White Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War

by Herman Melville

White Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War, was understandably acclaimed for its authenticity when it was first published in 1850, since Herman Melville drew upon his own experiences serving on a U.S. Navy frigate in writing it. (The book's celebrated depiction of the horrors of corporal punishment was widely credited with influencing Congress to prohibit flogging aboard Naval vessels.) Yet while it is true that the book can be read as an involving account of life aboard the U.S.S. Neversink and the adventures that befall its officers and crew--the stalwart foretop captain Jack Chase; the poetic seaman Lemsford; the ferretlike quarter-gunner Quoin and the rest--there is something more here than a hearty tale of the sea. For already there are clear signs--the mysterious, perhaps cursed, white jacket that gives the narrator his identity, the elevation of the noble Jack Chase to an almost godlike status, the subtle depiction of the ship's company as a self-contained universe--of the symbolism and powerful themes that would characterize Melville's greatest work.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Adventure, Historical Fiction, American, 19th Century, Nautical

506 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1850

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. Typee, his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with the peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw. Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family.
Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector.
From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.

Reviews

[Henry Avila · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unspeakable problem looms for the book addict, it grows slowly at first then intensifies, since no cure will ever be found, but the reader can and should go on; continue their forward movement into the never-ending quest for knowledge and if I may be so ... presumptuous...enlightenment. No I'm not speaking of an illness of the body but of the soul...The final realization that a favorite writer of his or hers, has no more books to devour, none are left, the hand that wrote them will remain forever still. The uneasiness sets in...
There are only two, yet rather unappealing
options, get novels from other similar , but you believe inferior writers...or wait a few years and reread the cherished pages again. Having done the former, now beginning the latter, this is where my review begins...thank you friends for your indulgence...Herman Melville was obviously a great scribbler, this item White- Jacket is a lesser- known product of his genius. Melville in his youth joined the American navy in 1843, after jumping ship in a Pacific Ocean port, from a whaler, he went in order to get back home, on board the 200 foot long, three- masted frigate the "United States," one of the original six built by George Washington in the 1790's. Amusingly called here the "Neversink," Melville in this novel is known by an even sillier alias...acquiring the nickname White-Jacket, because of the ugly, patchwork coat he wears, an abomination , walking the decks or above on the mast, furling and unfurling the sails, reaching 100 feet in height, not for the squeamish. 500 men live in this crowded Man- of- War, ship, cleaner than you may imagine, mostly sleeping in swaying hammocks, caused by the constant rolling movements of the ship, ( feeling seasick ? ) old and young seamen, many different occupations, nationalities... Carpenters, pharmacists, boot makers, accountants, etc. , chickens and pigs in pens ...dogs... children too, all members of the numerous crew, even tough soldiers (U.S. Marines). Also an ancient, brilliant, intimidating surgeon, the most honored, ablest, nevertheless, a very eccentric man indeed, in the whole navy...how so, you may ask ? Well... Dr. Cuticle greatly enjoyed cutting off a man's leg in just a short minute, with a quick, deep slice, (doesn't mind all the gushing blood ), yes he was an unique character, nobody like him ...good or bad who knows?
A quiet chaplain giving uninspired sermons to sailors of different religions , a stern Captain Claret, and his unfriendly officers. Harsh, merciless discipline is...
key and always strenuously enforced, as the frequent, vicious flogging of the the seamen, for minor infractions testifies ... their scarred backs the proof.. This being the flagship of the navy, there is the almost invisible Commodore, seldom leaving his cabin, even the captain salutes him ( no admirals in the service in this Republic, until the Civil War). The navigating around the stormy, remote, ice covered and legendary Cape Horn, at the tip of South America, in order to get to their home port... never mind the freezing weather ... Is the best, most intense, exciting and riveting...
part of the novel . White-Jacket's friend , Englishman Jack Chase, the erudite, popular "captain" of his mast, provides the needed inspiration and skill to overcome the dangers ... an authentic documentary style telling of life on a frigate, more than a narrative story. This will be enjoyed by people who love the sea and the ships they vicariously travel in...Naturally it was for me a beautiful voyage...into the past.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melville never made it as a novelist--really: Moby Dick and his other "novels" failed, with a failure that still echoes. Possibly that's because he could never shape himself quite to the novel pattern. He enjoyed the facts too much--small wonder, with his own life constructed of facts almost too exotic to believe. He was one of a very few of his time strong enough to visit the far shores and talented enough to paint them, a very rugged, and very American, sort of genius.

But this is too much praise to the America of that age, I think. Melville's allusions, his offhand references, presume a base of classical knowledge rare in his generation and non-existent in ours. Expounding upon those allusions could fill a large book--and indeed that book exists. Its study would make a decent education all by itself.

Yet we continue to treat books like White Jacket as novels, possibly because we have no name for the genre Melville invented, and occupied all alone for a very long time. It was a kind of adventure anthropology, the explication of the unfamiliar through a sharp and thorough eye, told with humor and poetry. No one did it before, and no one has done it since. Maybe no one ever will do it again.

Students of American maritime history should consider themselves lucky that this eye dwelt so long on an American warship of 1841--as it happens, one of the original six frigates signed into being by George Washington. Here, far more thoroughly and acutely than I have seen anywhere else, is the picture of life aboard an American warship in active service during formative years of the mid-19th century.

We meet the people, learn the usages, hear the rolling of the drums to quarters--almost feel the lash. We get more than the flavor of the officers' insolence, and feel the injustice of an essentially British system of discipline imposed on an American democratic ethos. We also see something of Melville the reformist crusader, whose stated objective it was to make known the horrors of flogging to a wide audience. In this, even if the book sold poorly, he succeeded.

As an historical document alone this book is extremely worthwhile. When you add the fact of Melville's authorship, you have a very strong recommendation indeed.

[Evripidis Gousiaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Κάθε κεφάλαιο του βιβλίου είναι ένα κύμα. Και όπως τα κύματα σχηματίζουν την θάλασσα, έτσι και τα κεφάλαια αυτά περιλαμβάνουν ολόκληρη την θαλασσινή εμπειρία του Melville.

Κάτι που για άλλη μια φορά με συγκλόνισε είναι η ικανότητα του συγγραφέα να περιγράφει εικόνες και γεγονότα. Το βιβλίο δεν έχει πλοκή και δράση. Είναι απλώς μια περιγραφή της ζωής και των συνηθειών των ναυτικών πάνω σε ένα πολεμικό πλοίο τον 19ο αιώνα. Σκόρπιες αναμνήσεις του Melville από την δική του εμπειρία στην θάλασσα. Και όμως το κείμενο κρύβει μια ζωντάνια και μια παραστατικότητα που κρατά τον αναγνώστη σε ένα είδος παράξενης αγωνίας. Κάθε κεφάλαιο του είναι κάτι παραπάνω από απολαυστικό.

Ο Melville κατάφερε και μετέτρεψε σε δύο μήνες (τόσο χρειάστηκε για την συγγραφή του βιβλίου) ένα ναυτικό ημερολόγιο, σε μια θαλάσσια ναυτική εμπειρία όπου το "Καλή ανάγνωση" μπορεί εύκολα να αντικατασταθεί με το "Καλό Ταξίδι".

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melville's "White-Jacket" And Independence Day

I read "White-Jacket" for the Fourth of July in both 2012 and 2015. I am revisiting Melville and this book, a "paean on behalf of democracy" in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Melville's (August 1, 1819) birth.

I wanted to celebrate the Fourth of July by reading a classic work of American literature and decided to reread Melville's "White-Jacket", alternatively titled "The World in a Man-of-War". The book was Melville's fifth novel, written just before "Moby-Dick". It proved appropriate to July 4 for many reasons as, in his study of Melville, Andrew Delblanco aptly describes "White-Jacket" as a "paean on behalf of democracy."Melville: His World and Work It is that and more.

