the greatest American novel? It just might be.
We all know the story of Ahab and the Whale, but there's an incredible level of characterization in this book. Ahab is obsessed beyond all reason, his first mate, Frank Starbuck, is reason personified, the only one who objects to the quest, but stands by his captain never the less, duty over reason (the classics student can't help himself here lol pietas over logos). All the harpooners hired on for the quest are "heathen savages" but best of all is the narrator, Ishmail, who as an educated, former school teacher, observes all the members of the crew through a lens of archtypes, which I fully relate to.
The book introduces us to the story of Jonah and the whale far more fully than I ever was in church. The idea that even within a whale, far beneath the sea, one can never escape God. So powerfully articulated by Melville, then of course it because a great metaphor for the book as Ahab chases the whale as far as the antarctic, moving the earth itself in his quest. He chases the great whale, forgetting any sense of humility, and if that weren't enough to make us wonder what this says about him as a christian, his harpooners, the tools of his vengeance, are all unchristian heathens.
Plus, it's like reading Shakespeare in more ways than one. Melville uses soliloquies in the context of a novel and gods help me if it isn't the most quoted book that you never read. "from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee", "I'll chase him (Moby Dick) round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up."
just a post scriptum, my grandfather was a Norwegian whaler, perhaps not exactly in the same fashon as a 19th century Nantucker, but still, makes the tale even more interesting.
