Well, Wikipedia says it's a classic!

While doing some preliminary research on the term "classic," I came across this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_literature

And of course, the picture right next to it: Moby Dick.

Later on, it talks about "imprimaturs." It has this comic book version of Moby Dick next to it:

I believe it very telling that these imprimaturs came about in the early part of the twentieth century, just as interest in Moby Dick had risen...hmmmm.

New theater adaptation of Moby Dick--with puppets!

http://dcist.com/2011/07/capital_fringe_review_moby_dick_an.php

Masks and puppets with good character voice actors tell the tale, bringing the novel down to a length of only 90 minutes.

From the critique: "This Moby Dick works as adaptation, but what makes this production more fascinating is beyond the book. It is a meta-Moby, where we are all Ahab, struggling with our obsessions, looking for significance in what seems a tumultuous sea."

Now that should be on a book jacket.

Wow--somebody really likes Moby Dick

Picture copyright Matt Kish.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/12/moby-dick-gets-a-makeover_n_894970.html#s306908&title=Page_163

Wow--this guy really likes Moby Dick.

The article discusses the new book being put out by a guy named Matt Kish. Moby Dick is apparently his favorite. As The Giver or The Catcher in the Rye are mine, Moby Dick is his.

From the article: "['Moby Dick'] has been such a companion for me my whole life," Kish told HuffPost. "I've read it a bunch of times, I saw the TV movie, various comic book adaptations -- it's been such a part of me."

Amazing. His favorite is this book. It is amazing to me.

He started drawing an adaptation of a page a day. The work really is quite extraordinary. Check it out here on his blog: http://everypageofmobydick.blogspot.com/

Also from the Huffington Post article: "He started a blog where he posted his daily illustrations -- mainly just so family and friends could check out his work. But within days, other 'Moby Dick' fan sites caught on and began reposting his drawings. Soon, to his surprise, he was fielding requests from publishers."

Although, the art is exceptional. I don't think it really mattered what book it was and the public and the publisher would have liked it. However, the book lends itself to his interesting psychological take. Maybe he could have done Kafka's Metamorphosis, drawing like that.

It is his passion though and I applaud him for it. And for Moby Dick to influence that kind of creativity has to say something about the book. It may not be my cup of tea, but it is clearly his cup of tea.

However, the crux of the matter with me is why Moby Dick is considered a classic.Shouldn't the definition of "classic" be something for just about everybody? Maybe that is a road I need to explore...

Trivia Question

I do this daily trivia question at Sploofus.com. They email me a link and I answer a daily question on pretty much everything. There is a ladder to move up the more you get right, so I think that is why I keep doing it. Whatever. Point is: yesterday's question (7-12-2011) was about Moby Dick.

A sailor's narrative of the sinking of the Essex was an inspiration for which 19th century novel?

• Horatio Hornblower
• Mutiny on the Bounty
• A Night to Remember
• Moby Dick
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

So as you can see, you had to have some knowledge of the subject. There is at least one very viable option in those choices with 20K Leagues. Two others aren't half bad at all as guesses (and I really have no idea about A Night to Remember...something about Titanic that the clue negates if you know your timeline.)

I must say that the Essex story was far more interesting than Moby Dick. It's called In the Heart of the Sea by Nathan Philbrick and I absolutely loved that read. And I don't normally go for non-fiction at all.

I just think the thought process for Melville must have been interesting...

Hmmm, this story about the Essex is fascinating. Ten thousand miles from the nearest land mass. Do you know that they had to resort to cannibalism on the trip home? It might make you crazy enough to want revenge on a silly whale! ...Wait a minute, I think I may have something here...

So, in all ways, In the Heart of the Sea is like an unofficial prequel to Moby Dick.

Don't give up the ending to Moby Dick

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-spoilers-20110711,0,6453659.story?track=rss

Talking about some of the greatest spoilers in movie and TV history, this article starts by saying,

"Spoiler alert: Romeo and Juliet die, Scarlett doesn't love Ashley but Rhett walks out anyway, the Ring of Power is destroyed, Moby-Dick wins, Laura Palmer was killed by her father, and Soylent Green is people."

I find it fascinating that Moby Dick is one of them. One of the six.

I remember the hype around Laura Palmer of Twin Peaks even though I never watched the show until after it had ended (it was good and I should have watched). Soylent Green is one of my favorite movies now, even though I wasn't born when it first came out--somehow I never heard the spoiler and am glad I didn't when I finally watched it.

The article mentions Lost and The Crying Game, (and since I unfortunately heard about the ending to The Crying Game, I think it has ruined any enjoyment I could get out of watching it--I have never seen it yet know everything), eventually mentioning the ending to Casablanca.

Amazingly, no mention of The Sixth Sense--I guess even the author didn't want to spoil that one. (Because that one COMPLETELY destroys any enjoyment of the movie for the first time if you know the end.)

As the article ends, "— spoiler alert — Ilsa leaves Casablanca without Rick, but we still cry every time, and then we watch it again." Does this work for Moby Dick? If I hadn't have known that the whale wins, would it have been a shock?

I mean, here we have a novel from 1851 where the protagonist loses and dies! Maybe that would have made a reader sit up for the first time, like watching The Sixth Sense the first time--you can't put it back in the box. Any subsequent viewing of The Sixth Sense is awash in trying to pick out clues.

However, as I have posted very recently, two jacket bookcovers mention the end!!

On one: "In an ironic twist of fate, Ahab is last glimpsed entangled in the harpoon lines once intended to strike down his nemesis, Moby Dick.”

On another: "its dramatic end when the white whale triumphs and all hands, except Ishmael, perish"

So, is the reader supposed to know or not?? Does it hinder the reading?? Were those bookjacket authors screwing us out of a reader's enjoyment??

I'm tellin' ya, I'm on to something here...

Racecar driver hooks his Moby Dick

http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt-heatfalk-0707-20110706,0,7804305.story?track=rss

"When C.E. Falk won the Hampton Heat Late Model 200 at Langley Speedway a year ago, he likened the victory to finally hooking his Moby Dick. Some observers, however, considered crew chief Phil Warren, a Langley icon who won a record seven track titles as a driver, to be captain of that ship and Falk a young driver fortunate to ride his coat tails."

If he hooked his Moby Dick, wouldn't the analogy also entail him blowing up in a huge racetrack explosion while taking out every other driver but one?

The allusion today focuses on a one-dimensional obsession. My Moby Dick was reading and finishing Moby Dick when I had been trying to and lying about it for 25 years. I guess I should have burned in a conflagration of flames while torching the novel--that would have been poetic. But the allusion as it is used today does not necessarily mean the destruction of the pursuer.

Everyone must have a Moby Dick now. I think the difference is that for some of us, like Falk and myself, Moby Dick is a pinnacle to achieve something you've always been reaching for. For fictional characters Khan and Picard in the Star Trek movies, it did destroy the first and almost destroyed the latter (ST II: TWOK and ST: First Contact respectively).

I must fully analyze the Moby Dick references in those Star Trek movies now...

My Star Trek commentary book

Every episode analyzed from a geek's WTF? point of view.