Chasing the White Whale: The Moby-Dick Marathon; or, What Melville Means Today

Dowling, a lecturer in English at the University of Iowa, uses the annual Moby-Dick Marathon reading at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts as a point of entry for examining the literary classic and its place in society today. According to Dowling, the 24-hour reading works as "a democratic chorus of voices, crossing national and gender lines with the same manic radical equality as the novel itself." He goes on to compare the attraction to the marathon reading and the remote allure of whaling and likens event-goers to "the common sailor of the antebellum era [who] found relief%E2%80%93sexual, artistic, narrative, and alcoholic%E2%80%94anywhere he could." Dowling's parallels and analyses, though comprehensive, can be overwhelmingly textual and complex. Nevertheless, he provides an innovative mix of literary criticism and case study. (Nov.)