NPR news’s Melissa Block and Robert Siegel interview Nathaniel Philbrick on his new book called “Why Read Moby-Dick?” Mr. Siegel describes it as a “slim new book packed with insight”. Philbrick refers to Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick on a daily basis, and is in love with the book’s “metaphysical poetry”. Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of Melville’s favorite novelists, broadened his views on things and inspired him to write a darker version of Moby-Dick in 1850, compared to his first attempted story. Philbrick also tells us that William Shakespeare was another one of Melville’s inspirations. Shakespeare’s works engaged him and he applied those themes to his whaling experiences and what was going on in America with the Civil War approaching. The sidebars and anecdotes sprinkled throughout the story make Moby-Dick what it is today. It’s more than just a fisherman’s tale; it is deeper than that. But Moby-Dick was neither a critical nor commercial success, this is why it was only until after WWI when people really started discussing the book. Melville was a renowned writer of his time, who went overlooked and unappreciated for most of his career. “Contained in Moby-Dick is the genetic code going on in America when dealing with the issues of authority and nature”. Philbrick says that the novel will be relevant in American cataclysms to come.
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