Conception Abbey
Conception, Missouri

Tower Topics ~ Spring 2007

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Call Me Ishmael

By Brother Jude Person, OSB

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

This is not my favorite novel¹. Nor is it in my opinion the best novel I ever read². Nor is it the most uplifting³ the most inspiring⁴, or even the most personally significant⁵. It is not the worst book⁶ I ever read; it is not the saddest⁷; it is not the funniest⁸. It is not the one I simply could not put down⁹. It is not even the one book I think everyone should have read before finishing high school¹⁰ And no, it is not the book I wish I had read, but somehow just couldn't get through¹¹.

So why should YOU read Moby-Dick? I'll skip all the pedantic reasons about all truly educated persons, and get right to the point:

After Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible, this is the one book that is most successful in getting it all in there. It takes on the impossible task of a consideration of the whole of human experience. From way up in the crow's nest down to the hold below the bilge line, it makes a concerted investigation of life, the universe and everything––its meaning, its significance, its why and wherefore for human beings.

And it is nearly successful, insofar as such a quest can ever be said to have any kind of successful outcome this side of the veil. Moby-Dick doesn't so much find the answers as pose the questions: its genius lies in the way it poses them––exuberantly, meditatively, intensely, humorously, frighteningly, crazily. Ahab is a madman, a megalomaniac––an Everyman as only Melville could have conceived him. He is driven to understand––or to dominate––the world that has borne him, reared him, and mortally offended him. Ahab looks not just on the surface, but “behind the mask” of what he can actually see and touch, and what sees and touches (and injures) him. And Ishmael––that intentionally obscure, impossible-to-pin-down character/-narrator/observer/authorial presence––he is another distillation of us all: banished, like his biblical namesake, even in the midst of a crowd, looking for a meaningful way out of his state of perpetual dissatisfaction:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off––then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

What are we doing here? The Baltimore Catechism has the answer¹², of course, but it's a bit spare. Go to sea with Ahab, Ishmael and Queequeg in search of the White Whale. You may not find the answer, but asking the question will be a whole lot more entertaining.

¹ Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen.
Pure literary enjoyment.

² Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner.
Terrible. Wonderful. Overwhelming.

³ A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving.
Real tears, not cheap sentiment (which, by the way, I adore).

⁴ The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene.
All who would be priests should read this.

⁵ The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien.
A profoundly religious work.

⁶ The D_ V_nc_ C_d_, by Him Who Must Not Be Named.
Okay, this is a cheap shot, but I can assure you that this book didn't get where it did on literary merit.

⁷ Beloved, Toni Morrison.
Sad and beautiful.

⁸ Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris.
Howlingly.

⁹ Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry.
Like the man said, I couldn't put it down.

¹⁰ There is not one; like possessing demons, they are legion.

¹¹ Ulysses, James Joyce.
I'm so ashamed.

¹² Do I have to spell it out?

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