Written in 1850, "White-Jacket" purports to describe Melville's own experiences when he shipped in 1843 as an "ordinary seaman on board of a United States frigate,then lying in a harbor of the Pacific Ocean." Melville's voyage as a sailor lasted about 14 months as the ship sailed south around Cape Horn and then north in the Atlantic until ultimately reaching the United States where Melville was discharged. Melville calls the ship the "Neversink". It was a large sailing vessel, a man-of war, consisting of over 500 sailors and commanded by a captain, Captain Claret. There is also a Commodore on board the "Neversink" who commands a fleet. (At the time of the voyage, there were no admirals in the United States Navy.) Melville wrote "White Jacket" quickly and claimed he did not think highly of the book. In that judgment he seems to me mistaken.

This is a lengthy book consisting of 90 short chapters written in a large, expansive almost bravura style. It does not have a continuous developed plot but rather is episodic in form. Melville describes in great detail life onboard the Neversink, and the people on board. He makes great use of the telling anecdote. "White Jacket" is also full of long passages of reflection about navy life and the ambiguities of human nature. In many places, the book becomes almost more a long essay than a novel.

The book tells the story about an individual and about a world and microcosm. The book is narrated by "White-Jacket", and the reader never learns his name. The baggy white jacket the narrator wears and that give him his nickname frames many of his adventures as the jacket, together with the narrator's introspective, "meditative" disposition, separate him from most of his fellow sailors. As the book progresses, the white jacket subjects the narrator to ridicule at various times and, near the end of the book, almost becomes his shroud which leads to his death. After falling overboard from the mast, the narrator is able to cut off the old jacket to be rescued by the crew and return to a common humanity.

Besides this individual component of the story, Melville uses the ship as a metaphor for diversity and for American life and democracy where good and evil and people of all backgrounds and positions are intermixed. There is a degree of cameraderie and freedom from the restraints of a 9 to 5 life (or its 1850 equivalent) onboard the Neversink. There are acts of heroism and strong, noble individuals, including particularly Jack Chase, Melville's superior on the mast whose praises are sung throughout the book. Melville dedicated his late final novel "Billy Budd" to Jack Chase.

The strongest impression left by the book, however, is its criticism of excesses and cruelties in the Navy. In particular, "White Jacket" includes many passages and chapters about the punishment of flogging which was widely practiced on the Neversink under Captain Claret, an individual who is also shown as having good qualties. Melville offers graphic and repeated descriptions of flogging, including a description of how White Jacket himself fortunately and narrowly missed a severe flogging and of how an aged, revered sailor named Ushant received a flogging for disobeying an order of the Captain to trim his beard. Melville's book may have been a factor in an Act of Congress which outlawed flogging in the navy.

Melville also describes the large degree of stratification in the Navy between the seamen, or "people" and the officer crew, from the Commodore and Captain,through the Lieutenants and the young dictatorial Midshipmen. The book recognizes the need for discipline and organization on a military vessel at sea. But Melville writes sharply about petty tyrannies of one person over another,about rigid social distinctions, and about unnecessary excessive, and harsh discipline. The backdrop to the book is American democracy with its many people and freedoms, but also its excesses and injustices, including the institution of slavery. Melville also is critical of many of his fellow sailors, with their ignorance, profligacy, smugglings and thefts, and violence. At the end of the book, Melville writes:

"Oh, shipmates and world-mates all round! we the people suffer many abuses. Our gun-deck is full of complaints. In vain from Lieutenants do we appeal to the Captain; in vain-- while on board our world-frigate-- to the indefinite Navy Commissioners, so far out of sight aloft. Yet the worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers can not remove them, even if they would. From the last ills no being can save another; therein each man must be his own saviour."

Besides constituting a "paean on behalf of democracy", "White-Jacket" has a more immediate relationship to the Fourth of July. Several chapters in the book describe the celebration of the holiday on board the Neversink. When the ship ran out of grog before the holiday, the ship's officers allowed the sailors to celebrate the day by performing a play or "theatrical". The men decked themselves in costumes and wrote, rehearsed, and performed their own drama called "The Old Wagon Paid Off!" starring none other than Jack Chase. During the July 4 performance, ship discipline was relaxed. With the exception of the Commodore and the Captain, the ship's officers attended the performance, and shared a spirit of brotherhood and fellowship. White-Jacket said "the unwonted spectacle of the row of gun-room oficers mingling with 'the people' in applauding a mere seaman like Jack Chase, filled me at the time with the most pleasurable emotions." White Jacket continued:

"Nor was it without similar pleasurable feelings that I witnessed the temporary rupture of the ship's stern discipline, consequent upon the tumult of the theatricals. I thought to myself, this now is as it should be. It is good to shake off, now and then, this iron yoke round our necks. And after having once permitted us sailors to be a little noisy, in a harmless way -- somewhat merrily turbulent -- the officers can not, with any good grace, be so excessively stern and unyielding as before."

Alas, rigourous discipline soon returned to the ship.

In the story of the individual narrator, of life on the Neversink, and of the freedom and cameraderie of the theatrical on July 4, "White-Jacket" reminded me of the ideals celebrated in the United States on Independence Day.

Robin Friedman

[Daniel Villines · Rating 4 out of 5]

White Jacket is something of a treasure to have in print. In addition to being a work by Herman Melville, it's a chronicle of a unique type of life that was lived during a unique point in time. The life is that of a US sailor serving aboard a US sailing frigate of the same type and class as the USS Constitution. The time is the mid-1840s.

While considered to be a novel, it's more of a documentary. As such, the modern-day term "docudrama" comes to mind. The book captures a vast sampling of details associated with the life an ordinary seaman. Its foundation is Melville’s own experiences as a US sailor in 1843-1844, when he enlisted for service on board the USS United States for its voyage from Hawaii, around Cape Horn, and ending in Norfolk, Virginia. As a matter of humor, Melville calls his stand-in ship the USS Neversink.

Melville describes the food, the living conditions, the differences between the lives of officers and seamen, and the common but brutal disciplinary punishment of the time: flogging. I found it amazing that all of these aspects of life at sea were captured contemporaneously with their time. It's the perfect book to provide a solid foundation for the reading of any military sailing story set during the golden age of sail.

For those who find Melville a bit too detailed and wordy for their tastes, this novel is just the same. In fact, Melville gets so detailed at times, that his writing made me struggle to stay awake. With that said, however, it was interesting to view White Jacket as the book that directly preceded Moby Dick. From this perspective, you could see how Melville cut the detail, as best he could, while enhancing the drama to produce his classic sea story about a white whale.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Who knows that, when men-of-war shall be no more, ‘White-Jacket’ may not be quoted to show to the people in the Millennium what a man-of-war was?”

It seems as though Melville was quite right in the above assumption as to the future use of his novel – one hesitates to call it so - White-Jacket, for which he drew on his own navy experience and which he wrote down in less than ten weeks, regarding this book simply as a means of earning money. I just said I would hesitate to call White-Jacket a novel, and this is not meant in any deprecatory way – like in, “I’d hesitate to call Northanger Abbey a novel” –, but simply as a description, and a warning to some. In other words, if you are in search of a riveting yarn, a well-plotted story with a beginning and an ending and what it takes in-between, then you had better give this book a wide berth. White-Jacket is grim, funny, documentary, poetic, aphoristic, epic, instructive, dramatic, sober and hyperbolic, as well as episodic, and I would definitely consider it a hallmark of Melville’s genius as a writer that he is able to captivate and interest a reader by just weaving a sequence of episodes, everyday observations on board a ship and general reflections. In fact, he is not only talking about what happens on the USS Neversink but sometimes, he clearly stands in the literary tradition of using the ship as a metaphor of society as such, as, for instance here:

”It is often observable, that, in vessels of all kinds, the men who talk the most sailor lingo are the least sailor-like in reality. You may sometimes hear even marines jerk out more salt phrases than the Captain of the Forecastle himself. On the other hand, when not actively engaged in his vocation, you would take the best specimen of a seaman for a landsman. When you see a fellow yawning about the docks like a homeward-bound Indiaman, a long Commodore's pennant of black ribbon flying from his mast-head, and fetching up at a grog-shop with a slew of his hull, as if an Admiral were coming alongside a three-decker in his barge; you may put that man down for what man-of-war's-men call a damn-my-eyes-tar, that is, a humbug. And many damn-my-eyes hum-bugs there are in this man-of-war world of ours.”

