What’s Moby Dick got to do with Charing Cross in London?

One doesn’t just read Moby Dick, one studies it or even has to do research and this keeps many away from it.

In chapter 32 Cetology (study of whale; a branch of zoology), we read,

“This is Charing Cross; hear ye! Good people all, the Greenland whale is deposed, the great sperm whale now reigneth!”

While strolling in the Charing Cross, one may wonder: is this the Charing Cross Herman Melville was referring to? I think it is.

In the chapter of cetology Melville was talking about how Greenland whale had long been enthroned as monarch of the deep undeservedly as it “usurper upon the throne of the seas”.  And the time has come to right the wrong to proclaim that the great sperm whale should reign.  The followings are how he wrote,

The Greenland Whale, or Balaena mysticetus, has so frenetly been described in a popular manner, that the public voice has long enthroned him as monarch of the deep.” The Greenland whale “usurper upon the throne of the seas . . . not even by any means the largest of the whales.”  And “the time has at least come for a new proclamation.  This is Charing Cross; hear ye! Good people all, —Greenland whale is deposed, —the great sperm whale now reigneth!”

Melville visited London in 1849 and stayed in the house on Craven Street (Benjamin Franklin house is also nearby on the same street), next to Charing Cross (the house has since been demolished and is now marked by a blue plaque).  It is here that he conceived Moby Dick. It was also said he saw a one-legged beggar, the survivor of a whale attack; and that gave us the one-legged captain Ahab.

equestrian Charles I

While staying in Charing Cross Melville must have seen the statue of the equestrian Charles I; he must be familiar with the British Civil War story (American Civil War was still 11-12 years away in the making).  Melville might liken Oliver Cromwell (Parliamentarian) to Greenland whale, usurping the British throne, although Cromwell himself never claimed the throne.  Proclaiming the sperm whale as the king of the sea is like the restoration of the throne by Charles II—son of Charles I.

That is the best explanation I can come up with;  Moby Dick was first published in Britain and was never recognized in America up to his death in 1891.  British authors, the likes of Virginia Woolf and W.H. Auden acclaimed Moby Dick as “a modernist work before modernism was invented.”

Even the British are not sure why it is called Charing Cross.  Some say the old English word “cierring”, as there is a nearby bend of River Thames.  There was an Eleanor Cross back in 13^th century, commemorating wife of King Edward I, Charing came from chere reine—“dear queen” in French.  But some doubt it as the name predated Eleanor’s death by one hundred years.

Books in heaven, Moby Dick, Melville and Hawthorne

The other day Janice emailed me a funny quote from the end of a Woody Allen movie called Zelig,

“On his deathbed, Zelig told doctors that he had had a good life and the only annoying thing about dying was that he had just begun reading Moby Dick and wanted to see how it came out.”

To which I responded,

“Another reason we should finish Moby Dick one of these days, so we wouldn't have this kind of regret.  Zelig should have faith in that there are lots of books in heaven (how can a place called heaven were there no books there.)” It is quite a reassuring when Janice replied “OF COURSE there are books in heaven.”

We both have been reading Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; neither has finished yet (I’m reading the iBook version on iPad; she Kindle edition).

I picked up a bargain book of “Hawthorne and Melville” on my trip to Boston in 2012.  Moby Dick was published in 1851 (one year after Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter) and was dedicated to Hawthorne.  Hawthorne’e letter to Melville about the publication was lost, but Melville’s response was preserved, we read,

“I felt pantheist then-your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. . .” For a while they lived 6 miles apart from each other.

Joy likes to say she is in a way associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne as the place she now lives is called “Hawthorne Place”.

Why Read Moby-Dick?

Call me a contradictory man if you will; I do not leave home without my Kindle Fire or iPad, lest I would be caught without an eBook to read if I happened to have idle 5 or 10 minutes.  And yet I am still a passionate believer to read print book.

