We'll Probably Be Considered a Bunch of Idiots Too

I was the first one in the classroom today, and while pretending to be very focused on my  notebook in front of me, had the opportunity to hear an interesting conversation regarding Moby Dick. If the two contributors to this conversation read my post, I hope you won't be offended that I quote you. Your comments really made me think and were the inspiration for this post.

One classmate made the comment that she was thoroughly enjoying Melville's trashing of Christians in the book, and that they thought the people were so stupid to not see how incredibly hypocritical, arrogant, and self-serving they are.

Another classmate replied, "Yes, but it is always easy to say from our perspective, 150 years later, that they were a bunch of idiots. We saw how their ideas played out. I wonder what people will think of our ideas 150 years from now. We'll probably be considered a bunch of idiots too."

I thought that these were both interesting ideas. On the one hand, someone is saying, "How could they not see the error of their ways?" She acknowledged that while these people were "stupid" they were also surely clever enough to see their awful state. On the other hand, another person is saying, "And like them, are we not seeing the error of our own today?" Are we also clever enough to see our own awful state, but too "stupid" to do anything about it? Are we being blinded by pride?

A first edition of Moby Dick--being handled with gloves no less!

We learned today that Moby Dick was published in 1851 when Herman Melville was 32 years old. It was published first in England where it was not well-received, and consequently was not well-received in the United States. In fact, Moby Dick did not become big until during and after World War I.

Here is an initial review of Moby Dick from the London Morning Advertiser, October 24, 1851:

"This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed...."

Here is another from the London Athenaeum from October 25, 1851:

"The result is, at all events, a most provoking book, -- neither so utterly extravagant as to be entirely comfortable, nor so instructively complete as to take place among documents on the subject of the Great Fish, his capabilities, his home and his capture. Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise....We have little more to say in reprobation or in recommendation of this absurd book.... Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors and his heroics are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature -- since he seems not so much unable to learn as disdainful of learning the craft of an artist."

Had society changed so much from 1851 to 1914? Maybe...but it seems more likely that 3 generations were far enough removed from the criticisms that Melville heaped upon the Christians around him, that they were less likely to feel the pains of criticism, and more likely to acknowledge the mistakes of their forefathers. After all, it's always easier to acknowledge the mistakes of someone else than your own.

Or was the book just not people's style anymore? We touched on the Gold Rush that was happening when the book was published. Whaling just wasn't popular.

But this second explanation--Moby Dick just not being interesting during the time of its publication--doesn't sit well with me. For one thing, whaling is not popular today either. In fact, I had to look up on Google what a harpoon is. I'm not reading it for the whaling story, but more for the substance that lies below the surface of the story: the religious tensions and the microscopic views of society. And it seems to me that this is what the critics were commenting on as well: they didn't say anything about the book not "keeping up with the times." Rather they called it "mad...hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed...tantaliz[ing] with indications of genius...careless...absurd." It's not that they didn't understand the book or read it just for the plot. No, these critics recognized the subplots and they didn't like them.

If a book like Moby Dick were written today filled with subplots of criticisms of the popular ideas of today, do you think this book would be well-received? Are we more open-minded now than our ancestors were back then? Or would the book be a total flop only to be considered a masterpiece three generations later?