The most impressive passages, however, which also contributed to the importance of this work are those in which Melville deals with the ignominious penal code of the American navy, especially with the quotidian punishment of flogging a sailor, which was a torture both to the body and the spirit of the man subjected to it. Melville waits for the readers to have accommodated themselves on board the ship before he broaches this dispiriting matter but then he treats it eloquently and with an undeniable amount of background knowledge, underlining how shameful it is for a nation like the U.S., which is based on unalienable rights endowed to every individual, to employ a penal code reeking of medieval tyranny:

”Certainly the necessities of navies warrant a code for their government more stringent than the law that governs the land; but that code should conform to the spirit of the political institutions of the country that ordains it. It should not convert into slaves some of the citizens of a nation of free-men. […] Whereas, it would hardly affect one iota the condition on shipboard of an American man-of-war’s-man, were he transferred to the Russian navy and made a subject of the Czar. […] For him our Revolution was in vain; to him our Declaration of Independence is a lie.”

In fact, Melville’s depiction of and reflexion on the barbarous methods of disciplining sailors – based on his own experience on board the USS United States from August 1843 to October 1844 but also on his reading of other accounts – contributed significantly to the abolition of flogging on American warships. In order to pave the way for this improvement, the publishers, Harper & Brothers, issued a copy of White-Jacket to every member of Congress.

White-Jacket not only focuses on the anachronism of corporal punishment but also gives a vivid impression of daily life aboard a man-of-war and of the various people one could meet there. Melville’s alter ego White-Jacket makes fun of the puffed-up authority of the Commodore, and of Captain Claret, more often using nonchalant humour than genuine bitterness, as for example here:

”Among other things, a number of men were detailed to pass up the rusty cannon-balls from the shot-lockers in the hold, and scrape them clean for service. The Commodore was a very neat gentleman, and would not fire a dirty shot into his foe.”

Or here:

”But, as for Captain Claret, though he did like his glass of Madeira uncommonly well, and was an undoubted descendant from the hero of the Battle of the Brandywine, and though he sometimes showed a suspiciously flushed face when superintending in person the flogging of a sailor for getting intoxicated against his particular orders, yet I will say for Captain Claret that, upon the whole, he was rather indulgent to his crew, so long as they were perfectly docile.”

We learn about the ship surgeon Cuticle, who would give his right arm for the opportunity to amputate a leg, just for the sport of it, or about the shifty master-at-arms Bland and his crafty machinations, likewise about the foppish lieutenant Selvagee, and his manly counterpart Mad Jack, who, in his off-handed way, even prevents a mutiny on the subject of the length of beards. On the other hand, we also get good portrayals of the people before the mast, e.g. the untiring captain of the forecastle, Jack Chase, a thoroughly decent man with a deep streak of poetry within him:

”’[…] A snuff of the sea, my boy, is inspiration; and having been once out of sight of land, has been the making of many a true poet and the blasting of many pretenders; for, d’ye see, there’s no gammon about the ocean; it knocks the false keel right off a pretender’s bows; it tells him just what he is, and makes him feel it, too. A sailor’s life, I say, is the thing to bring us mortals out. What does the blessed Bible say? Don’t it say that we main-top-men alone see the marvellous sights and wonders? Don’t deny the blessed Bible, now! Don’t do it! How it rocks up here, my boy!’ holding on to a shroud; ‘but it only proves what I’ve been saying--the sea is the place to cradle genius! Heave and fall, old sea!’

‘And you, also, noble Jack,’ said I, ‘what are you but a sailor?’

‘You’re merry, my boy,’ said Jack, looking up with a glance like that of a sentimental archangel doomed to drag out his eternity in disgrace. ‘But mind you, White-Jacket, there are many great men in the world besides Commodores and Captains. I’ve that here, White-Jacket’--touching his forehead—'which, under happier skies--perhaps in you solitary star there, peeping down from those clouds--might have made a Homer of me. But Fate is Fate, White-Jacket; and we Homers who happen to be captains of tops must write our odes in our hearts, and publish them in our heads. […]’”

Last but not least, Melville allows us a glimpse into truths that are valid both at sea and on shore, and he coats them into masterful language:

”The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. In the Past is no hope; the Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future the Bible of the Free.”

Or consider this interesting thought, which concludes a passage which describes White-Jacket’s readiness to plunge both himself and the captain, who intends to put him up at the gangway to have him flogged for a misunderstanding, into the everlasting depths of the sea:

”Yet though all this be so, nevertheless in our own hearts, we mold [!] the whole world’s hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods. Each mortal casts his vote for whom he will to rule the worlds; I have a voice to shape eternity; and my volitions stir the orbits of the furthest suns. In two senses, we are precisely what we worship. Ourselves are Fate.”

Considering the impact Melville had with White-Jacket when it came to outlawing one of the most appalling ills of his day and age, and considering the power and beauty with which his works still speak to the modern reader – if only he tune his ear to their pace, scope and erudition –, one may indeed realize that Melville’s voice might well be said to have shaped, if not eternity, then at least posterity.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Camoens! White-Jacket, Camoens! Did you ever read him? The Lusiad, I mean? It's the man-of-war epic of the world, my lad. Give me Gama for a Commodore, say I-Noble Gama! And Mickle, White-Jacket, did you ever read of him? William Julius Mickle? Camoens's Translator? A disappointed man though, White-Jacket. Besides his version of the Lusiad, he wrote many forgotten things. Did you ever see his ballad of Cumnor Hall? — No?-Why, it gave Sir Walter Scott the hint of Kenilworth. My father knew Mickle when he went to sea on board the old Romney man-of-war. How many great men have been sailors, White-Jacket! They say Homer himself was once a tar, even as his hero, Ulysses, was both a sailor and a shipwright. I'll swear Shakespeare was once a captain of the forecastle. Do you mind the first scene in The Tempest, White-Jacket? And the world-finder, Christopher Columbus, was a sailor! and so was Camoens, who went to sea with Gama, else we had never had the Lusiad, White-Jacket. Yes, I've sailed over the very track that Camoens sailed-round the East Cape into the Indian Ocean. I've been in Don Jose's garden, too, in Macao, and bathed my feet in the blessed dew of the walks where Camoens wandered before me. Yes, White-Jacket, and I have seen and sat in the cave at the end of the flowery, winding way, where Camoens, according to tradition, composed certain parts of his Lusiad. Ay, Camoens was a sailor once! Then, there's Falconer, whose 'Ship-wreck' will never founder, though he himself, poor fellow, was lost at sea in the Aurora frigate. Old Noah was the first sailor. And St. Paul, too, knew how to box the compass, my lad! mind you that chapter in Acts? I couldn't spin the yarn better myself.

Thus ends my mini-tour of the first five novels of Herman Melville, with his novellesque book about what life aboard a US Navy Vessel (the "USS Neversink") is like. I spent a summer on a Canadian one myself (the HMCS Huron, out of Esquimault, Vancouver Island) and—well, though unlike the humiliated titular hero of Redburn (Melville #4), I did dine with the Captain and XO on one occasion, and can report that civilities aboardships have advanced more than a little in the intervening years, I can't say as I liked the life of the sea overmuch (or, subsequently, have ever thought of reading books about it, in fact recoiling from any that so much as mention ships, waves, &c.). But then again, there were no Herman Melvilles on board to beguile me with such (and so many!) hootenannyish litanies, jermiadical philippics and sophistical near-genius hysterical historico-listicles as the above.

Cos yep, pretty much every time an aspect of shipboard life arises (and it's all that, since not much other than a race with another vessel, the rounding of the Cape Horn, and some liberty time in Rio really "happens" in this not-short book), HM is there, like a latterday Machiavelli, to inform us as to how said aspect ties into the entirety of our historical/cultural inheritance, viz. this explanation of how American Articles of War (offences contra the which, as with so, so many landlubberly crimes, well over a thousand IIRC, were capital) evelved:

Whence came they? And how is it that one arm of the national defences of a Republic comes to be ruled by a Turkish code, whose every section almost, like each of the tubes of a revolving pistol, fires nothing short of death into the heart of an offender? How comes it that, by virtue of a law solemnly ratified by a Congress of freemen, the representatives of freemen, thousands of Americans are subjected to the most despotic usages, and, from the dockyards of a republic, absolute monarchies are launched, with the "glorious stars and stripes" for an ensign? By what unparalleled anomaly, by what monstrous grafting of tyranny upon freedom did these Articles of War ever come to be so much as heard of in the American Navy?
Whence came they? They cannot be the indigenous growth of those political institutions, which are based upon that arch-democrat Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence? No; they are an importation from abroad, even from Britain, whose laws we Americans hurled off as tyrannical, and yet retained the most tyrannical of all.
But we stop not here; for these Articles of War had their congenial origin in […].