This small booklet (Why Read Moby-Dick?) by Nathaniel Philbrick is a good example.  The cover (see photo above) is noble, classy with dignity, in line with the book it reviews.  The author claims he has read Moby-Dick at least 10 times, and has lived at Nantucket since 1986.  After reading Chapter 4 (Nantucket) in this booklet, I went back to read the Chapter 14 (Nantucket) of Moby-Dick again, even though I haven’t finished reading the book yet.  This booklet has only 131 pages and is only about the size of the Kindle Fire (see photo below).

Moby-Dick was first published in 1851 and only sold 3,715 copies when Melville died in 1891.  William Faulkner said “Moby-Dick was the one novel by another author that he wished he had written.”  When Ernest Hemingway was a lion in winter, he wrote to his publisher (Charles Scribner) that “Melville was one of the handful of writers he was still trying to beat.”

Moby-Dick is a novel to read and study and that is why I need to read the book about it.  I bought a paper back, and yet I am reading the eBook version.  Call me a contradictory man if you will.  

The reading of Moby-Dick

There is a Label of “book” in this blog talking about many books; rarely did I preach which book to read, that is entirely personal liking and taste.  But, every so often I might come across a book and had an urge to say “you got to read it”.  Moby-Dick is one.

I bought a print Moby-Dick, but am reading it on my iPad.  I highlighted and bookmarked what I like as I read along.  I then searched, copied, and pasted them here (in Italic) to entice Janice so that she may pick up the book or the eBook; this may stir her heart as she has been contemplating reading it.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses.  But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.  Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweet-hearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.  (Chapter 6)

What a beautiful way to describe the women of New Bedford and Herman Melville quickly topped himself singing the praise of women of Salem.  This outdid any perfume commercials, including Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion, I have ever seen.  The use of aromatic fragrance to attract the opposite sex is probably as old as the human history. I wonder when the word of “perfume” was first used; I noticed Melville used “musk” which is quite appropriate in this setting. The writings are always relevant to the sea, the distant islands, and the whaling.  Religious scent permeates the book.  The names of many characters are biblical; “Call me Ishmael” is how the book begins.

“Call me Ishmael” is as memorable as the opening lines of “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities or that of “Now is the winter of our discontent” in Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Starbucks is named after the first mate, Starbuck. It was reported that Pequod (the name of the whale ship) was initially considered by one of the co-founders of the coffee chain, and they settled with Starbuck. I am hoping the loyal patrons of Starbuck know the omnipresent coffee chain has a literary flavor at its origin.

And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will.  (Chapter 1)

The above speaks of the glory of a cook on the whale ship.

He [the preacher] said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.

Chapter 9 is “Sermon” (Chapter 8 is Pulpit, there are 135 chapters in all).  Father Mapple was a sailor and harpooner in his youth so his sermon was highly relevant to a whaling community.  The way Melville described the preacher on the pulpit is very theatrical; the above is how the chapter ends. I hope John Huston’s1956 movie of Moby-Dick would show this scene of the congregation slowly walking out of the church in their heavy feet and heart with no preacher standing at the door, then the focus moved to the preacher still kneeling at the pulpit in fervent prayer alone.

“But the chowder; clam or cod tomorrow for breakfast, men?” Mrs. Hosea (the inn keeper) asked, “Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.”  It was mentioned earlier that clam or cod chowder was served for breakfast, dinner, and supper.

After finishing the business of having both clam and cod chowders, Ishmael wondered it had any effect on the head. “What’s that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people?”  I have been writing about our referring animals in a negative or unflattering way and the cod and clam are not spared, either; “chowder-headed” means foolish; stupid or lacking common sense.  No wonder Ishmael was protesting.

Melville devoted one chapter (Chapter 15) to Chowder. We no longer can indulge in Mrs. Hosea’s chowder, but some years ago Janice did take us to that seashore restaurant, about one-hour drive north to Boston, where the New England clam chowder began. .