North Cape, Norway, 2008
It’s time for another progress report on my reading-the-sea project. For this post, I had planned to include notes on Melville’s Billy Budd, but I’ve been busy having fun instead — fun reading other books, that is, so BB will have to wait a bit.
Along with a quite enjoyable revisit to the Norfolk Broads and Lake District via Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series, I’ve been in several of the world’s oceans, guided by authors exploring the true stories behind two important adventure tales.
Robert Kraske’s Marooned: the Strange but True Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe (Clarion Books, 2005, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker) holds few surprises and is a bit skimpy on detail,* but for a quick read it does the trick. What’s most interesting, and sadly ironic, is Selkirk’s life after his rescue in 1709. He enjoyed London for a while, but eventually grew bored with it, moved back to his family in Scotland, and then, briefly, into a cave — trying to recreate the comfortable solitude he’d found on Juan Fernández Island, where he’d become a quiet, peaceful, satisfied man.
If Selkirk, inspiration for William Cowper’s line, “I am monarch of all I survey”, had been offered the chance to return to sole possession of his island paradise, would he have accepted? In 1721, while serving in the British Navy, he died of yellow fever off the coast of Africa and was buried at sea. That, at least, was a fitting end.
Another true story that inspired a great novel was the fate of the whaleship Essex, which was stove in by a whale in 1821. In the Heart of the Sea (Young Readers Edition, (2002/2015, originally titled Revenge of the Whale), is Nathaniel Philbrick’s shorter version of In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Philbrick, historian, author and sailor, takes us into the bloody and dangerous world of whaling. Unlike Kraske, Philbrick isn’t parsimonious with details. Even though this version for teens has been adapted and abbreviated, there is still plenty of gore, including the truly gruesome weeks in an open boat, when the few survivors began eyeing each other hungrily. (True confession: I had to skip a couple of pages here and there.) Not many survived, and at least one survivor spent a few years in an institution.
And then, when I saw this next book, I couldn’t resist: Why Read Moby-Dick? (2011), also by Nathaniel Philbrick. This was another fast read, with 28 brief chapters on Nantucket, whaling, ships, Melville’s influences (especially Hawthorne), characters, madness, religion, dictators’ tricks, and so on. But of the three books reviewed here, this was the most interesting and nearly convinced me that I need to include Moby-Dick in this reading project.
Philbrick’s point is that, like all works of art that survive the years, Moby-Dick has something to say to everyone, in every era. Most likely this is because we’re still essentially unchanged as humans, despite 5000 years of progress, and books become classics because they reveal the hidden corners of our selves.
I’ll include just three quotes to show what Philbrick does here. First, don’t get bogged down in what the white whale symbolizes. Move back and take a broader view. Moby-Dick is
… a novel about a whaling voyage to the Pacific that is also about America racing hell-bent toward the Civil War and so much more. Contained in the pages of Moby-Dick is nothing less than the genetic code of America: all the promises, problems, conflicts, and ideals that contributed to the outbreak of a revolution in 1775 as well as a civil war in 1861 and continue to drive this country’s ever-contentious march into the future.
Then look at the ship. According to Philbrick, the Pequod “is the mythic incarnation of America: a country blessed by God and by free enterprise that nonetheless embraces the barbarity it supposedly supplanted.” That’s the paradox of America in a nutshell — a society of “free men” throwing off the shackles of tyranny, then in a greedy rush trampling expendable men, women, and children throughout the following centuries.
And my final point, because I want to keep this brief, Philbrick reminds us of the difference between civilization and barbarity. In Chapter 64 of Moby-Dick, Fleece (ship’s cook) lectures the sharks that, while tearing at the dead whale along the ship’s side, are disturbing Stubb’s supper: “You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned.”
We’re all barbarians, but some of us are just more self-governed than others.
*If you’re looking for marooned-on-an-island drama, you can’t do better than Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, based on the true story of a 19th century Native American girl left behind on an island off the coast of California.
Lizzie Ross 
Your Philbrick quote is perfect for stiffening my resolve to read the Melville sooner rather than later, thanks. Sadly, it may have to be after the summer read rather than in the near future.
l’ve read about Selkirk in a couple of other compendium accounts of castaways and so on. Bristol claims to be where Defoe met him before writing Robinson Crusoe (just as it claims to be where Stevenson visited a while before he wrote Treasure Island but failing any documentary evidence I just regard it as antiquarian speculation at best (otherwise known as wishful thinking).
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Yes, Philbrick is persuasive. If I take on M-D, it’ll be much later in the year, after we’ve put Witch Week to bed.
As for Bristol’s “antiquarian speculations”, we have their equivalent here, with “Washington slept here” claims up and down the eastern seaboard.
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I may well be up for an after-#WW2019 read of M-D, if you are. Our ‘Queen Elizabeth slept here’ claims are usually fairly easy to document (and, yes, Bristol has a building that lays claim to her staying overnight, but it’s actually a now disappeared ‘Great House’ of which only a Tudor lodge remains, now a museum).
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Ooh ooh! Another tag-teamed project with M-D?
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Does that appeal? 🙂
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“Abso-flippin’-lutely!” she replied with restrained glee.
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I was motivated to read Moby Dick by reading about Moby Dick in Slotkin’s American Frontier trilogy – now I want to read it even more 😀
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I’ve added Slotkin’s trilogy to my TBR list, Ola; it looks very good.
And I hope that you find Moby-Dick as irresistible as I’ve made it sound. It isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely worth trying.
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Slotkin is well worth reading, and eye-opening in some instances; his books really explain a lot about American culture and its deadly addiction to violence – hope you’ll enjoy them!
I will definitely give Moby Dick a try!
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It looks like Chris (at) Calmgrove and I will be doing some kind of joint Moby-Dick project after Witch Week this year, so keep an eye out for news. Would love to have you join us.
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Thank you! I’d be honored – and delighted 🙂
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Yay!
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Fascinating, thank you, and more books to look out for! Saw Nat Philbrick on a programme about the Mayflower, I think I knew the family on Summer visits to Cape Cod as a teenager. More history…
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Evenlyn Waugh’s “Philbrick”, in Decline and Fall, is an odd-ball teacher at a seedy public school in Wales. Wales/Whales. Synchronicity everywhere!
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Ah, of course, the Prince of Whales 😉
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Princely referents abound.
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This series is so interesting and beneficial to me, Lizzie. I have been taking note of some of the books you talk about. Sadly, Robinson Crusoe was dnf for me a few months ago. I have read a little of Selkirk’s history and I think his life is more interesting to me than the book. I really like Defoe, so I was disappointed.
I am supposed to read MD in August, with the Brona’s Books readalong, but dang the summer is so busy with other readalongs and I really want to read it this year. So if you and Chris are open to a tagalonger, count me in 🙂
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I’m glad you’re enjoying tagging along with me on this journey, Laurie. And yes, please join Chris and me when we wrestle with the “damp, drizzly November” of Melville’s soul. (Birthdays aside, late fall sets a better mood for MD.)
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Yipee!!
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🙂
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Quite enjoyable to read your quick book reviews during your adventure. Interesting.y, familiar with the works mentioned, but I can’t say I read any of them, even Moby Dick.
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M-D is a graduate course in history, psychology, religion and sociology — worth the effort if you have the time. It helps to have a reading partner or group to keep you motivated. If you decide some day to take it on, let me know.
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Will do. I seem to recall AP English reading it at HH.
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