Looking for good explanations/analysis of Moby Dick
July 23, 2023 10:03 PM Subscribe
I'm reading Moby Dick. It's fun! But I'm sure I'm missing a lot. This is where you come in!
Nothing too crazy...just stuff that explains, contextualizes, etc. The book is a fun read, but lots of passages make me think "ok, there is something more to this."
I'd particularly enjoy anything with audio...an analysis podcast for example, but that may be a tall order. Text is totally ok and welcome, just something to highlight.
Nothing too crazy...just stuff that explains, contextualizes, etc. The book is a fun read, but lots of passages make me think "ok, there is something more to this."
I'd particularly enjoy anything with audio...an analysis podcast for example, but that may be a tall order. Text is totally ok and welcome, just something to highlight.
Moby Dick is a great and fascinating book. The language of the book, as I'm sure you've noticed, is almost Biblical in its force and grandeur. This isn't really just about whales, or is it?
Ahab's Rolling Sea
is an interesting non-fiction book on its own. The author travels around, talking to oceanographers, biologists, museum curators, etc to try and set the Natural context for much of Moby Dick. I recommend this highly as it fills in a lot about what was known and thought about at the time, including information about the actual voyages that Melville consulted. The structure of the book is more like a series of essays so it can be read in pieces instead of start to finish, something to dip in and out of. But it does constantly refer back to the book itself.
Hubert Dreyfus on Moby Dick
This is an audio lecture on YouTube and I hope you love it as much as I did. Dreyfus sets the overarching spiritual and psychological meaning of Moby Dick. It is a great series of lectures in which you meet the characters of Moby Dick: Ishmael and Queequeg and Ahab and every single one of the crew. Who were they? What is this story really about? What drives Ahab? Why is Pip a much more important character than people realize? Dreyfus attempts to answer all these questions.
It is fair to say the first reference is about the stage where all this takes place, the setting. The second one is about the actual drama being enacted upon that stage.
posted by vacapinta at 12:19 AM on July 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
Ahab's Rolling Sea
is an interesting non-fiction book on its own. The author travels around, talking to oceanographers, biologists, museum curators, etc to try and set the Natural context for much of Moby Dick. I recommend this highly as it fills in a lot about what was known and thought about at the time, including information about the actual voyages that Melville consulted. The structure of the book is more like a series of essays so it can be read in pieces instead of start to finish, something to dip in and out of. But it does constantly refer back to the book itself.
Hubert Dreyfus on Moby Dick
This is an audio lecture on YouTube and I hope you love it as much as I did. Dreyfus sets the overarching spiritual and psychological meaning of Moby Dick. It is a great series of lectures in which you meet the characters of Moby Dick: Ishmael and Queequeg and Ahab and every single one of the crew. Who were they? What is this story really about? What drives Ahab? Why is Pip a much more important character than people realize? Dreyfus attempts to answer all these questions.
It is fair to say the first reference is about the stage where all this takes place, the setting. The second one is about the actual drama being enacted upon that stage.
posted by vacapinta at 12:19 AM on July 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
Metaprev 2016 on the subject. It's 20 years since I wrote a spoiler for Chapter 95.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:11 AM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:11 AM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Big Moby Dick Energy is a fun podcast that comes from a feminist point of view.
posted by rikschell at 5:47 AM on July 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 5:47 AM on July 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I used the Infinite Zombies group read commentary it was a great companion with lots of insight. These were collective blog posts, so you'd want to start with the May 2010 post on the bottom and work up.
posted by veery at 6:18 AM on July 24, 2023
posted by veery at 6:18 AM on July 24, 2023
It's a bit old-school in this day and age, but the Norton Critical Edition is pretty good.
posted by box at 6:49 AM on July 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by box at 6:49 AM on July 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
I would go to the library or a used books site and get the Longman Critical Edition. Can't recommend it highly enough.
posted by kensington314 at 8:45 AM on July 24, 2023
posted by kensington314 at 8:45 AM on July 24, 2023
I defer to the others on recommendations, but I would actually suggest simply reading through allowing that feeling to be present. There are other layers but it can be distracting to think of Moby Dick as being a book that "needs to be studied and understood" rather than experiencing it naturally. Contemporary readers would likely have gotten the same sense of "wait, is this..?" and prompt further wondering.
I read it once and thought it was funny and interesting, read it again years later after I had read and learned many other things, and found far more depth in it without needing any further instruction. In your case you might even just finish the book and then embark on a little learning endeavor, and revisit some of the chapters that seemed like there was a piece missing.
That said, historical context is probably one thing you would want some of - like the hierarchies of power on a whaling ship, Melville's own history on the sea, stuff like that. Things that would be well known at the time. Then after you've enjoyed the book you can learn about the interpretation, criticism, and extrapolation we've added over the last 150 years.
Glad you're enjoying it! It really is just a fun, fascinating book.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:39 AM on July 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
I read it once and thought it was funny and interesting, read it again years later after I had read and learned many other things, and found far more depth in it without needing any further instruction. In your case you might even just finish the book and then embark on a little learning endeavor, and revisit some of the chapters that seemed like there was a piece missing.
That said, historical context is probably one thing you would want some of - like the hierarchies of power on a whaling ship, Melville's own history on the sea, stuff like that. Things that would be well known at the time. Then after you've enjoyed the book you can learn about the interpretation, criticism, and extrapolation we've added over the last 150 years.
