recommended reading

Yes, I'm still alive. And boy, have I got some stories to tell you.

But first let me tell you about the stories I read while I was gone.

First, I've finished Moby-Dick.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

One-hundred and thirty-five days have passed in this fourth and ultimately successful attempt. I started January 5th. I concluded May 20th. I resisted, a hundred times, the temptation to forge ahead and finish early. Some days, I admit, I read retroactively, making up for days I missed...or intentionally slacked off. (Hey, with my week devoted to the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and my weekends reserved for my lovely girlfriend, Herman Melville takes a distant third.) I marked my schedule clearly on my World War II airplanes calendar (I'm a complete sucker for vintage warbirds), and read diligently on a near-daily basis. And it's done. I've finished. I've conquered it. I've done something that a satisfyingly large amount of people have never done: read Moby-Dick from cover-to-cover.

Feel free to bask in my awesomeness.

Two important literary objectives completed in one stroke: I've (a) added another classic novel to my "have-read" list, and (b) found out how much different the Gregory Peck movie is from Melville's original vision.

It's a lot different, as it turns out.

Disinterested types and dilettantes may wish to read ahead to my actual review of Moby-Dick. I am about to embark upon an axiomatic rant about the omnipresent ineptitude of the film industry in adequately, faithfully translating fiction from the printed page to the silver screen.

Ready? Here we go:

I'm going to list two suggestions for the Hollywood producers here. If followed, they will ensure that the writer's original vision is left intact, the debilitating cancer of adaptation decay will not blight the project, and the resultant film will not be a total, blatant, festering pile of shit.

Item One: Quit cutting out the supporting characters. The Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises are the worst offenders. I understand that the series have an insane amount of minor characters and not all of them could make it into the films. But some of these guys had really important roles: Tom Bombadil was the deux ex machina responsible for saving the hobbits from the Barrow-wights, and giving them the daggers they used in battle; the Potter films eliminated the character of Peeves the Poltergeist, who, though by no means a driving force behind the plot, nonetheless serves as a catalyst for many pivotal events.

The 1956 film adaptation of Moby-Dick (starring Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart and Orson Welles) is likewise guilty. Some rather vital characters were cut out of the screenplay. The most notable of these is Fedallah, Ahab's Parsee harpooneer. His mere presence on the ship causes unease among the crew, for Fedallah seems more demon than human: he sleeps standing up, stares unblinkingly, and speaks in a low hiss. I'm no book critic, but as near as I can tell, Fedallah's character represents the dark side of ambition, the ruthlessness and bestiality that inhabits the mind bent on revenge, the evil core of the human soul that will cross any boundary, commit any sin, destroy any foe to accomplish a goal.

Predictably, he is the first of Ahab's crew to die. Well, unless you count the poor sap who fell overboard in the typhoon in the middle of the book.

Fedallah's a central figure to the plot, theme and deeper meaning. And just as importantly, he adds color and variety to the cast. Why cut him out? Surely the film could've snuck him in somewhere (like maybe the prow of Ahab's boat?).

A great many other characters had their roles drastically reduced, or downright mutated. Stubb, the second mate, lightens the mood of every somber scene in the novel. In the movie he basically smokes and grinds out one-liners in whatever faux New England dialect Harry Andrews thought would fit the bill. Third mate Flask's role is almost nonexistent. Starbuck's Big Dilemma is a mere afterthought. Perth, the blacksmith, who spends most of the book toadying about the ship acting like Ahab's page, is rendered down to a shadow. The film consists of Ahab acting all portentous and crazy and vengeful, Starbuck vacillating between conspiracy and cowardice, Stubb and Flask being wiseacres, Queequeg a friggin' mystic, and Ishmael blissfully ignorant of everything until the very end.

Me no like.

