Reading Moby-Dick

I read “Moby-Dick” in high school, and then again in college, but that was a long time ago. It’s hard to enjoy the books you read in school, because you did not choose them yourself, and often they require adult perspective that you lack. Also, for me at least, I think the school process required thinking too much about books too soon.

I think the first time you read a novel, you should just experience it, the way you would a TV show or popular movie, and not spend too much energy on analysis. The delay between reading and analyzing can be a few minutes or a few hours, but you should let the analysis flow naturally and organically.

When you’re reading for school, the analysis is the whole point, and you’re instantly thrust into the icy cold waters of symbolism, themes, etymology, Christ imagery, and all that literary stuff, without an opportunity to get used to it.

I do remember enjoying a few school reading assignments. One was a Stephen Vincent Benet short story called “By the Waters of Babylon,” about a barbarian centuries in the future exploring the ruins of a 20th Century city. Another was “Alas, Babylon,” by Pat Frank, about a small town in Florida that survives a nuclear war. The third was “Lord of the Flies,” for which I enhanced my enjoyment by reading one chapter ahead of the assignment, so it was more like I was reading at my own pace.

I remember a few things about my high school encounter with “Moby-Dick.” It has the reputation of being the Great American Novel, the pinnacle of book-length prose fiction, alongside “Huckleberry Finn” and, well, that’s it. Those two. The two best novels ever produced by American writers.

“Moby-Dick” has the reputation of being difficult to read.

I recall our high school teacher saying that many people in the 19th Century read it as an entertaining adventure story. As she said this, she seemed to be looking down on those people. The better people read for the symbolism and themes and all that good literary stuff, she said.

Another thing I remember is the passage at the beginning, where Ishmael meets Queequeg and they share a bed and Ishmael wakes up with Queequeg holding him like a wife. Later, there’s a big scene where all the sailors on the ship are sitting around squeezing sperm. My high school teacher said this was definitely not gay, nope nope nope, and we were all being childish for thinking it was and she was disappointed in us.

For these and other reasons, I think my high school English teacher was not very good.

Then I was assigned to read the book again in college, and the professor said of course it was gay. It’s a big gay novel. But we did not talk abut it much because this was the mid 1980s.

I also remember something about the whiteness of the whale being horrific, and something about the whales swimming in various depths of ocean being like layers of reality.

And oh yeah everybody dies except for Ishmael, the narrator. Should I have put in a spoiler alert for a 171-year-old novel? Sorry.

Within the past few months, I’ve started encountering the idea that “Moby-Dick” is actually an enjoyable novel to read. For fun. As one would watch a TV show or see a popular movie, or read any other novel. The first time was on the Hugo Girl podcast in January, which is a fun series featuring three millennial women talking about books, their friendship, and whatever else comes to mind, with lots of laughing. Usually they talk about Hugo Award winning science fiction and fantasy novels, but this time they decided to do a special episode on “Moby Dick.”

The second was here, where someone translates one of the first sentences of “Moby-Dick” into Zoomer-generation language. Before:

“… whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.”

Translated to 21st Century language: “yeah so a few years back i was thinking about going joker mode on a crowd of innocent bystanders, but then i realized i was getting too blackpilled so i decided to get a job.”

According to this online annotated Moby-Dick,, “hypos” means “periods of depression, anxiety, or ennui.”

Ishmael is saying that when he starts feeling depressed or anxious, he has to resist temptation to just go out into the street knocking people’s hats off—or get out a gun and kill people. When that happens, instead he goes to sea.

That’s contemporary.

And dark.

I found it intriguing.

“As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.” “All Systems Red,” book 1 of the Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells

Everybody who has read this series loves it … except me. I tried this book once before two years ago, and bounced off it. This time I liked it. I guess I was in the right mood for it this time around. I’ll read the next book in the series, but it probably won’t be the next book I read.

The main character of this series, Murderbot, is a security robot, built with machine and organic components, that has hacked its own governor module and could mass-murder everybody if it wanted to, but would rather just do its job protecting humans, and watch entertainment feeds. “As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure,” Murderbot explains.

Murderbot’s job is to protect a team of a half-dozen researchers exploring a new planet. It’s a pretty easy gig at first, leaving plenty of time for entertainment feeds. But the job gets serious when the team is threatened by a murderous entity, and Murderbot has to reluctantly get to work.

I liked Murderbot’s voice, their dry wit and laid-back attitude. They find interaction with conventional humans to be excruciating, and far prefer to spend their time with fictional people on the entertainment feeds.

