teaching us about the monomaniacal Captain Ahab.
Which first begs the question: why the intensive, slow pacing? What is Melville’s aim in these initial chapters?
We gain a better understanding through the novel’s narrator, Ishmael. He begins by sharing that suicidal ideations have sent him to seek adventure on the ocean — hoping the danger and rush of a whaling expedition can give him a meaningful existence that the malaise of the modern world cannot.
Before sailing, he hears Father Mapple preach on Jonah, the prophet who ran from God’s command and was swallowed by a sea monster. Mapple’s lesson is that man must obey the decrees of God — even if it means denying ourselves — lest we be swallowed by the Leviathan of the sea.
Shortly after this sermon, we learn of Captain Ahab, captain of the ship that Ishmael is set to board. Specifically, we hear of him through a strange man named Elijah, who warns Ishmael that his travels at sea will only lead him to doom. Ishmael, however, discards these “prophetic” warnings and sets out to sea.
Ahab himself doesn’t appear until nearly 30 chapters in, but he is perhaps the main character of this work. He’s defined by a monomaniacal quest for vengeance against the white whale named Moby Dick. Specifically, the whale ate his leg years ago, and Ahab has vowed a ceaseless quest of revenge.
We soon learn that Ahab doesn’t view Moby Dick as merely a whale, but the embodiment of evil itself. This monster represents to him a primordial chaos, akin to the Biblical Leviathan, and Ahab vows to either destroy this beast of evil, or lose his life in the process.
Thus, as Ishmael himself discovers, this whaling expedition will be anything but ordinary. Much as this quest may be a war of man against whale, it also runs the risk of becoming a rebellion against God himself...