Also
the intro and the biographical sketch barely give a sense of Melville’s
artistic despair. Here’s a man that told Hawthorne that he had "pretty
much made up his mind to be annihilated.”
And
don’t get me started on Hawthorne! That prick. I’m not one for judging people’s
art based on their personalities or morality (because if you do that you should
just burn everything), but Hawthorne is a shit and so is his work, and I’ll
fistfight anyone who says otherwise. Here’s Hawthorne’s observation on seeing
the starving Irish flood through Liverpool: they were “as numerous as maggots
in cheese.” Here’s Melville’s view: “endless vistas of want and woe staggering
arm in arm along these miserable streets.”
But
still Melville was friends with & in awe of Hawthorne. Even dedicating his
masterpiece to him: “In Token of My Admiration for His Genius This Book Is
Inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
Anyway,
where was I? The beginning. Which as we all know is not “Call me Ishmael.”
That’s the first line. But to get to that first line you have to go through the
too often skipped etymology and extracts. There are some great selected whale
quotes in the extracts. Like the non-sequitur-ish “Very like a whale” from
Hamlet. Or a nice description of whale breath from Ulloa’s South America: “and
the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable
smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.” But the bit I love best about
the Extracts is the character he ascribes their selection to: “Supplied by a
Sub-sub-librarian.” And as with the Irish, Melville elevates the lowly,
imagining a special place in heaven for such thankless workers.
This
is to say nothing of the Etymology. I was so taken with it as an undergrad that
I wrote a concrete poem. That’s right, a concrete poem. Are you familiar with
concrete poetry or shape poetry? It’s poetry that looks like stuff. Like a
butterfly or wings. Can you guess what mine was in the shape of? There it is
over there. It’s a whale!
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