Herman Melville - The Meaning Of The Whale

We live in a world that has got along without us for billions of years, and could still get along without us, in fact still may.
Northrop Frye, On Education, p.148

It has been many years ago now, that the Oracle of Ottawa has read Moby Dick by Herman Melville. The Oracle found it a deep, dark, masterpiece that goes very deeply into many of the remotest recesses of the human mind. The best edition to read is the one that was illustrated  by Rockwell Kent. Today if you can discover a first edition of Moby Dick in the orange or slate blue cloth, it would be worth about $60,000 to $100,000.00 dollars! Which is all pretty ironic because it was all but a busted flush in Melville's lifetime. It is widely known that poor old Herman only made $556.37 from the American edition in his lifetime and the book never sold out its first 3000 copies in his lifetime. It was the same with Karl Marx with Das Kapital, and it was the same with Henry David Thoreau and Walden. The nut of the story is don't expect anyone to get it while you are still alive, normal people are such a drag aren't they?

Herman Melville

As with all classics of English literature, Moby Dick goes down a lot easier if you know your Bible and have a good grounding in the rudimentary facts of the classics. The Oracle of Ottawa would just like to touch briefly on some points that he found passing weird. Many of the characters have Biblical names, this is all real important, and the Oracle of Ottawa suspects that some of these names could have Islamic references, it is very surprising that no one has went there yet, so to speak. The theology is grounded in the Old Testament, and possibly the early Prophet. Moby Dick is the gayest, queerist, raging fag novel in all of American literature. Note that there are no women characters, or any mention of the feminine at all through out the greatest American novel. But this is very important to what the novel and especially what the whale is all about.

Moby Dick - Americas gayest novel...

Another aid that will help the modern reader get the most out of Moby Dick is a copy DSM IV. You will soon discover that he majority of the characters of Moby Dick are lightly touched to outright certifiable! How long do you think the character Ahab would last in modern society? If you read right through to the end you will be very well versed in the symptoms of all the major obsessive disorders. And if you are very perceptive you will soon realize that the whole book is about the pursuit of raw naked power. You can delve deeper into this by reading Arthur Schopenhauer in his Will And Idea. It all can't be helped really.

The whale is the ultimate homo erotic phallic symbol. The monster beast that plows the deeps. Just about what America has always been about isn't it? The whale is the symbol of raw naked power and the joys that come with it. Domination, degradation and humiliation. Moby Dick, the ultimate representation of the real American experience. Any questions?