Reading Moby Dick

Title page of the first edition of Moby-Dick, 1851. 

Moby Dick is keeping me up at night, and, as I’ll explain soon, I think it kept me up once long ago with fear for what it is doing now with pleasure.  Moby Dick is great fun to read and this short post is all about my first direct experience with the book.

As I am reading this book, I recall a very distant and yet very distinct memory of Moby Dick.  It is so visceral and real that it might even be part of a childhood dream, actually a childhood nightmare.

I remember a story of a ship repeatedly being attacked by a whale.  The whale surfaces frequently and each time raises with it a dread that only a very young boy could experience.  I believe this is an old film — maybe even a cartoon — that has stuck with me, but I have searched the internet for something that might fit my memory and I cannot find it.  One characteristic of this memory is seeing the ship from the perspective of the whale.  The whale appears and we ride with him as he builds speed to ram the ship…this is the image that left its mark and taunts me now.   What was it?

I don’t know how my first memories of this whale story ends.  Probably didn’t end well.  Pirates, whales, and crocodiles freaked me out when I was a boy.  Too much Disney, I think.  Whatever it was, it left me looking for more comfort than I could get from my flannel pajamas.  And now, many years later, I am still spooked.

But back to today and Moby Dick.

Earlier this summer I wrote about The Bedford Incident, for example, and it occurs to me now that The Bedford Incident in many ways is a Cold War era retelling of the Moby Dick story.  I’ll have to go back and look at what I said about The Bedford Incident again.

I was surprised when a friend saw my copy of Moby Dick and asked me to read to her.  I am only aware of one book this person has read — V. C. Andrews, Flowers in the Attic — so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  But she insisted that I read on, even stopping me and asking me to re-read passages she found especially interesting.  So I read and read, annotating when I thought I should, and found the experience an unexpected treat.  Until now I don’t think I would have thought Moby Dick the best place to start if one were looking to pique the literary interests of a young woman from Iowa.  Who knew?

And for myself, I love the overlapping themes and the almost progressively modern tone of the novel.  I like this historical vignettes, too.  A guy can learn something about sea life, but one should be cautious about putting too much stock in the story’s cetological authority.  At times Moby Dick is poetic and lyrical, other times directly modernist, a true predecessor of later great American novels.  This is fun to experience.  And I have that almost uncanny experience of being frightened again by a memory I cannot pin down, too.

So of course I am up at night.  I am reading…I am reading Moby Dick!  And I am pausing now only to praise Moby Dick and maybe brag some.  (I feel a bit smug about reading it.)  I thought I would share a little now and share more later.

Related articles

• The Bedford Incident (1965) (alittletourinyellow.wordpress.com)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (sagirlwrite.wordpress.com)

The Bedford Incident (1965)

The Bedford Incident

Richard Widmark plays uncompromising, determined Captain Eric Findlander in this too-often-missed Cold War classic, The Bedford Incident (1965).

The cast is solid.  The film making tight.   Outstanding sound, too.  This is a Cold War drama mostly occupied by dialogue occurring within the tight quarters of the navy destroy Bedford, but the action — as it were — never lets up.  All in all, an awesome film, perhaps even Widmark’s best?

Sidney Poitier plays Ben Munceford, a reporter for a national magazine on assignment to document the Bedford’s patrol in the North Atlantic, but he is also there to study Captain Findlander’s reputation as a hardened, punishing commander.

Poitier’s character feels out of place early in the film.  He’s a bit too smug, presuming, and self-righteous, but he is a necessary foil to Findlander.

Findlander is all Navy and a zealous patriot.  Poitier is press — you know, the Fourth Estate – is there to be a check on the power of government and military.  He’s also black, which might have had more social significance in 1965.  In fact he is the only black person seen on a ship of more than 300 men.  He is the outsider.

It is the juxtaposition of outsider versus Navy that I want to hit on in my reading of this film.

Briefly, the Bedford discovers a Soviet submarine in violation of NATO ally territorial waters.  Findlander pursues the trespassing sub back into international waters and all the while pressure and tension increases on his ship builds.

Findlander demands exacting discipline.  No compromise.  He works his officers and crew hard.  Stress mounts.  All the while Munceford tirelessly pursues a story, with camera in hand, which provokes an even sterner hand from Findlander.

Also on board the Bedford is Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke, former Third Reich naval commander, played by Eric Portman.  He is a technical and intelligence advisor to Findlander.  He also becomes a voice of reason and restraint in the film’s conclusion.

The key character, however, is played by James MacArthur, in what also might be his ultimate performance.  MacArthur plays Ensign Ralston, an eager and underappreciated subordinate to Findlander.

Findlander relentlessly demands more from Ensign Ralston, criticizing him for errors big and small.  There is no let up.  Ultimately Findlander’s insistence on strict and immediate response to his orders dooms his ship.

In the closing scenes the Bedford has finally trapped the Soviet sub.  Findlander turns up the heat, attempted to both provoke and humiliate the Soviet sub and crew.  His actions are aggressive and confrontational.  Munceford is joined by Commodore Schrepke in advising Findlander to pull back and stop the pursuit.  But Findlander only seems more determined to force the sub to surrender.

In the tense atmosphere of the emerging conflict, Ensign Ralston misinterprets Finlander.  Findlander tells Schrepke that will not fire on the Soviet sub unless he is fired on.  He won’t “fire one” unless they “fire one.”  Ralston hears:  ”Fire one” and he obeys the order.  He fires an Anti-Submarine Rocket at the submarine.

The submarine is destroyed, but not before it has had a chance to launch torpedoes at the Bedford in response.

Here is where the insider/outsider dynamic that plays out.

Findlander gives one order to evade the torpedoes, but then seems to give up.  He walks through a quiet ship, glancing at his broken crew who only stare back in return.  Even Schrepke is silent.  He stoically looks on, unfazed, as Findlander wanders through the bridge, then turns away.

Bombs Away

Munceford, on the other hand, literally is on Findlander’s coat tails, demanding that he take evasive actions and try to protect the ship.  He is alone in his demands.

Munceford is the outsider.  The others are Navy.  The crew of the Bedford destroyed a Soviet submarine.  One might argue that the responsibility ultimately rests with Captain Findlander, but on this ship in particular we are told the men on this ship are different.  They choose to be with Findlander.  Therefore, I would suggest that crew shares in the culpability of the accident and take responsibility for the lost sub and crew.

Findlander doesn’t try to save his ship, he goes to a top deck to get a view of the torpedoes that will deliver the blow that will even the score.  It is a sort of naval justice that none of the crew protests.  Munceford, the outsider, protests.

Discuss.