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Now Reading: Moby Dick

Now reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

It is famously a novel that is largely “unread” and although that is—psychologically speaking—a difficult hurdle to overcome I started… one page at a time.

As starts go, it was all good… and suddenly I got to some of the descriptions Ishmael makes of his first encounters with Queequeg and I had the filling the novel was more subversive than I had imagined.

I had to pause and had a look just in case it was just my imagination and I found this article in the Guardian by Philip Hoare from 2019 marking the 200th birthday of Moby Dick’s author Herman Melville and it confirmed my suspicions:

The book (Moby Dick) features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important

Philip Hoare, The Guardian, 2019

The article continues with a list of great reasons why reading Moby Dick is a must.

So far so good… I hope I am able to conquer this White Whale. We shall see. 🐋