• MOBY DICK

• by Herman Melville

• [rated by PBS readers as #46]

• — pages? Who knows how many?

I wonder if any of you remember a casual mention I made at the start of this whole affair that there would be one exception to physically reading everything. Well, Moby was it. A year before starting this blog, I had purchased the whole unabridged CD set of Moby Dick. Who knows how many CD trees were cut down in this process, but I only own one title with more CDs to it.

And don’t get me wrong! I’m enough of a purist that I wouldn’t have even considered the book substitution if it weren’t for two things.

1) It is unabridged. I’m going to get it all, for better or for worse. and…

2) It cost me a whale of a lot of money (sorry. I’m not a serial punner. that one just slipped out) to buy this bad boy. Money. Lots of it.

So I decided before even starting that my one exception to the reading would be to listen to the seafaring version of Beowulf. The fear being – would it lend itself to being read? I mean, the thing goes on for eternity. Am I an eternal listener? I mean, I can barely listen to my husband (notably when he is going over something he has gone over hundreds of times before – maybe some of you wives recognize your lives here?) for five minutes!

But a funny thing happened to usher this in. I think I might have mentioned that I joined audible a couple of months ago and wanted to finish my remaining CD sets sooner than later, afterward going product-less.

Trouble being that there was a reason I had been putting the last 4 – 5 off for that long. Had to finish them but mighty glad to put them into my “drop off at the library” bag.

And then, after everything desirable was listened to,  there were three. A Tale of Two Cities (not even in my blog!), Moby Dick & XXX (this is the largest CD set – xx CDs, narrated by my former neighbor John Lee, an actor who is a brilliant audio book reader, or whatever that job title is).

I hadn’t picked Moby Dick for the blog yet and the John Lee one was always going to be last. I mean, Great Honk, you gotta leave a year for that one! So I tried to start Tale of Two Cities and dismally failed. It is going to require way more concentration. And then I picked Moby Dick for the blog and thought – might as well!

And now, I have just listened to the first CD of the thousands to follow. I usually don’t listen to a whole CD of a book, but I was thoroughly entertained! The reader is first rate and the tale tells itself well. So far, I really like it!

Well, of course I would – because I was expecting to hate it. Surprise of all surprises – I’m listening to this thing like a kid whose been promised a sundae at the end of it! With rapt attention! It is exactly the opposite of Dickens who introduces 60 characters right off, with 60 different stories. Moby Dick has about three guys plus a whale. Now that I should be able to follow!

AROUND A THIRD OF THE WAY IN –

I’m almost feeling guilty listening to this. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t still have the rapt, excited attention that I started with.

But let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, if you have to read Moby Dick and you are given the option of this route of listening to it instead, don’t even stop to think. Pick the listening!

It’s still a great story. Don’t get me wrong. But Melville has fashioned a huge book to capture basically – boy meets whale. So you can imagine. There is a whole lot of room for endless diatribes on types of whales, etc. And those diatribes can just roll over you when you’re listening to them.

If I was reading this, I would be trying to make a lot more sense of it than I have to while listening to it! 

Don’t know if I could read this without my eyes rolling deeply up in my head, but I’m thankful I’m getting it this way!

STILL ABOUT A THIRD INTO IT…

It suddenly occurs to me that this is the original Jaws! With the weird additional facet of little guys in a little boat looking forward to meeting up with and overcoming a supposedly evil whale. Hm. Now that’s lunacy, to be sure, but also deeply rooted in suspense. Suspense is a rare commodity in this list, so it’s fun.

ABOUT TWO THIRDS INTO IT….

Oh, alright. I have to admit something and it is vaguely embarrassing to mention.

All this time, I’ve given Swift the what for on his pontification. Gulliver’s Travels was, so far, the most bloating pontificating I had come across. As time went on, some extra pontification popped up here and there. As a friend of mine points out, book editing hadn’t been invented yet!

But let me tell you, when the final blowhard count is in, Melville makes Swift look like a piker!

I am beyond glad that I’m listening to this. With Moby Dick, the story is only there in service to a veritable manual on whales. Hundreds of pages are dedicated to the difference in whale species. Jesus! Give me air! And while you’re at it, give me morphine!

Now I know that my friend Patty tells the story of a very special teacher she had who taught her Moby Dick in school. And he had all the reasons why those bagpipe-winded explanations were so important and necessary.

Yeah, but you know what? I don’t know those explanations! I don’t know and I shouldn’t have to care! I mean, the story should sail over them!

I have reviewed films for many years. Films are judged on many levels, but they are never deemed successful if the viewer needs a college course to understand their appeal!