Item Two: Let's talk this out. The dialogue was written the way it was for a reason. Quit mucking it up, switching it around, slashing and burning it, Hollywood. I'm sickened by how much of Melville's wordage didn't make it into the film's script. Dialogue which provided important characterization and foreshadowing was excised. Most of Ahab's soliloquies, which sinisterly document his descent into utter madness, were either drastically shortened or eliminated. And description...oh, Melville's description. It makes the book. He can take an ordinary situation (or an extraordinary one) and describe it so poetically and so realistically that I feel like my head has been dipped into a bucket of paint and used to smear the scene onto canvas.

Who do I blame for this? Ray Bradbury. The novelist. Yeah, him. He was the screenwriter. I know, right? The guy who wrote Fahrenheit 451 is responsible for the truncated, hollow imitation of Moby-Dick which appears on TCM every month or two. Seems Bradbury isn't that good at channeling Melville. But I suppose I should thank him, really. It could've been a lot worse. He actually did a pretty good job, all things considered. Did you ever hear about the 2010 remake?

Oh well. I guess I'll get on with the review.

(I wrote that in big white letters so you could find it quickly if you decided to skip the rant.)

Let's talk about description. It was one of Melville's greatest strengths. His style may be heavy, his plot meandering, his diction chock full of arcana, but Melville's powers of description were second to none. Not only could he capture a scene in vivid detail and florid prose, but he had the unique ability to encapsulate the vagaries of human perception. And he encapsulated them perfectly. In the course of documenting his avatar Ishmael's ongoing assessment of Ahab's madness, Moby-Dick's ferocity, and whaling life in general, Melville constantly captured the most vague and nebulous mental impression out of thin air, gave it form and substance, and presented it to the reader clearly and irrefutably. This had an extraordinary effect on me as I read. Melville would write one or two assertive, graphic sentences, compelling some inchoate analogy or amorphous opinion to condense in my brain; and lo and behold, in the very next breath Melville would come out with that very same analogy or opinion, made whole and healthy and credible, ten times better than I could've said it myself. It instilled in me the belief that, while Melville likes digressions even more than Jules Verne, he can still write a damn good story—but most importantly, an approachable story.

The other thing that made the book so enjoyable was the author's wit. Melville was a lighthearted writer, even when discussing such dark and doughty matters as death, vengeance, hate, and insanity. He punctuated these topics with a whimsical comment about puffy clouds or blue skies or puppies. But he seldom joked. When the rare joke did show up, it caught me off guard, so much so that I found myself second-guessing my interpretation of it and dismissing it. Take this gem from Chapter 53, page 255, in which Melville hotly defends whaling as the noblest of the seafaring professions.

Why is it that all Merchant-seamen, and also all Pirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; that is a question it would be hard to answer [sic]. Because, in the case of pirates, I say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion a pirate has no solid basis to stand on.

I didn't even catch that the first time around. Pirates have a "lofty" attitude toward whalemen because they get hung far above 'em. And of course pirates, when in that "elevated position," have no foundation under them. The hangman has yanked the lever and the trapdoor has fallen out. Nice double entendre, Herman. And "superior altitude" is a nice pun on "superior attitude" (though I suspect Melville didn't intend it that way).

So, to summarize, I found Moby-Dick a challenging (and on occasion, wearying) read, but nonetheless rewarding, entertaining and stimulating. The adventure is high and swashbuckling, whenever Melville takes a break from teaching American Whaling 101. The morals are tangible, pragmatic and provocative. The characters are lifelike and endearing, and the whale suitably anonymous. Melville, thankfully, refrains from anthropomorphizing his antagonist, and leaves him to be what he is: a wild animal, a nonsentient entity, and Mother Nature's savage representative. The book is more than worthy to be classified as a "Great American Novel" and has earned its position in the cadre of literary classics...especially since it was reviled after its inception.

To summarize the summary, Moby-Dick: good book.

You won't believe this, but I've completed (not started, completed) two other works in the meantime: At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Night by Elie Wiesel. I sort of cheated with Burroughs, though: I started working on him before I finished with Melville. (I'll have to go out and buy Melville some flowers later and apologize.) But both new books are done, and I must needs review them. This review has gone on so long, though, that I think I'll let it slide until next time.

So stay tuned, and keep your nose in.