I shall spare you those details. Suffice it to say this: the first five novels of Herman Melville are of a necessity to no one save those few who needs must trace the evolution of the author's style towards his masterpiece, Moby Dick, his sixth and seemingly parthenogenetic novel, Moby Dickno.

And/but: No again, alas, these five books will not get you there, will not give you that graceful upwards-arcing arc of the apprentice's steady acquisition of skill. They will give you glimpses (especially in his third book, Mardi), such as, on occasion, here (in a 5* orator's delight/defense of the common sailor's right to so much as wear a beard):

"D'ye hear there, fore and aft? All you that have long hair, cut it short; and all you that have large whiskers, trim them down, according to the Navy regulations."
This was an amendment, to be sure; but what barbarity, after all! What! not thirty days' run from home, and lose our magnificent homeward-bounders! The homeward-bounders we had been cultivating so long! Lose them at one fell swoop? Were the vile barbers of the gun-deck to reap our long, nodding harvests, and expose our innocent chins to the chill air of the Yankee coast! And our viny locks! were they also to be shorn? Was a grand sheep-shearing, such as they annually have at Nantucket, to take place; and our ignoble barbers to carry off the fleece?
Captain Claret! in cutting our beards and our hair, you cut us the unkindest cut of all! Were we going into action, Captain Claret-going to fight the foe with our hearts of flame and our arms of steel, then would we gladly offer up our beards to the terrific God of War, and that we would account but a wise precaution against having them tweaked by the foe. Then, Captain Claret, you would but be imitating the example of Alexander, who had his Macedonians all shaven, that in the hour of battle their beards might not be handles to the Persians. But now, Captain Claret! when after our long, long cruise, we are returning to our homes, tenderly stroking the fine tassels on our chins; and thinking of father or mother, or sister or brother, or daughter or son; to cut off our beards now-the very beards that were frosted white off the pitch of Patagonia-this is too bitterly bad, Captain Claret! and, by Heaven, we will not submit. Train your guns inboard, let the marines fix their bayonets, let the officers draw their swords; we _will not_ let our beards be reaped-the last insult inflicted upon a vanquished foe in the East!
[…]
"My friend, I trust your scissors are consecrated. Let them not touch this beard if they have yet to be dipped in holy water; beards are sacred things, barber. Have you no feeling for beards, my friend? think of it;" and mournfully he laid his deep-dyed, russet cheek upon his hand. "Two summers have gone by since my chin has been reaped. I was in Coquimbo then, on the Spanish Main; and when the husband-man was sowing his Autumnal grain on the Vega, I started this blessed beard; and when the vine-dressers were trimming their vines in the vineyards, I first trimmed it to the sound of a flute. Ah! barber, have you no heart? This beard has been caressed by the snow-white hand of the lovely Tomasita of Tombez-the Castilian belle of all lower Peru. Think of that, barber! I have worn it as an officer on the quarter-deck of a Peruvian man-of-war. I have sported it at brilliant fandangoes in Lima. I have been alow and aloft with it at sea. Yea, barber! it has streamed like an Admiral's pennant at the mast-head of this same gallant frigate, the Neversink! Oh! barber, barber! it stabs me to the heart.-Talk not of hauling down your ensigns and standards when vanquished-what is that, barber! to striking the flag that Nature herself has nailed to the mast!"

3*, though, taken all in all, Captain Claret. What, join you in a glass, sir? Much obliged...

[Gianni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giacca Bianca è il soprannome con cui si presenta il protagonista del libro, un giovane marinaio imbarcato per una crociera di tre anni sul Neversink, fregata della marina militare degli Stati Uniti. La giacca bianca è l’indumento protettivo che il protagonista confeziona da sé utilizzando la tela delle vele, per ripararsi dalle intemperie nel corso della navigazione che prevede il passaggio da Capo Horn. È un indumento rimediato alla bell’e meglio che ha l'inconveniente di essere poco pratico perché si inzuppa facilmente e di conseguenza si appesantisce, ma impedisce anche al marinaio di mescolarsi e mimetizzarsi con gli altri, essendo l’unica giacca di quel colore che spicca rendendolo facilmente riconoscibile e additabile: una forma di diversità. Una diversità senz’altro dettata dall’inesperienza, ma che trova fondamento anche nell’attività di osservazione e descrizione appartata a cui si dedica Giacca Bianca.
La narrazione si muove con brevi capitoli, in genere collegati tra loro, che si snodano attraverso la descrizione della fregata, delle tecniche di navigazione a vela, degli individui e dei loro ruoli di appartenenza all’interno della gerarchia della nave, con storie e aneddoti frutto dell’esperienza maturata da Melville nel suo servizio di circa un anno prestato nella marina militare degli Stati Uniti. La nave rappresenta un microcosmo che rispecchia l’intera società, quella che Giacca Bianca descrive come fregata mondo, e che ne riflette anche i rapporti di classe, le storture, gli abusi. La nave diventa un universo chiuso, quasi un universo concentrazionario in cui tutto viene amplificato e dove non c’è quasi spazio per i singoli individui.
Scritto come un resoconto di viaggio o un giornale di bordo, le descrizioni e le riflessioni di Giacca bianca diventano spesso minuziose, quasi sempre piacevoli e godibili, che sembrano sprigionare anche stupore mescolato a ironia e sarcasmo. Occorre arrivare quasi a metà libro per incontrare quelle sulla pratica della fustigazione che hanno reso famoso e importante questo testo, ma non è l’unico abuso che viene narrato. Le riflessioni sulla fustigazione si estendono anche a pensieri più larghi sui rapporti di classe, ”Questo odioso contrasto tra i sentimenti con i quali i marinai semplici e gli ufficiali del Neversink erano in attesa di quella guerra che sembrava più che possibile, è uno dei molti esempi che si potrebbero citare per dimostrare sia l'antagonismo che esisteva fra i loro interessi, sia l’incurabile antagonismo in cui sostanzialmente vivevano. Ma uomini i cui interessi sono così diversi possono anche solo sperare di vivere davvero insieme in autentica armonia? Si può mai sperare che la fratellanza che deriva dal fatto di appartenere tutti alla razza del genere umano prevalga su una nave da guerra, a bordo della quale la rovina di un uomo costituisce quasi la fortuna di un altro? Abolendo la fustigazione, aboliremo forse la tirannia, cioè quella tirannia che prevarrà sempre quando, fra due classi essenzialmente antagoniste e in perpetuo contatto, una è incommensurabilmente più forte dell’altra? Non c’è dubbio che sembri una cosa quasi impossibile. E dal momento che il fine stesso di una nave da guerra, come dice il suo stesso nome, è quello di combattere proprio quelle battaglie che così tanto ripugnano ai marinai, allora finché esisterà una nave da guerra essa rimarrà sempre il paradigma di quanto c’è di tirannico e repellente nella natura umana.”
Se il colore bianco della giacca, nel rendere evidente il giovane e inesperto marinaio ne volesse rappresentare anche l’ingenuità e la purezza, i fatti di cui Giacca Bianca è testimone oltre che osservatore ne determinano il risveglio e la perdita dell’innocenza; non per niente a pochi giorni dal ritorno a casa Giacca Bianca precipita in mare cadendo dal pennone e può salvarsi solo liberandosi del suo non più tanto candido indumento.
Le parole finali del libro forse possono essere lette come un appello a guardare dentro sé stessi anziché cadere in uno sterile lamentio o a un’appellarsi ai superiori, ”Noi, gente di bordo, sopportiamo molti abusi. Il nostro ponte di batteria risuona in continuazione di lamenti. Inutilmente ci appelliamo al comandante contro i tenenti di vascello; inutilmente - mentre siamo a bordo del nostro mondo - ci appelliamo agli indefiniti commissari della Marina di guerra, così irraggiungibili, tanto sono in alto. Eppure, i peggiori dei nostri mali ce li infliggiamo da soli; e i nostri ufficiali non possono eliminarli, nemmeno se lo volessero. Dai mali estremi nessuna creatura può salvarne un’altra; per cui ogni uomo dovrebbe essere salvatore di sé stesso.” Che sia una uscita individuale dal guado?

[Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

"En este libro no tengo nada que hacer con tierra firme , salvo contemplarla de tanto en tanto desde el agua. Sólo mi mundo de un buque de guerra debe proporcionarme material para mi narración; he dado mi palabra de mantenerme a flote hasta la última palabra de mi relato."

Escrita en 1850 un año antes que “Moby Dick”, Herman Melville describe en "Chaqueta blanca" y con total conocimiento lo que ocurre a bordo de un buque de guerra con conocimiento de causa, ya que el autor había sido marinero durante tres años en los Mares del Sur (de donde recogió sus experiencias para escribir “Redburn”, “Taipí” y “Omú”) y alrededor del mundo también, pero además, formó parte de la tripulación de una buque de guerra.
Chaqueta blanca es él mismo caracterizado como el narrador de la novela y en ella describe puntualmente sus experiencias ficcionalizadas a bordo del Neversink (Insumergible) durante las casi cuatrocientas páginas que tiene el libro.
Analizando brevemente el título del libro encuentro cierta conexión con "Moby Dick", novela en la que el Capitán Ahab persigue precisamente una ballena blanca.
Es más, en "Moby Dick" Melville ocupa todo un capítulo llamado "La blancura de la ballena" disertando acerca de su obsesión por el color blanco, siendo este el capítulo más metafísico de todo el libro, en el que Melville nos ofrece precisamente un estudio profundo sobre la simbología del color blanco.
Volviendo a esta novela, es de destacar el conocimiento cabal y completo de todas las partes de un barco y además de todos los rincones del mundo que conoció navegando los siete mares.
Lamentablemente, la escasa acción, la falta de un argumento y lo extremadamente descriptivo de la novela, logra que el lector pierda un poco de interés en la lectura si nos ponemos a pensar de que en “Moby Dick” vuelve a describir las partes de un barco sumándole todo lo concerniente a la caza de ballenas.
Aunque en este caso se trata de un buque de guerra y en el de la otra novela de un barco ballenero, resulta casi imposible leer los dos libros porque resultaría en una saturación informativa total para el lector.
Con sólo un estudio de dos personajes como lo son Jack Chase y el capitán Claret, el libro es simplemente una crónica y una descripción constante sin "plot" alguno.
"Chaqueta blanca" es a mi entender una novela escrita solamente para los fanáticos de Herman Melville (como yo), aunque puede que llegue a interesar a otros, pero como novela está demasiados peldaños por debajo de "Moby Dick".

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine Moby Dick. Strip away the entire plot. Get rid of Ahab, Queequeg, Starbuck, and any other interesting character. Discard the philosophical flourishes and the incomprehensible contemplations about the nature of whiteness. Substitute one man-of-war for the Pequod, and go very heavy on the man-of-war analogues to MD's whaling chapters. Voila: White-Jacket.

I admit, to many, this recipe probably sounds truly dreadful. And as a novel, it is dreadful. The more I read of him, the more convinced I am that Melville is easily the worst novelist of all those who have fine reputations. His books tend to lack plots, drama, or believable characters (and here any characters at all). His dialogue, when he bothers with any, is as bad as it gets. But avast maties! There may be no one better at pure rhetoric than Melville. And when he's good, his prose is just a pure joy to read.

As a novel, this book is a total disaster. But that's not what he was trying to do. Instead, he says he's trying to show us the world on a man-of-war. Here, I think he fares much better. He's also spending much of his time crying for reforms. For those of you who think that scourging with a cat of nine tails is a good thing, you should probably read something other than this book. Melville makes a very good case for reform here. And if the Procrastination Society of America has this reform somewhere on its agenda, I might get around to joining them someday.

I was about ready to give up on this book. As a series of short essays on life aboard a ship, it was a hit or miss thing. Some sections were great to read, but frankly, much of it is pretty dull and even worse, somewhat repetitive. But then, out of nowhere, there is an purely inspired section about the Massacre of the Beards, and reading it just made my day, perhaps even my week. As I said, when Melville is great, he's as good as anything. And because of this marvelous gem, along with some other scattered nuggets, I have to say that I liked this book. But then, I love the whaling chapters in Moby Dick, too. Take that for what its worth.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first half of this book very much. Supposedly partly autobiographical, the novel tells about life on a Man-o-war in the American Navy in the mid-1800's. Melville had indeed served a little over a year on a Navy ship, but was he really the skilled top-man White Jacket, so named because of the coat he made for himself? Perhaps. After all, the man-o-war Melville served aboard was not his first ship. It was merely his first Navy ship.

We join the crew in Callao, Peru for a trip around Cape Horn, then a stop in Rio and then home. Along the way Melville as White Jacket tells us not only how and why he made that coat, but all about shipboard society, rules and regulations, games and customs, and just about everything else that I have read about in sea stories but never entirely understood, including more than a few surprises.

I zipped through the first chapters, but then let myself become intimidated by the title of Chapter VI. Somehow the thought of reading THE QUARTER-DECK OFFICERS, WARRANT OFFICERS, AND BERTH-DECK UNDERLINGS OF A MAN-OF-WAR; WHERE THEY LIVE IN THE SHIP; HOW THEY LIVE; THEIR SOCIAL STANDING ON SHIP-BOARD; AND WHAT SORT OF GENTLEMEN THEY ARE stopped me in my tracks. Well, that and the Olympics on television. I did finally take the plunge and that chapter wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be, so I went flying along and rounded Cape Horn and arrived at Rio, where we all anchored until the Olympics were over.

And this is when I bogged down again. There are XCIII mostly short chapters in this book. After
XXXIX of them, I'm afraid I began to lose interest. I just skimmed through most of the 'in harbor' chapters, and generally wanted shore leave worse than the sailors themselves did. I can't help it, I guess when I read any book about a sailing ship, I prefer to be out on the ocean and not anchored in port, even as lovely a one as Rio.

Melville exposed a great deal about the rough and unjust treatment of sailors on a man-o-war of his day. Certain sections read like the text of a debate speech, such as the chapters on flogging, still in horrid use at the time. And not only flogging with a cat-o-nine-tails as punishment for breaking rules, but general whipping with a bit of rope known as a 'colt' for anyone perceived as not doing their job in the proper sailor fashion. This blow could come at any time of a sailor's watch, but the floggings were more formal and the entire crew had to turn out to witness them. It truly is a wonder to me that the Navy managed to survive at all. I think I would have jumped ship and become a pirate.

Overall, there was a great deal of interesting information here and mostly presented in an interesting manner. I think White Jacket just fell victim to the Curse Of Bad Timing in my reading life.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after reading Erving Goffman's "Asylums". In that book, Goffman, a sociologist, discusses the rise of "Total Institutions", i.e. institutions that totally control the lives of those within. Melville's "White Jacket" is a book that Goffman often referred to in order to illustrate different aspects of life within the total institution.
The introductory essay to this book discusses White Jacket in relationship to the growing bro-ha-ha over slavery, but I thought the book was much more interesting then that.

What was most suprising to me, having never read Melville before, was how funny some of the chapters were. Episodes involving Surgeon Cuticle amputating the leg of an unwilling seaman recall the funniest moments of television shows like Monty Python or the Simpsons.

Melville's accurate portrayal of life within the "T.I.", reminded me of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". There, the setting is an insane asylum, here it is a Man O' Wear, but both books deal with the tactics and strategies an individual might employ when faced with an oppressive living environment.

Although I am not sure when, or if, I might try to tackle author's masterpiece 'Moby Dick', I did come away from this book with a profound respect for Melville's capabilities as a writer. I will no longer take for granted his status among the pantheon of American writers.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herman Melville could be the greatest American novelist, or he can be deadly boring, as he is in Mardi. White Jacket or, the World on a Man-of-War is a bit of both. Written just before its author embarked on Moby Dick, it covers a stint served by Melville for over a year on the USS United States, here called the USS Neversink.

