10/29/2009
My oldest daughter teaches English at a high school in the environs of Seattle. A couple years ago I asked her to give me her list of the 10 best American novels and I set out to read them. This morning I woke at 5am to finish the 10th and final book on that list: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I remember being assigned this book to read during my junior year of high school. What an absurd assignment! Someone once said that you weren’t ready to read the book of The Revelation of St. John until you were at least 70 years old. I would suggest that one needs to be at least 40 years or older to appreciate what Melville is doing in Moby Dick.
On this wet grey October day my thoughts stay with Leviathan. An entire chapter (41) in the Book of Job is devoted to this grandest of creatures and reading that chapter after reading Moby Dick makes me wonder if Melville’s bible was open to this very chapter as he wrote.
The Great White Whale points to its Creator. Job finally got it but Captain Ahab never does. While I now fancy the barn where I retreat to for deep solitude as a great ship like the Pequod and while gazing astern to the East feel somewhat like a “captain”…at least of a broken down decaying barn!...the crows gamboling in the wet sky and the ‘v’ of geese flying overhead and the tiny spider spinning its web within touching distance of my perch remind me that small things matter. They also point! Job is in a knock- down drag-out argument with God. Captain Ahab has a monomaniacal obsession in taking vengeance on the Great White Whale..... and I am grateful my life is small.