I finished reading Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.
A few times over the past several weeks, people have seen me hefting the book around — yes, I read a printed copy — and without fail they shuddered at the memory. “I had to read that in high school!” they’d say, rolling their eyes. Frankly, I can see why a sixteen-year-old would be bored to tears by the book. I can also see why a forty-year-old would be bored. The book almost bored me to tears. But despite that, it changed my perspective in profound ways.
The minutiae of the whaling world, the details about Nantucket, the strange Nantucket pastor, the detailed descriptions of sperm whales and right whales, and of whaling ships — all of it comes together in the psyche to do its work. Now I know what the hubbub is about, and why Moby Dick is found among the lists of literary masterpieces.
A few years back I read a condensed version for young people. It was merely boring, and it lacked the one-two punch to the mind that the full book seems to achieve. I don’t believe reading a summary version of the book could help a person understand why it’s a masterpiece.
I can really only say, “read it.” And to read it, you’re going to slog through hundreds of pages. You may want to quit half-way through, or even before you’re half-way through. You’re going to want to cut your losses and just donate the book to charity. And maybe you should. Only you can judge that. But I say, read on!
For me, in the two days since I’ve finished the book, the quote, “We are all Ahabs,” has stuck with me hauntingly, and it has forced me to look at my life and ponder whether there are any proverbial giant white whales that I continue to chase out of spite, anger, stubbornness or a sense of vengeance. I have found a new foreboding over aspects of my life that only bothered me a little before.
I am discovering my whales. And when the winds blow me back to my Nantucket, and the forces of nature polarize my compass so that I’m turned toward Home, I will check my motives before continuing my course in the opposite direction.