From a documentary perspective, the book is an excellent look at what life was like in a US Navy frigate in the 1840s. The problem is when Melville tries to philosophize, mostly toward the second half of the book, when he feels he is running out of material. Melville's descriptions are, as usual, excellent -- but when he takes sides on an issue, he can be fair-to-middling deadly, as he is on the subject of punishments and the Naval Code. In all fairness, the US publisher handed out copies to Congressmen, who put a stop to flogging on naval warships.

What fails here works perfectly in Moby Dick, making me think he was more motivated.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like a much more mature effort by Melville, and though he falls back on old haunts - notably the salacious attention to details and descriptions - he nevertheless forms a more cohesive and interesting narrative than some of his earlier exploits. He finds a steadier voice in this work, working symbolism more adroitly into the story than before, and showing again his technical mastery of the English language.

While this perhaps wasn't overwhelmingly memorable for me, it was nonetheless one of his better works before the famous Moby-Dick, and I rank it in the pre-MD top three, alongside Typee and Redburn. More than that, however, this is still so mired in delicious minutiae that it could practically serve as a work of nonfiction, giving the reader a nigh encyclopedic glance into the workings of a 19th century Man 'O War that is unequaled outside a considerably dryer and dustier tome.

Very good book, very engaging, and I could recognize the growth of the author in the attempt. Definitely worth picking up if you enjoy Melville, and I consider it to be fairly accessible overall.

[Bill W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was intended as a tract against the Navy's use of flogging, and certainly it serves that purpose well enough; but its fascination endures today - especially for any Navy veteran - because of its insights into the culture of a warship, then and now. Over 150 years after he described it the heirarchy of a US Navy ship has changed little: the Master-at-Arms is still the ship's disliked and mistrusted policeman, and his lackeys are detested; the brig remains a fearsome place; chief petty officers are still the ruling class, and passed-over first-class petty officers still foment trouble out of boredom and frustration. This detailed and atmospheric evocation of life on board a sailing warship includes the earliest citation I've ever found of the old, old joke about a ship moored in a harbor so long, she goes aground on her garbage ("the bones of our beef.")

[v · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following on from Typee and Omoo, White-Jacket adapts Melville's experiences in a U.S. Navy man-of-war -- here renamed the "Neversink" -- after his adventures in Polynesia.
Like those two books, it is more a travelogue and sketchbook than a novel and contains witty, vivid, and insightful descriptions of the structure and society of the massive ship as it sails from Peru around Cape Horn, docks in Rio de Janeiro, and putters back up the Eastern seaboard. Throughout, more or less subtle connections are drawn between the world in the man-of-war and that in American society more generally, and more mysterious and personal meanings are worked out in the titular white jacket worn by the narrator (presaging, of course, the white whale in Moby-Dick). Many of its short chapters are gems of genius (like the gut-wrenching "The Operation," which describes a sailor's leg amputation), and the book as a whole is expertly paced and lushly written.
So ends perhaps the first successful attempt of a major American writer to write autobiographical fiction -- by the end of White-Jacket, though, I think it was plainly time for Melville to move on to bigger things.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know how it goes. I took a sailing trip a few months ago so afterward I figured it was a good time to read Melville again. White Jacket alternates between descriptive expositions on various facets and crew members of the ship which are usually followed up with anecdotes and ruminations illuminating whatever the previous chapter sought to lay out for the reader. He's not trying to give you a seafaring epic but rather he's trying to show you the day to day existence of a Man of War ship in a standing Navy. He went to great lengths to expose the barbarity of flogging and Wikipedia says it helped to persuade congress to abolish it. As the book moves on Melville's reflections grow increasingly rhapsodic as he expounds on the Neversink as a microcosm of the world at large. That's where things get cool. Money shot!

[Yonina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and much more focused on the social dimensions of sailing life- communities, entertainment, justice, violence, drink, scheming, and more. Oh my god, the surgeon who cut off that man’s leg…the lashing Whitejacket almost got but which was called off at the last time…the cannonballs rolling around under the deck…much more routinely disturbed / chaotic than Moby Dick. At first I thought this was better, but without Ahab as central demonic antagonist and without the focus on the natural world and the whale as central sublime, White Jacket is just so human…..and what I love so much about Moby-Dick’s Melville is that he’s beyond the human, reaching for the ethereal weather of pure knowledge and then falling back down again. That said, the near death experience in this book- and the final shedding of the jacket- were incredible and real and visceral and alive. I’m not sure anything in Moby-Dick reaches that level of internal, individual stakes. Top notch.

[Gwynplaine26th · Rating 3 out of 5]

Melville prestò servizio nella marina americana per dieci anni, dal 1843 in poi, sulla USS United States. Molto critico nei confronti della Marina americana di quell'epoca, il romanzo è basato sulle esperienze personali dell'autore, nonché sulle storie che ha sentito da altri marinai.

In parte autobiografia, in parte narrativa, Giacchetta bianca rimane un romanzo sociale brillante e acuto, figlio della mente di uno dei grandi scrittori del mare. 

[Cam Netland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible, informative, and insane. Someone needs to convince Robert Eggers to recreate the pivotal scenes of this novel into a surrealistic horror movie. The scenes with the demented surgeon gleefully amputating the top man before his peers, the cursed white jacket attempting to kill our narrator, the flogging of innocents from out of touch officers, and the speeches from the illustrious Jack Chase would make great cinema.

[Phil Brown]

Honestly excruciating to get through. A lot of interesting ideas, but zero plot. Basically a collection of polemic essays about how the Navy sucks. Makes Moby-Dick seem like a graphic novel by comparison.

[Joel Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful Melville here. Defining exactly what kind of book White Jacket is strains the genre classifications. It is clearly not non-fiction, even though it is based off of Melville's real experiences. But it is less fiction than it is partially mythologized true experience. And I think that's what Melville was going for. The mythological and episodic tone to these stories, theological opinions, condemnations of Navy practices, and musings on history and philosophy are closer to Plutarch's Lives than anything. This is fitting, considering Lives is referenced by Melville at least once in White Jacket, almost like he was dropping the hint about his structural inspiration.

Immediately, this book was transportive, and its continued success or dragging as a complete work was concomitant with the heights of wit and transportiveness reached by Melville. Some parts of it are simply not on the same level as the rest of it - of course, that still puts them several levels ahead almost every writer who has ever lived. When White Jacket is at its best though, one can - I could, I mean - almost feel the 19th century ocean air, smell the seawater, hear the sailors fighting with each others, and feel the general excitement, fatigue, and even boredom of manowar life. And this is of course exactly what Melville set out to do. The section about rounding Cape Horn was one of the most transportive and insane things I've ever read! Truly, I felt able to comprehend just how treacherous and turbulent such a journey could be.

This is filled with recurring characters, some who seem very real and some, like the sociopathic surgeon, Dr. Cuticle, seem too ludicrous to be true. One of the best of all though is Old Man Ushant, the one man who refused to allow his beard to be shaved, even on order of the captain; even after being whipped nearly to death; and even after being thrown in the brig for weeks. Melville turns this character into a nautical Socrates, a comparison he is not subtle about at all, and creates a whole moral odyssey out of it that spans several chapters. At one point, Melville even claims to have fantasized a plan of murdering the captain on the spot by pushing him overboard and drowning him if the captain dared to whip him. It is retellings such as these that blur the lines in the best possible way. Plutarch said in his telling of Theseus, which was directly cited in White Jacket, "May I therefore succeed in purifying Fable, making her submit to reason and take on the semblance of History. But where she obstinately disdains to make herself credible, and refuses to admit any element of probability, I shall pray for kindly readers, and such as receive with indulgence the tales of antiquity." This, I think, can be read as the philosophy behind Melville's process here - the only difference is that Melville is comedically and deliberately creating the murkiness and myth.

