I just finished the book, and I liked the way it ended. Except for the Epilogue. Does everyone have the epilogue in their books? Apparently it was only included for later versions of the book.
I'm not going to give anything away in regards to the end, but I've been irked by the writing in regards to the missing narrator, Ishmael. The book starts off with a personal, first-person account of Ishmael's reasons to venture into the ocean on a whaling ship, and his steps taken to do so, including our favorite recountings of the bed he made with Queequeg.
However at an early point Ishmael as a self-aware narrator was entirely abandoned in the writing, or if you believe that Melville was still including him, he suddenly became omniscient and omnipresent -- hearing all conversations between Stubb, Flask and Ahab, present with the blacksmith and cook for their mutterings, and in the boat with Ahab -- yet perhaps NOT in the boat with Ahab.
I appreciated the knowledge gained by understanding why someone would suddenly decide to join up with a whaling ship, but was it really necessary in the writing to include Ishmael at all -- or Ishmael as first-person narrator? The book would only have to be slightly re-written to omit Ishmael and instead have a bodiless narrator--a telling sign on its own. The narrator does not mention much that would show the reader that he had self-awareness after the first couple of chapters. There is no mention of any of Ishmael's needs, desires, or sensations, though we hear about those of the other characters in the books (particularly Ahab towards the end).
So my question is, why include Ishmael at all? What was the point? Was Ishmael himself part of a later revision to the book, as was theorized for Ahab's missing leg? A note in my book on the critical excerpts has an interesting point that I will save until everyone has finished the book, so as not to give anything away. But when you get to the Epilogue, you'll start to see.
Thoughts anyone? I feel like I might have had more interest in the book and more attachment if Ishmael had been more present throughout, but then we wouldn't have gotten the whole story. So why did Melville include Ishmael at all?
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3 comments:
I do find myself asking, "But what role did Ishmael have in all of this." It does mention before he boards that his is a regular crewman. Also, it talks about him and Queeqeg tired together trying to stow the whale. But it's true, he is missing in most of the action scenes. However, the whale-knowledge-dropping chapters are clearly supposed to be him talking about his research.
I do appreciate the knowledge-dropping chapters, but I always heard Melville's voice when I was reading them, rather than Ishmael's. Ishmael struck me as sort of uneducated and not knowledge-seeking, so maybe that's why I read it that way.
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