Nathaniel Philbrick’s new book, Why Read Moby-Dick? (Oct. 17) answers the titular question along with many others, including why Ahab is like Hitler and why Melville’s recipe for chowder is so delicious. It’s that rare piece of criticism that not only gives you a deeper appreciation for its subject but also compels you to revisit it.
You write that your favorite part of Moby-Dick is in chapter 85, in which a whale spout is observed at the very time and date when Melville was writing the chapter. Why does this moment speak to you?
The fact that Melville pulls back the figurative curtain in the middle of the novel and tells us the exact time and date at which he is writing this particular chapter about whale spouts has always seemed so wonderfully modern and personal to me. It’s as if he’s inviting us into his study to participate in the act of artistic creation—a kind of time-bound timeless moment.
You’ve read Moby-Dick at least a dozen times. What are the benefits of rereading it?
Every time I reread the novel, it’s as if I’m reading it for the first time. I’m always discovering characters and details I hadn’t noticed or appreciated before. This time around I found myself focusing on Ahab’s evil sidekick, Fedallah. In this most recent era of deposed dictators and their minions, he somehow seemed essential to what Melville was about in the novel. Moby-Dick has a remarkable way of resonating with whatever is going on in the world at that particular moment.
You observe: “To write timelessly about the here and now, a writer must approach the present indirectly. The story has to be about more than it at first seems.” What about Moby-Dick is timeless?
Moby-Dick is about Captain Ahab’s quest to kill the White Whale, but it’s also about a country heading irresistibly toward a bloody civil war. Melville’s intense engagement with those societal dynamics in 1850–1851 means that whenever we find ourselves on the verge of a catastrophe (which seems to be happening just about all the time these days) Moby-Dick becomes newly relevant.
If you had to convince someone who hasn’t read Moby-Dick to read it, and could only give one reason why, what would that be?
I think it’s the generosity and wisdom of the narrator that makes this an indispensable book: through Ishmael we find a way to make sense out of this largely nonsensical world. Reading Moby-Dick helps you discover how to live.
What are some of your other favorite books?
Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and just about all of Hemingway’s early short stories are definite favorites.