Yeah, some are certainly harder to grasp but the path is there if you want to.

And I submit that the same is true here. Whaling must have seemed impossibly exciting and exotic back in the day, as well the people who wanted to go out and kill them and bring them back.

I’ll tell you the truth. I’m so wasted from listening to about ten hours of whale memorabilia that I am solidly rooting for old Moby to show up and swallow them whole.

C’MON MOBY! Show up, eat um with a nice Chianti and let this poor reader go back to something with a plot! Sheesh. As I write that, it doesn’t seem like that much to ask.

The saving grace is that I’m not reading it. When I read things, I tend to need to make sense of them. And with this opus, that would have led to the springs popping out of my head.

I’ve always been against the killing of whales. I just never knew that part of that disgust would include the possibility that someone, upon killing one, would haul off and write another book about it.

C’mon Moby!… Sharpen those big old teeth…..

Oh, one more thing. All the talk throughout this about the magnificence and elegance of the whale and by men who are going to kill it, reminds me of the same verbiage of bullfighters. I mean, if you really respect this animal, might want to think about not killing it! Enough.

ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS LATER… OR 100 FOREHEAD DRIPS OF CHINESE WATER TORTURE LATER…

Okay. Alrightee then. I don’t care if you read this, listen to it, feel it through your pores or absorb it through astral projection, Moby Dick is TOO FUCKING LONG.

Even back then, I have to think that they understood the principle of the longer you bore or numb out your audience, the more they will begin to LEAVE. THE. BUILDING. But then, how should I know. For all I know, that was some kid’s only book for life so he would undoubtedly cling to even more facts about whale blubber!

If it was my only book, I would have memorized it by now, but praise God, I have a choice! About a billion of them!

I have actually sailed through several stages since my last entry. From that one, I got a little more squirrely. And a little more bored. And then a little more bored. Then I was just mad at the world.

But just as I was about to question God and our existence, I hit a patch of smooth sailing. Actually, it was a little more like numb resignation, but what the fuck. Any port in a storm.

And now, I’m sorta starting to see the shore. Way in the distance with a bunch of dead whales to go before I sleep, but I’ll get there. My faith is restored.

Gotta go now. I think the ship might be having another encounter with a whale soon. Who knew what magic might await? Fifteenth time is the charm, they say. Do they say that? Would they if I paid them?

ONLY A COUPLE MORE HOURS TO GO –

There is a phrase used in Hollywood, called a high concept movie or a high concept idea for a movie. I won’t get the definition exactly but what it boils down to is that you can summarize the plot in a few words or short declarative sentences.

And you know? Mr. Dick is a pretty high concept piece. Boy yearns to meet biggest whale again. I am assuming that that will be followed by whale eats boy for breakfast, but maybe not.

I think my point is that, for a high concept piece, it sure takes a fuck of a lot of time to get there. I’m a little more than two thirds done and I’ve already listened to this for over 20 hours. To paraphrase comedian Rita Rudner, “I don’t even want to do something I like for 20 hours!”

And still, I hope. Maybe when boy finally meets whale and whale eats boy, there will be something deeply pleasing in that; contentment at justice served.

But somehow, I kinda doubt it.

STILL MORE HOURS TO GO –

Okay, you know? I just really realized something. Moby Dick wasn’t written for me. I know you will all find that information far from a surprise. But I think I still subscribed to a fantasy that if something is written well enough, it can and will reach those willing to drink it in.

But that’s not the case here. There is no subset diagram you can make with chalk on a blackboard that contains both me and Moby Dick. That subset does not exist.

Off I float for a few more hours of painful listening.

C’mon Moby. Eat these mother fuckers.

DONE.

No exclamation points here. No fanfare. Done.

You know, as I neared the end of this, I thought a lot about the difference in what I would retain from the audio book vs reading the whole thing.

My first glib answer is precious little difference in retention, I would imagine. Probably, I will retain a few different things from hearing it than I would from reading it, but really. Who cares.

My second glib, yet deeper answer as to what I retained is – three to four months. Seriously. Retaining a minimal amount either way, it still would have taken me many more months to slog through it on the page.

Does that make listening to my scariest one, War and Peace, a possibility?

Of course not. I made the rules, up front. The only audio substitution was my recent purchase of the audio of Moby Dick and that is the way it will stay. Besides, I tend to break everyone else’s rules. If I can’t at least obey my own, that’s a sad day.

But I’m happy to move on, concentrating my reading efforts in the amazingly absorbing Ready Player One. And blessed, in the twinkling of the morning star, am I to have been able to skate on this one book by listening to it, of all the choices.