Moby Duck

Finally, after about six long weeks of squeezing it in to the small timeslots available, I finished 'Moby-Dick or The Whale' by Herman Melville. This is such a famous book that it barely needs comment, but I'll mention a few things anyway.

Although I'd never read the book before, it was a re-read to the extent that I managed a hundred-or-so pages when I was nineteen, but put it down, fully intending to pick it up later (somewhat ironically, I read 'Foucault's Pendulum' instead and never returned). Thus, in a minor manner, the book itself was something of a personal white whale; something which could not be left as unfinished business.

There are a couple of general conceptions about the book which are just plain wrong.

One of the first things which struck me was that the whale is not white. This is one of those strange concepts which are so embedded in the popular culture and collective consciousness that it actually came as a bit of a shock to discover the truth of the matter. The actual colour of the whale is ... well ... errr ... two-tone, actually. His body is the normal colour of sperm whales [grey-ish] and he has mottled white and light grey patches, with one enormous white patch reaching "from head to hump" along his upper half. The range "head to hump" is actually quite massive, so it might be more accurate to see him as white with a greyish underside and tail. But still: Not white. They refer to him throughout as 'the white whale', but this is by differentiation from the norm; he is clearly described as not being entirely so. It struck me that this would be an ideal question for QI, as almost everyone would get it wrong.

Secondly, I have heard many criticisms, parodies, comments and apparently knowing discussions of the book where people note that Melville goes on at (nauseating) length about all things sailor-ish: Knots, boats, techniques, sails etc. This simply isn't true. There are no prolonged discussions of anything outside the business of whaling. There is no mention of knots; only cursory mention made of sails; boats are described in passing; the masts are described only briefly so that the reader can orient themselves etc.

Having said that, Melville does go on wild, diverse and prolonged tangents regarding all things related to the whaling business: How it is done; the individual stages of the process; prolonged descriptions of the forge, the hunt, the carcass; discussions of the use for whale products and their history; the nobility of the profession; the ignorance of other whaling commentators; the intangible importance of the colour white; the character and nature of different species etc. It seems a minor point, but you now know that anyone spouting off (hah!) about the minutiae of knots and oars and suchlike is a chancer who hasn't actually read it.

Lastly, I'd just like to say that it's a deeply odd book. I've never read anything else quite like it, which is perhaps why it is so noted and resonant in the general culture. It manages to contain elements of Shakespeare, elements of Conrad and Dostoevsky, and elements of the romantics while also having a great deal of the elements of instruction manuals, and of boys-own-adventure stuff. There are also philosophical rants, leaping authorial perspective (Ishmael -- the narrator -- recounts things he can't possibly have seen or heard about), literal description and the odd dash of horror -- The character Fedallah meets a particularly sticky end; and there's a terrific, almost cinematic, description of Ahab looking over the side of his whaleboat and seeing Moby Dick coming up vertically and directly at him, mouth agape, far below the surface. It's as if it really can't decide what type of book it wants to be, and is much better for it. There's no real plot [Whalers go looking for a whale and hunt other whales until they find him, where they proceed to battle him to a conclusion], but plenty of character. There are some nice inversions such as when The Pequod meets another ship, The Jereboam, and comes across a character who, while not the captain, has completely beguiled the rest of the crew and everything is done under the aegis of his religious thrall: Ahab, the crew of the Pequod and Ishmael treat this as odd, idiosyncratic and somewhat idiotic; the irony being that The Pequod is, of course, under exactly the same kind of spell, even more dangerously so.

I suspect the book is one of those which gets better on a second read; one of those where, once the reader is aware of the context's entirety, he or she can enjoy the view even more. The first reading tends to be overshadowed by many lingering, open questions (predominantly of the "What the fuck is going on?" variety).

Overall: 4.75 / 5.0
Will read again at some point. Not so good as an examination of cultural dynamism and relationship issues, but excellent as a journey into the weirdness which lies in mankind's soul.

[Interesting wiki links: Mocha Dick was a sperm whale believed to be the basis for Moby. The story of The Essex (In The Heart Of The Sea) has been seen as being instrumental in the development of Melville's creation (Ishmael discusses it in the book, during a long aside about the credibility of whales-opening-a-can-of-whoop-arse stories); the story of The Ann Alexander similarly. ]

Choon

After much fiddling, folding, nurgling, noodling, hollering, hoobling and gurgle-flipping, my / our MFC entry should be available from the esteemed 256's download page under the name of the 'Trans-Atlantic All-Stars'. It's a remix (in some nebulous sense) of Mr. TPD's "Time to ..." from MFC8, so cray-jhee propsh to him.

The track is instrumental, but is more a "song without explicit vocals" , or a poem / hymnal / dirge than a proper instrumental, per se. The track features the voices of the awesome LilFlightTest and the equally awesome littlestar, both of whom are interstellar beings of the highest calibre.

The track does not feature the vocal stylings of one greyrat esquire, largely owing to time constraints, technical problems and gross idiocy (all of which were mine). Mr. Rat was in the process of righting my wrongs when called away on more important business. Even so; he made just as awesome a contribution as everyone else involved and was a key and important factor in how the final track turned out.

Any and all awesomeness the track contains is all theirs, and any failings, hiccoughs and horrors are, similarly, all mine. I want to thank them all again for their most excellent help.

The track is mixed as "hotly" as I'm happy with (in fact, it's too feckin' loud), but I notice the other MFC entries are at about roughly the same levels (and are all excellent, btw), so that's OK. If anyone listens to it up against some modern music, though, it might seem mixed a little quietly and have to be turned up in volume (which is, after all, exactly what the volume knob is for, and compression is not.</gripe>)