Because Melville cannot possibly resist giant metaphors, he confirms in the final chapter what many readers doubtless suspected, based on many clues, throughout the book: that the ship and all its happenings can be seen as a beautiful poetic allegory for the arc of human existence, purpose, direction and progress. Really, it is actually astoundingly beautiful and only Melville could pull it off. As I said before, one suspects that certain things said with a deceptively mundane tone throughout the book are meant to analogize greater theological and philosophical ideas. Of course, he sometimes eschews all pretense of subtlety and simply writes mini-essays on all manner of things, often filled with rebellious vigor and morally sophisticated insight, and sometimes with painfully earnest but unsophisticated patriotism and imperialism - both concepts that Melville would grow to have a very complicated relationship with throughout his life.

Perhaps most wonderful of all is Melville philosophizing about the mysterious depth of our existence and the equally mystifying feeling that all souls are moving toward harmonious reunion in one way or another at the end of this "world-frigate" we sail on: "Outwardly regarded, our craft is a lie; for all that is outwardly seen of it is the clean swept deck, and oft-painted planks comprised above the water-line; whereas, the vast mass of our fabric, with all its storerooms of secrets, forever slides along far under the surface. When a shipmate dies, straightaway we sew him up, and overboard he goes; our world-frigate rushes by, and nevermore do we behold him again; though, sooner or later, the everlasting undertow sweeps him toward our own destination." To think that this is not even in the top tier of Melville books!

Last of all, Melville is extremely funny and I often laughed to myself while reading White Jacket. The section about Cuticle the surgeon is brilliant dark comedy.

Other nuggets:

The fairly frequent use of the wonderful word, "Terraqueous"
The same with the word, "Equinoctial"
The use of a favorite Melville phrase, though not original to him, "Woe betide you!"
The insult, "You sea-tallow strainer!"
The word, "Amanuensis"
The insult, "Laggards"
The word, "Afflatus"
The word, "Purlieus"
The word, "Cosmorama"
The word, "Contumely"
The word, "Spavined"
The word, "Oleaginous"
This phrase, describing dying during a naval battle: "Playing cannon-ball billiards over your grave"
The phrase, "World's end whelm us!"
The insult, "Switch-carrying dandies of these spindle-shank days"

Quotes:

"Idleness is the hardest work in the world."

"For a ship is a bit of terra-firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king."

"Beware... of lonely lighthouse men."

On the importance of a man dying in comfort: "No ill-will concerning his tailor should intrude upon his thoughts of eternity."

"The Navy is the asylum for the perverse"

"We sailors sail not in vain. We expatriate ourselves to nationalize with the universe; and in all our voyages around the world we are still accompanied by those old circumnavigators, the stars, who are shipmates and fellow sailors of ours - sailing in heaven's blue, as we on the azure main."

On the frustration of having a badly constructed hammock: "I felt as if some gigantic archer had hold of me for a bow."

"You become identified with the tempest; your insignificance is lost in the riot of the stormy universe around...you might have foundered and gone down, had the spirit of the Cape said the word."

"We are all fatalists at bottom... for it is pretty certain that the whole earth itself is a vast hogshead, full of inflammable materials, and which we are always bestriding."

"Depravity in the oppressed is no apology for the oppressor."

"How efficacious, in all despotic governments, it is for the throne and alter to go hand in hand."

"My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes,, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound to much."

"What a luxury is grief, when you can get a private closet to enjoy it in."

"The public and the people... let us hate the one, and cleave to the other."

"It is no pleasing task, nor a thankful one, to dive into the souls of some men."

On death at sea: "Here you lie becalmed on the last calm of all."

"What standing armies are to nations, what turnkeys are to jails, these marines are to the seamen in large menofwar." He really did not like marines.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Merely the account of a sailor's journey on a man-of-war, what White-Jacket lacks in a noticeable plot, it makes up for in the sheer quality of its prose. In White-Jacket, the classic American author Herman Melville combines his unparalleled gift for composition with heartfelt convictions regarding life, both as a military sailor and in general.

Surprisingly, despite lacking in much of a storyline, the ending of this book is one of the greatest of any I've read to date. The whole last chapter builds and builds, the culmination of which is a two line piece of poetry that not only closes the novel, but also leaves the reader encouraged and inspired; a feeling of refreshment lingers on the mind as it does on the tongue after a good Coke.

I just can't bring myself to give it away. You'll have to read it for yourself.

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

4* Moby Dick: or, the White Whale
4* Billy Budd, Sailor
2* The Lightning-Rod Man
3* Bartleby the Scrivener
TR White-Jacket

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the navy. Best read as creative non-fiction.

[Iván · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con Chaqueta blanca me ha ocurrido algo a lo que ya me voy acostumbrando: los defectos de Melville, al menos en la medida en que yo los reconozco, no parecen restar valor a su obra. En parte por cierto favoritismo y conexión que tengo con el autor, en parte por la indulgencia que solemos mostrar a los grandes genios, capaces de compensar con una página otras cien de monotonía.

La novela describe la vida cotidiana en la Marina de los Estados Unidos, en concreto en la fragata USS Neversink, inspirada en la USS United States, en la que sirvió el propio Melville a mediados del s. XIX. Su subtítulo, el mundo en un buque de guerra, resume con fidelidad su contenido. El propio autor la consideró como una obra superficial, escrita para ganar dinero, aunque se vendió bastante bien. El argumento es prácticamente inexistente: el protagonista queda en segundo plano, como suele suceder en Melville, para presentar una historia narrada episódicamente, con capítulos dedicados a los pormenores de la vida naval. El buque de guerra funciona como un mundo en miniatura (tenía de todo: maestros, médicos, clérigos, músicos...) que Melville aprovecha para explorar los tira y afloja entre distintas categorías sociales.

Esa monotonía que antes mencioné es la crítica principal que suele lanzarse contra este libro. Pero la presentación episódica, casi anecdótica, del argumento puede entenderse como una estrategia formal. El aburrimiento mismo se convierte en su esencia narrativa: la obra desmitifica la épica náutica y nos sumerge en el tiempo muerto y estancado de la vida marinera. El ridículo simulacro de combate descrito en el capítulo 26 me parece una prueba clara de ello. Los marineros representan una virilidad impostada en sus ratos de ocio que contrasta con las tareas más domésticas, “emasculatorias”, de cocinar, limpiar y remendar. Es cierto que el argumento parece aletargado y la ordenación de los episodios resulta arbitraria, pero el libro sigue resultando muy entretenido gracias al ácido humor con que Melville observa el mundo y a su asombrosa capacidad retórica. No cabe duda de que era un narrador elocuente, como demuestran algunos pasajes de la obra:

"Y sin embargo, amigos cristianos, ¿qué son la fragata americana Macedonian, o la inglesa President sino dos manos sangrientas pintadas sobre la manta de ese pobre salvaje? ¿Es que no hay moravos en la Luna, ya que ni un solo misionero ha visitado todavía este pobre planeta pagano en que vivimos, para civilizar nuestra civilización y cristianizar la cristiandad?"

Chaqueta blanca es la novela más política que he leído de Melville, profundamente reivindicativa en lo social. “El pueblo”, concluye en su epílogo, “sufre muchos abusos”. Melville fue hábil revelando la contradicción entre los principios nacionales y las manifestaciones de tiranía toleradas en el país, como la esclavitud o el maltrato físico a los marineros. Como en Moby Dick, el alegato de Ahab en su obsesiva búsqueda de la ballena (“I’d strike the sun if it insulted me”) nos reveló una voraz determinación humana, pero también un patético intento de enfrentarse a lo natural, de atribuir valor moral a la neutralidad más absoluta: el sol, las ballenas, representaciones inocentes de una indiferente verdad. No dejo de pensar que esto sigue siendo de actualidad para la sociedad estadounidense de hoy en día, cada vez más coercitiva.

Melville comparte con los principios de su Constitución la idea de que la libertad es un derecho inherente, y a la vez reprocha que Estados Unidos contradiga abiertamente ese principio, pervirtiendo lo natural por medio de lo social. Melville no culpa a los individuos, sino al propio código militar y, por extensión, a la justicia naval, situada en la periferia de la jurisprudencia: a bordo de la fragata, las leyes de la tierra resultan inútiles. La gloria de la Armada encubre violencia, injusticia social y un pervertido puritanismo cristiano. La ideología del Destino manifiesto, muy en boga entonces, alimenta ese cuadro, al proyectar el destino providencial del joven país más allá de dos únicas fronteras: hacia el oeste y el mar. Volvemos así a la idea del barco como pequeña república donde Melville pone en escena los mecanismos de poder estatal y la hipocresía religiosa que justifica la violencia con pretensiones civilizadoras y expansionistas, una moral que él cuestiona abiertamente.