Glad you're enjoying it! It really is just a fun, fascinating book.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:39 AM on July 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
I wrote a paper on this book in high school 30+ years ago! At the time Cliff Notes had a lot of high level explanatory things about themes and references.
posted by mmascolino at 11:26 AM on July 24, 2023
posted by mmascolino at 11:26 AM on July 24, 2023
It's silly, but you might also just look at Sparknotes or Cliffsnotes. I can't find a Crash Course (John Green) video, but I bet a few searches might also get you what you want. I also saw a TED-Ed video on it...
posted by Snowishberlin at 1:49 PM on July 24, 2023
posted by Snowishberlin at 1:49 PM on July 24, 2023
Seconding the Norton Critical Editions both the older and newer -- the backgrounds section and critical essays are a good base for exploration. Two old faves of mine to look at are poet Charles Olson's uncategorizable book Call Me Ishmael, and Howard Paton's The Trying Out of Moby Dick. And then there's Orson Welles' metatheatrical version.
posted by diodotos at 7:50 PM on July 24, 2023
posted by diodotos at 7:50 PM on July 24, 2023
Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:15 AM on July 30, 2023
posted by taz (staff) at 2:15 AM on July 30, 2023
Dusting off some very old knowledge from a college lit class, I recall reading Dick along with Kierkegaard's The Concept of Dread with the teacher's thesis that the whale represented void into which Ahab projected his fear of the meaninglessness of life. Or something to that effect. I recall there being lots of examples of Melville's language reinforcing emptiness and void.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:34 AM on July 30, 2023
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:34 AM on July 30, 2023
Critical Readings is doing a weekly podcast covering a few chapters each episode with explanations and sometimes reading passages out loud and commenting on them. Start here.
Nthing the Norton Critical Edition. The footnotes are fantastic.
posted by sillygwailo at 9:28 AM on July 30, 2023
Nthing the Norton Critical Edition. The footnotes are fantastic.
posted by sillygwailo at 9:28 AM on July 30, 2023
Insert Clever Name Here:Dusting off some very old knowledge from a college lit class, I recall reading Dick along with Kierkegaard's The Concept of Dread with the teacher's thesis that the whale represented void ..
That sounds like an accurate description of the Hubert Dreyfus lectures I posted above. His is an existentialist reading of Moby Dick and he taught at Berkeley if that is where you also were...
Tidbit: Hubert Dreyfus was the inspiration for Hubert Farnsworth in Futurama. One of the show's writers was a former student of his.
posted by vacapinta at 2:16 AM on July 31, 2023
That sounds like an accurate description of the Hubert Dreyfus lectures I posted above. His is an existentialist reading of Moby Dick and he taught at Berkeley if that is where you also were...
Tidbit: Hubert Dreyfus was the inspiration for Hubert Farnsworth in Futurama. One of the show's writers was a former student of his.
posted by vacapinta at 2:16 AM on July 31, 2023
This isn't directly about contextualization per se, but you did mention an interest in audio, so I'd recommend the Moby Dick Big Read, amazingly still online after 13 years (as well as the accompanying Metafilter thread, naturally)
posted by gwint at 10:31 PM on July 31, 2023
posted by gwint at 10:31 PM on July 31, 2023
I love Moby Dick!
I really enjoyed reading Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. It's a very readable non-fiction book about the real story that inspired Moby Dick, and will give you a lot of info about New Bedford whaling culture, life on board and at sea, and the historical moment. You'll still miss a lot, because Moby Dick is chock full of references. There's a Hamlet reference I didn't pick up until I was watching Hamlet awhile after I read MD. It's a terrific reference to the "very like a whale" bit, and I was delighted to put it together, but I didn't spot it the first time I read MD. But it's a nice companion to give you a bit more insight into MD without pausing to read annotations or slogging through a lot of lit crit.
My approach to MD the first time was just to read it. Then I read about it. Eventually, I read it again. But, although I am literally a lit scholar, I wanted to approach the book as just a reader first. I'm glad I did.
posted by Well I never at 6:17 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I really enjoyed reading Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. It's a very readable non-fiction book about the real story that inspired Moby Dick, and will give you a lot of info about New Bedford whaling culture, life on board and at sea, and the historical moment. You'll still miss a lot, because Moby Dick is chock full of references. There's a Hamlet reference I didn't pick up until I was watching Hamlet awhile after I read MD. It's a terrific reference to the "very like a whale" bit, and I was delighted to put it together, but I didn't spot it the first time I read MD. But it's a nice companion to give you a bit more insight into MD without pausing to read annotations or slogging through a lot of lit crit.
My approach to MD the first time was just to read it. Then I read about it. Eventually, I read it again. But, although I am literally a lit scholar, I wanted to approach the book as just a reader first. I'm glad I did.
posted by Well I never at 6:17 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am also finally reading The Whale, motivated in part by this thread, and I'm finding Evelyn Leeper's Annotations and Commentary (v2.0) a quite useful read-along.
posted by Rash at 10:06 AM on August 20, 2023
posted by Rash at 10:06 AM on August 20, 2023
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posted by xueexueg at 10:44 PM on July 23, 2023 [3 favorites]