The book’s strengths were enough—this time around—to carry me through things I didn’t like about it. There were only a half dozen characters, and they were hard to tell apart, other than Murderbot herself and the mission leader, Dr. Mensah. Most of the activity takes place either inside a base or in a small vehicle. So even though there was an entire planet to play on, the story seems claustrophobic, like one of those Doctor Who episodes where they drop in on a remote research base or stranded spaceship that’s in danger. Those sorts of episodes seem to be popular with the fans, because the show does so many of them, but they have never been my favorites.

At the end of this book, which is the first in the series, there is an indication that Murderbot is about to explore the wider universe. I hope that’s the way it goes.

Ephemera Vol LXXII: Robot escape

“… dark, forbidden places.”

Things I Learned About Police Work From The Wire’s David Simon [Preston Kutney]

An innocent man left alone in an interrogation room will remain fully awake, rubbing his eyes, staring at the cubicle walls and scratching himself in dark, forbidden places. A guilty man left alone in an interrogation room goes to sleep.

I finished rereading “The Shining,” by Stephen King.

The ending of the 600+-page novel is loudly and obviously telegraphed in the beginning. 600+ pages later, sure enough, it arrives as expected. The entire story could have been boiled down to about 17 pages.

Despite these qualities, which would be fatal flaws in another novel, “The Shining” is brilliant. Immediately after finishing it, I moved on to start the 2013 sequel, “Doctor Sleep.” Danny is a grownup now, and he does not seem to be doing very well.

Also, did “Doctor Sleep” really come out eight years ago? I remember the publicity for it and making a mental note that I should read it soon. And here it is eight years later, and I’m just starting reading it. When did time start moving so quickly?

Re-reading Stephen King’s “The Shining”

I’ve been re-reading Stephen King.

One of King’s great strengths is writing sympathetic villains. Not villains you love to hate, but villains you genuinely love, who have potential to turn to good, and you’re saddened when they fully embrace evil.

Re-reading King, I irrationally hope things will turn out differently for these sympathetic villains, this time around. I’m currently about 90% through re-reading “The Shining,” and I keep hoping that this time Jack will pull it together and the family’s winter in the Overlook will go just according to plan, that he’ll stay sober, finish his play, and get closer to Wendy and Danny.

Spoiler alert: It has not gone according to plan.

Also: Re-reading “The Shining” as a middle-aged man in the post-Trump era, I’m struck by how much financial desperation is driving Jack. He previously had a promising career as a fiction writer and respected private school teacher. But he blew that up. Now, this job as caretaker at the Overlook is his last chance to pull things together — he can get all his professional success back, but if he screws this up, the next step is homelessness, for himself and his family.

That financial desperation is explicitly in the text, but I glossed over it when I first read the book, in my teens or 20s. Then, I was confident that as a scion of the upper middle class I was never going to face dire financial straits. I’m not so confident now. (Things are fine for us financially — we are actually doing very well — but now I’m aware how narrow and dangerous the road is for middle-class Americans … like the mountain road to the Overlook hotel during a blizzard.)

“If brains was black powder he couldn’t blow his own nose.”

Parkyakarkus

Harry Einstein was a comedian and actor from 1936-45, famous for dialect comedy, playing a fake Greek with the stage name “Parkyakarkus.” Heart disease immobilized him in later life.

He appeared at a Friar’s Club roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in 1958, and his act received howls of laughter. Seated next to Milton Berle after performing, Einstein slumped into Berle’s lap. Doctors later said Einstein was likely dead at that moment.

Berle shouted, “Is there a doctor in the house?” and people thought he was joking.

The event was a charity benefit for local hospitals, and several doctors attended. Einstein was carried backstage, where five doctors worked on him. One used a pen knife to make an incision for open heart massage, another used the ends of an electric cord as a makeshift defibrillator.

After Einstein was pronounced dead, Arnaz said, “This is one of those moments that Lucy and I have waited a lifetime for but it’s meaningless now. They say the show must go on. But why must it? Let’s close the show now by praying for this wonderful man backstage who made the world laugh.”

Two of Einstein’s sons went on to become famous comedians and actors: Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein.

Brooks has included subtle references to his father’s death in several movies, most explicitly “Defending Your Life,” about the afterlife experience of a recently dead man.

In a sense, Brook’s career was a reaction to his father’s. The elder Einstein did broad, explicit comedy, but in his early years, Brooks specialized in anti-comedy, pretending to be an incompetent ventriloquist or that he had forgotten his ideas.

Einstein’s final performance was recorded and it’s on YouTube. It’s not particularly funny today. Audience’s change over time, and yesterday’s comedy is often not funny today.

Via “The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy,” by Kliph Nesteroff, a wonderful book that I’m reading and enjoying now.