The Whale

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.

Yours truly has actually read Moby Dick twice as Melville's tome about revenge, existence and the great unknowable of reality resonates to the nth degree with its deep connect to Macbeth, Shakespeare's profound take on existentialism and the pursuit of power. To add intrigue to the novel, Melvilles adds in a bit of science to show just how intense whaling truly was along with the issue of the homoerotic as threes years spent on a whaling ship without the need to do something about sex is an impossibility in this writer's humble opinion. :)

 The Moby-Dick Marathon also reminds one of the homage paid to Ulysses whereupon devoted readers of Joyce's masterpiece gather together every June 16 for Bloomsday to walk the environs of Dublin, tracking the path taken by Leopold Bloom and others, indirectly relating to the 10 year journey of Odysseus as depicted in Homer's epic,  The Odyssey. :)

Ulysses Dublin map

1. Leopold Bloom's home at 7 Eccles Street[14] – Episode 4, Calypso; Episode 17, Ithaca; and Episode 18, Penelope
2. Post office, Westland Row – Episode 5, Lotus Eaters
3. Sweny's pharmacy, Lombard Street, Lincoln Place[15] (where Bloom bought soap) – Episode 5, Lotus Eaters
4. the Freeman's Journal, Prince's Street,[16] off of O'Connell Street – Episode 7, Aeolus
5. And – not far away – Graham Lemon's candy shop, 49 Lower O'Connell Street; it starts Episode 8, Lestrygonians
6. Davy Byrne's pub – Episode 8, Lestrygonians
7. National Library of Ireland – Episode 9, Scylla and Charybdis
8. Ormond Hotel[17] on the banks of the Liffey – Episode 11, Sirens
9. Barney Kiernan's pub – Episode 12, Cyclops
10. Maternity hospital – Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun
11. Bella Cohen's brothel – Episode 15, Circe
12. Cabman's shelter, Butt Bridge – Episode 16, Eumaeus

I sat cross-legged on the port side of the ship, a few feet away from the captain’s helm, flanked by a thicket of Moby-Dick zealots who would remain here for the next 25 hours in an attempt to consume the full scope of the novel in one uninterrupted reading session. Each of them brandished their own bespoke copy of the novel, representing a century’s worth of differing editions—some dense and pocket Bible–like, some paperback and battered, others regal and elegiac with golden bindings, all cracked open to Page 1. The first speaker took the lectern at noon after the strike of eight bells. “Call me Ishmael,” the famous opening words, sent a ripple of applause through the room.

Cachalot_-_Sperm_whale_-_Drawing_by_Johann_Anderson_1746mod 2