Volume 44 - No. 33
by Claudia Aragon
"Call me Ishmael."
I was hooked from the moment I read that first line of Moby Dick, anxious to see where the adventure would take me. Herman Melville did not disappoint. He masterfully wove a web of words to draw me in, and then he trapped and held me. He kept me captive as Ishmael took me through the sights and sounds of his journey. His were the adventures of a young man forever drawn to the magical pull of the sea. As he innocently boards the whale ship, Pequod, to begin a three year adventure at sea, he is unaware of what lay ahead, and he becomes an unwilling voyeur. Watching his captain's ever increasing descent into his own private hell. Chasing The Paper - 760.747.7119
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August 21, 2014
phantom demons in his mad quest to find and kill, Moby Dick.
At one time or another in our lives we may all be plagued by an obsession. Chasing our own demons. For some it will be socially acceptable, like cars, wine, or jewelry. Yet, for others it may be alcohol, drugs or quiet indiscretions. For those, like Captain Ahab, you may be called a maniac. Labeled utterly mad. His lifelong obsession was the albino whale, Moby Dick, immortalized for all time by Herman Melville.
Melville was born in New York City, New York, on August 1, 1819. The son of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melville, he was the third of eight children. He became a well known and popular American novelist, the writer of short stories and a
poet. By the time he turned 30, Melville had written five books, including two best sellers.
He studied surveying at the Landingsburgh Academy hoping to land a job building on the Erie Canal Project. In 1839, barely out of his teens, Melville boarded the ship St. Lawrence in New York City, where he worked as a cabin boy while traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to Liverpool. That trip became the spark which ignited his flame for adventure. Two years later, in 1841, he worked on the whaler 'Acushnet' and set out for the Pacific Ocean. The ship landed in the Polynesian Islands, where he lived among the cannibalistic Typee people for several months in 1842.
A Whale’s Tale Continued on Page 2
It was aboard ship that he learned and understood just how terrifying and powerful a 70 foot sperm whale could be. The lower jaws of full grown whales have a total of 52 teeth the size of Bowie knives. Even though the occasional fluke dwarfs only grow to the size of a mini-van, 16-20 feet in length, they are still capable of splintering a boat to pieces. A full size sperm whale can weigh 40-50 tons, approximately as much as eight large African elephants, and grow to an average length of 60-70 feet. Their enormous size alone would strike fear in average fishermen and whalers, yet, they are very timid. Gentle giants for the most part. After sailing the oceans for four years, collecting a lifetime of adventures, Melville left the sea to begin his literary journey. In 1846, his first book 'Typee' was released and was