A Community Reads a Masterpiece
Some of the hats my small town wears, in addition to "artist colony" and "international gay destination", include "historic New England fishing village" and "worldwide whale research center". The town had been atwitter this week with news of right whales feeding in the bay, visible from shore; a rare occurrence, when typically sightings occur at Herring Cove or Race Point nearby. With the company of whales nearby, it was opportune that the Provincetown Library had organized a three-day reading of Moby Dick for this weekend. I felt compelled to volunteer.
The fitting and dramatic backdrop to the readers' podium was our library's grand secret, an elegant half-scale schooner taking up most of the second floor, the Rose Dorothea. The model is complete with sheets (ropes), canvas, and masts extending up through the ceiling plane thirty feet up. Of three "days" (Library open hours Friday through Sunday, plus a late, 10 p.m. close on Saturday night and a 10am early open on Sunday) of readers, I was number 95 scheduled for 12:45 on Sunday.
I've never read Moby Dick. Somehow, my education never included it, and it never occurred to me to read it on my own. However, practicing my assigned passage aloud at home, I was blown away by the density of themes, metaphors, alliteration, lyrical words, detail and imagery in my six pages. Clearly, it is a masterpiece, and I will be reading the entire book on my own soon.
A sample from my volunteer reading, which struck me as perfect for a blog on transcendence:
There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: - through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? in what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.
The "Ifs" of adulthood; that is a surprisingly concise and poetic representation of the unexpected branching of life's paths and how we often wonder at choices in our pasts. The eternal Ifs and cycles in our lives only find their conclusions as we pass from this world; that truth hits home. The prevalence of death in this book cannot be understated. Of the perhaps 30 pages I've read or heard, I'd say half were dealing with themes or metaphors incorporating death. It isn't light reading, but is priceless in the beauty of the language, the verbal sketches of Americana and the way natural scenes are painted.
I was surprisingly nervous, having never read for an audience. The good news was that the audience was small, including only few readers before me, a few after, and a few observers who wandered in and out. One couple came in for a warm nap, their aroma indicating that they had sampled products from a leading industry here: cannabis. (There are six dispensaries in a town with a year-round population of about 3500. Of course, our summertime population is estimated at 60,000.) They were warm and comfortable when I left.
It was clear that some of the readers had done this before. Similar readings were done in 2022 and pre-pandemic, though I'm not sure how many. One gentleman brought props, including his own harpoon. When I arrived a woman was reading; her male companion read next, then another man, another woman, then me.
As I waited my turn and learned more about parts of the story leading to my passage, I wondered at the beauty of this pastime - a public reading of an American masterpiece: an event that required days of organization, a room of refreshments, and a commitment from more than 100 volunteers in a tiny town on a particular three spring days. The number of locals involved demonstrated an educated populace with respect for and enjoyment of the language arts and local history. That the Library devoted its resources beyond the usual hours and activities is a testament to its mission fostering reading and community, typical in US public libraries as well as those of my hosts last year, Australia and New Zealand.
Finally, it was my turn. I stepped up onto a platform and behind a podium, and began. My passage included more than its share of tongue-twisters, and though the older phraseology required unusual muscles in my mouth, I stumbled through with reasonable assurance. First, a lyrical description of a calm sea as a rolling prairie; then, an encounter with a ship celebrating an exceptionally large haul; and then, an epic description of a sunset killing of a whale by the men of the Pequod. The robust descriptions of imagery and characters revealed many deep connections to what we all understand as American; I now understand why Moby Dick is sometimes called the Great American Novel.
I was, in the end, proud to read from this great work, proud to know this product of our country and culture, and proud to be a part of this community celebration of Moby Dick.
