Moby Dick again

I love Moby Dick. I am on Chapter 40 something now. some of the readers are amateurs who only read fairly well, and others are brilliant readers who make every word interesting. Will Self had a seemingly very boring chapter to read about the colour white, and how it struck fear into Ishmael, and all the connotations and anecdotes from history about the colour white, which is nothing on the page, but when Will Self read it aloud it was splendid, magnificent and joyous. I do recommend this audio book because the prose is strong, designed to be heard, like Shakespeare, or the Bible.

Because I listen sometimes inattentively, and the prose is very difficult in places, I wanted to have the book to refer to. Well, I thought that the book was in the Great Pile of Unread books, in the bedroom, along with some Dickens novels and Joyce's Ulysses. It was not. I decided I must have given up on the idea of ever getting through it, and I must have taken it to a charity shop. So I ordered it again, on Amazon, and have been reading it a little here and a little there. And yesterday I found that I had the unread copy all the time! It is in the American section of my little library. So I shall have a spare copy to give to someone.

Moby Dick the big read.

Last evening I went for a good walk and listened to Moby Dick, which is a podcast you can download through itunes. It is beautiful to listen to, like poetry. The chapters are all read by different readers, so one is not annoyed by hearing the same voice all the time. Yesterday I was on a particularly long chapter read by Simon Callow. I didn't recognise his voice at first because he managed to sound like Bill Bryson until he got into his stride, when he seemed to hit the New England accent, as far as I can tell. What a remarkable gift the man has! It was a long and difficult chapter where he took the part of a preacher telling about Jonah and the Whale, and it was like rolling waves of language, crashing in my ears as irregularly but as inevitably as the waves of the ocean.



here is the linkTHE SERMON

As I came back down the muddy path it was almost completely dark and there was no streetlight, and it was such a joy not to be able to see! It was damp and foggy too.