My initial approach to reading Moby Dick was to set my eye on symbols. The primary value, I thought, that the text had to offer was in how the whale could represent relevant concepts and situations that I was interested in. And certainly, the metaphorical possibilities abound in the novel -- it is rich with meaning, both intentional and not.
But surprisingly to me, what interests me most about Moby Dick is not how universal or widely applicable to a variety of concepts it is, but how particular it is, how specifically about one thing it is: whaling. Without by any means undermining the symbols people draw out of the novel, I admire, and want to process in my paper, Melville's ability to create meaningful descriptions as they are, without having to be slave to any symbolic aim. Reading the novel as a highly descriptive series of standalone images -- not as a symbol -- allows me to appreciate Melville's accomplishment in becoming deeply invested, rather than superficially interested, in a particular subject.
Melville's novel confounds genre. Encyclopedia, high-adventure narrative, epic. More than being about any of its chapters, as a whole, the novel is about, simply and completely, whaling, and the function that each of those chapters plays is to describe more and more aspects of that subject as possible.
Blogging has also confounded genre. Journalism, journal-writing, creative nonfiction, personal essay, even person-to-person conversation -- have all gone into what makes blogging blogging. A place like Buzzfeed has a reputation of creating casual silliness, but even they have a long-form editor, and are using their unique approach for documenting the news. When applied to a single subject, all of the various tools afforded by digital platforms can allow a creator -- like Melville did -- to go deep in a field.
In addition to years of personal experience to go off, evidence of tremendous research is obvious all throughout the novel, especially the chapters that may strike the narrative-thirsty and the symbol-thirsty as boring or "not the point." In particular, the many quotes about whales in literature and the bible must have taken tremendous effort to produce.
Moby Dick the novel stands as a testament to the human ablity to commit to a single subject for more than a few minutes. Blogs can extend that same commitment to go deep, too, if creators can budget their attention in the vast sea of widgets and embeds at their fingertips.
Does this make sense as an area to explore?
I think this is a really interesting idea, I hadn't thought about the book in this way before. In this sense, it makes me think that Moby Dick is sort of a mix between a personal essay and a dissertation. Ishmael focuses a lot on facts, but then he throws in narrative along with it. I also like that you say that it is a "human ability" to stick with a project like this. I think that in the digital world, it is harder to focus, as you said, so we are forced to have a lot more discipline in what we are researching and/or writing about. But are you trying to say that because of this distracting digital aspect, the human ability to commit is diminishing? I think that if you focused more on that question (or a different one that you can think of) you will get deeper in to the meat of the subject.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea to look at things as they are is a good idea. I think so often people miss the point by trying to take things deeper than they really are. One of the benefits of looking for meaning is the personal application once that meaning is found. I'd be interested to read what you discover about the benefits of seeing things as they really are if you care to blog about what you find later.
ReplyDeleteThis is good. One criticism of the digital age is that it is causing people to only concentrate on things for a short amount of time because of the ease of jumping to other pages. I think this could be a good example of using the digital realm to go in the opposite direction--blogs that encourage readers to go deeper into subjects, spend more time on the same thing.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a good area to explore. I tolerate the chapters about whaling because this is Ishmael's way of helping the reader to understand what is going on in the story (in class, for instance, we mentioned the rope chapter and how that becomes important at the end of the novel). Not only that, the whaling industry (I argue in my paper) is a culture in its own right, and Ishmael is imparting to us its shared knowledge and values. You could say that Moby-Dick is an ethnography of 19th-century whalers. He is going deep into what matters most in the sphere in which he exists. The whale is a symbol, not of a grand motif, but of a culture. And I think that reflects in modern digital culture because we use social media and other technologies to share information that matters to us individually and as a culture--for instance, on general conference weekend. People blog about what matters to them and curate information about their interests. Ishmael is doing essentialy the same thing.
ReplyDelete