Como profundo antibelicista, Melville contrapone la retórica romántica de uno de los personajes más interesantes de Chaqueta blanca, Jack Chase –un proto Billy Budd, aunque mucho más inteligente–, a la crudeza cotidiana de la Armada. El ácido contraste del heroísmo romántico contra la brutalidad rutinaria y la naturaleza mecánica de la disciplina militar nos ofrece un discurso literario absolutamente moderno, ese que Melville supo siempre tan bien anticipar.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd prefer not to, as a certain Melville character opines, rely on a plain-wrap edition, but this forces me to jump into the deep end, so the maritime vocabulary, the eclectic allusions, and the formidable learning typically part of any of his endeavors had to swirl around my ken. Which briskly might, after all, stimulate my plunge. White-Jacket dramatized Melville's experiences afloat in 1843. Regardless of the quotidian emphasis, the speculative superstructure of Moby-Dick streamlines. Into a simpler (if that modifier ever applies to said author) presentation of complaints and complexities amidshipsmen.

The subtitle sums it up. There's intriguing explanations of cooking duff; dealing with mess hall; how the narrator acquired his name (by the by, early on, his plea to dye his titular garment to keep his own anonymity gets denied: no white paint to spare onboard); related difficulties of securing one's sundry possessions among five hundred sharp-eyed burly mates bent on thievery; who pulls his jack-tar rank in hidebound, immemorial naval custom. Hammocks restricted to eighteen inches width in use. Holy- stoning. Fourth of July "theatricals." Grog or its lack. Reading, chess, chaplains, tats, Rio, smuggling.

Here, you admire Melville's patented voice: as thoughtful, wry, ruminating, ready to regale, raconteur. Never occurred to terra firma me why silk stockings bedeck officers, for they cleanly peeled off from wounds, or that enlisted men go bare-chested into grapeshot chaos to expedite rapid-fire first aid...

As for damages not received from skirmishes with the enemy, but onboard Neversink by commanders, my copy's blurb credits White-Jacket's impassioned plea against flogging as ameliorating inflictions in the U.S. Navy. Melville, a third in, devotes space to advocate. While the structure of this novel, more a docudrama "inspired by true events" in our Hollywood-tilted pitch, may too often lack sophisticated integration of its scattered themes, nonetheless, their abundance informs us 175 years later about life on the seven seas. Hearing our author's orotund, rounded, and classically infused cadences, you better grasp his "American" expression of mid-19c fusion of ancient rhetoric and New England plain speech.

Reading this on the 25oth anniversary of the U.S. Army, as protests (admittedly disconnected from a direct opposition to celebration in the nation's Capital, albeit hashtagged No Kings), Melville's anti-war message from the view of a man serving on a man-of-war, resonates. Veterans in my experience number among the most committed to peace. I wonder how many naval recruits wind up with a copy?

Related, Melville in the latter half of this "based on true events" rambling excursion, never hurried, always fulsome, critiques underaged inductees, shows their peril as they flock to balmy shore leave, and expands a few salty characters such as an eerie, wraithlike surgeon, Cuticle, assisted by Patella, Wedge, Bandage, et al. Whether under the knife on an operating slab, or summoned to the mast, pain reigns. Out of twenty chargeable offenses a sailor can be sentenced to death for thirteen, we're told.

Yet Melville despite his reforming mode can't be stopped from wandering into death rituals, barbers, chants, until his anecdotes tie hirsute holdouts to keel-hauling (outlawed), and the cat o'nine tails (legal) Enforcement is augmented by (mostly Irish, I note) marines, hated by midshipmen. Adding to the moral depravity, slaves can be sent to enlist in the ranks, their masters receiving their wages. On these sobering subjects, as pressganged and foreign labor must fill the quotas demanded, Melville did his best to shift away from romanticized depictions, and should be applauded for his honest endeavor.

It may reveal as throughout his work, as he supposedly honed his skill with the pen, how he could not restrain himself from digression. He reminds me of Dostoevsky and Dickens, so this effusive energy may be due to the exigencies of publishers, bafflement of editors, and the attention spans of..."us"? It's brilliant in bursts, sputtering in stretches, and unpredictable in its warmth amidst bitter blasts.

[Ivan Stoner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Melville so much.

White Jacket is the slightly fictionalized account of his time as an enlisted sailor in the US navy. Melville's eloquent critique of naval practices at the time created a real stir among people who otherwise would never be aware of the conditions of a common sailor. White Jacket led almost immediately to a Congressional ban on flogging on US ships!

It is in some ways a straightforward piece of early investigative journalism, and it's great from that perspective. But there are also times where Melville gives us transportive, philosophical prose that that wouldn't be out of place in Moby Dick.

Interesting items:

(1) This was a time when Americans really thought through their entire lives from the perspective that we should act as free people in a Republic. Melville reasoned that degrading discipline and stark divides between officers and men may make sense in the Royal Navy, but that such things should be anathema to free born Yankees. How can it be that an old sailor must silently suffer abuse from a newly minted midshipman? Absurd!

There's a great scene of a topman high aloft just railing against the Brazilian emperor as he's brought aboard for a state visit.

(2) I was obsessed with Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series as a kid. The Royal Navy in the Napoleonic wars. They are excellent in a lot of ways, but this book is a great antidote to the "happy warrior" lie that those books peddle. The navy sucked for enlisted sailors. It was completely awful. Not one of those "well maybe it was normal for the time..." ways either. Once exposed, many elements of the institution shocked contemporaries.

(3) Melville is amazingly ahead of his time in many respects, particularly in his rejection of cultural jingoism and bigotry. He observed, for example, how petty racial division among the crew kept focus off their universal degradation at the hands of the officers. In other words, he described the Southern Strategy long before it would be implemented in the Jim Crow South.

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

-LBJ

There's something in us, somehow, that, in the most degraded condition, we snatch at a chance to deceive ourselves into a fancied superiority to others, whom we suppose lower in the scale than ourselves.

-H. Melville

(4) White Jacket is funny too. There's a tragicomic scene where the impossibly ghoulish and unempathetic surgeon treats an injured sailor. He invites all his surgeon buddies and discusses the operation like a dissection right in front of the poor guy. Every time the sailor passes out from raw terror, the surgeon casually wakes him up to make sure he doesn't miss anything.

[Eric Marcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melville's account of "this man-of-war-world," with world as ship, ship as soul. You can feel Melville priming himself for Moby-Dick here, his often laborious attention to specificity breaking its bounds occasionally into more universal and transcendent thematic material. Of note is Chapter XLV, in which Lemsford's prose is literally fired by a cannon, transformed into a weapon against the public. Melville here foreshadows his shunning of the expectations in favor of his true art, as in White Jacket he accounts the contradictory nature of an American warship, representing democracy, functioning as a tyrannical dictatorship. Melville sharply indicts systems of oppression, particularly between classes, noting that the very function of a man-of-war dehumanizes all.

A bit clunky at parts, but worth reading for its intense interrogation of American identity, the incompatibility of war with Christianity (a passage on the irony of a chaplain sharing the booty of war is particularly biting), and a stunning final chapter that probes the "world frigate" we all sail aboard.

[Patrick Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live in a time of some nostalgia. It takes many forms, perhaps the oddest is the MAGA hat.

White Jacket is a first hand account of life in the USA when it was young, it had been created 75 years before the book was written in 1850. Melville was in fact a naval sailor and worked on whaling ships which were sailing-ships.

Melville was an educated man by all accounts, which left me wondering why he spent time as an ordinary seaman?

Melville knows the UK, knows about democracy and how the USA is supposed to work, knows much of the rest of the world and makes references to the places.

Be ready to plod through a bit of a tirade at one pony concerning the use of the lash. One thing becomes clear, there are two classes of people in the US navy, and that offends Melville who wants the USA not to fall down the hole of class distinctions, which he found in abundance on his ship.

Melville’s youthful America seems pretty awful compared with today’s country, which suggests that nostalgia is entirely unreliable.