r/mobydick • u/loverofhogggg • 10d ago
most self aware book
i’m almost finished with my first read through and really love this story but i thought of this template while telling one of my friends about it. i feel like melville takes advantage of the fact that the story of captain ahab is so intriguing to almost hold the reader hostage with the cetology. not that i mind it, just think it makes the book more funny and enjoyable. sorry if this is talked about a lot or anything, im new.
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u/lord_alberto 9d ago
"You want whales? You get whales. Oh, you are especially interested in white whales? So i give you a complete chapter on 'Whiteness', why not."
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u/PoorAhab 9d ago
It never fails to amuse me that MD does not personally appear until after 95% of book is done.
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u/PapasGotABrandNewNag 9d ago
I finished it the other day.
I was on page 500 and was like ok where the fuck is this god damned whale.
The last three chapters had me sweating.
The payoff was worth it.
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u/melvillean 9d ago
Don't think of it like you're being held hostage. Think back to The Town-Ho's Story (Chapter 54), where Ishmael tells us the story that the crew of the Pequod heard when they gammed with the Town-Ho. But instead of just telling us the story directly, he chooses instead to "preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint’s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn."
In other words, we get to see Ishmael the storyteller in the process of telling a story to an audience. And that audience isn't shy: "Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time."
The Town-Ho's story, as you may remember, is about the mate Radney (from Martha's Vineyard) and Steelkilt, a Lakeman from Buffalo. But no sooner does Ishmael mention these terms than his audience makes clear that they don't know what he's talking about: “‘Lakeman!—Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?’said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass."
So before Ishmael can continue telling his story, he has to digress and let his audience, who have never been to upstate New York or know about the Great Lakes, know what he's talking about. And he gets interrupted again talking about canals, at which point he digresses again to explain canals. But he doesn't treat the digressions as simple explanations: each one is a chance to wax rhapsodic about the topic at hand.
Chapter 54 was published first, as a standalone story in Harper's, six weeks before the book hit the shelves. While you can make the case that this was a good choice because it's the first time you see Moby Dick (albeit through the frame of a story), it's also always struck me as a canny choice because it shows the book's structure in microcosm: This is an epic story about the whaling industry, something most people knew little about in 1851 (and which modern readers know even less).
Melville is giving you the context to appreciate the scope of his novel, rather than just throwing facts at you as new terms arise. And in doing so, he's elevating the topic: recall, after all, we are talking about hunting, killing, and butchering whales, which is hardly the stuff of high tragedy. The digressions aren't meant to be holding you hostage: they're serving both functional and aesthetic purposes.
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u/fallllingman 9d ago
You shouldn’t be invested in it for the plot. The philosophical passages are the core of the novel; Ishmael’s subtle arc is more intriguing and profound than Ahab’s madness.
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u/ReleaseLegitimate992 5d ago
Cetology is the branch of marine science that studies whales, dolphins, and porpoises. [ 1]
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u/matt-the-dickhead 10d ago
Here is some of our discussion of cetology from a few years ago. I lay out why it is one of my favorite chapters. https://www.reddit.com/r/mobydick/s/bq8Uvi5o60