Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of “Moby-Dick”

by Richard J. King

Although Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is beloved as one of the most profound and enduring works of American fiction, we rarely consider it a work of nature writing—or even a novel of the sea. Yet Pulitzer Prize–winning author Annie Dillard avers Moby-Dick is the “best book ever written about nature,” and nearly the entirety of the story is set on the waves, with scarcely a whiff of land. In fact, Ishmael’s sea yarn is in conversation with the nature writing of Emerson and Thoreau, and Melville himself did much more than live for a year in a cabin beside a pond. He set sail: to the far remote Pacific Ocean, spending more than three years at sea before writing his masterpiece in 1851.

A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville’s novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow’s nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851—at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species. King compares Ahab’s and Ishmael’s worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and sublime, but also in crisis. And although the concept of stewardship of the sea would have been entirely foreign, if not absurd, to Melville, King argues that Melville’s narrator Ishmael reveals his own tendencies toward what we would now call environmentalism.

Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab’s Rolling Sea offers new insight not only into a cherished masterwork and its author but also into our evolving relationship with the briny deep—from whale hunters to climate refugees.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Natural History, History, Environment, Nautical

464 pages, Hardcover

First published November 11, 2019

About the author

Richard J. King is the author most recently of Sailing Alone: a History and Ocean Bestiary: Meeting Marine Life from Abalone to Orca to Zooplankton. He is also the author Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick, Lobster, The Devil's Cormorant: A Natural History, and Meeting Tom Brady. King has published widely on maritime topics in scholarly and popular magazines. Read more at http://richardjking.info.

Reviews

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear Reader: if you are a fan of Melville's Moby Dick and enjoy companion reads - this is the book for you. It is fulsome, and covers minutia enough you've not yet thought of to form any questions. A fantastic read - not in the popular fiction fashion, but rather like finding out your favorite science teacher who subs when your lit teacher is sick has written a book on. . .well, you get my meaning.

It falls into my smorgasbook category - you could do this in bits and pieces, and it is definitely one that you could come back to on re-reads. I'm looking for my own copy now. . . all of this assumes, of course, that you are a fan of that whale with a mission, that doomed ship and endearing crew, that one madder-than-hatter captain and philosophical Ishmael's whaling report to the world.

25|52:44c

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahab's Rolling Sea is a book I'd think interesting and of use to anyone who reads Moby-Dick. It describes how Americans understood the oceans during Melville's lifetime, and it explains what whaling was like during the age of sail. While every aspect of the ocean is discussed--wind, navigation, chemistry--most of the chapters examine the many kinds of life and what the sailors knew about them in that pre-Darwin time. Most detailed, of course, are whales and particularly the sperm whale. The structure of the book roughly follows the voyage of the Pequod. Early chapters discuss cetology in general. Soon the chapters tie in the various forms of life encountered as the ship sails through the Indian Ocean. Storms greet the Pequod as it enters the Pacific. The 3 days of Ahab dueling with Moby-Dick is contained in a long chapter called "Sperm Whale Behavior." And the conclusion necessarily, I think, covers some of the environmental changes which have occurred in the last 150 years and those to come. King even deftly weaves in considerations of Ishmael as an environmentalist.

I've always been attracted by the idea of the young Melville on deck looking out at where there's only sea and sky and realizing they just go on and on, out and out, "immortal and indifferent," in King's phrase. I can't imagine he could've written the Moby-Dick we have without that kind of understanding. But King doesn't spend much time speculating on the metaphysical world of the novel or the spiritual motivations of characters. He barely brushes up against meanings but mentions that Melville was aware of new ideas on deep time and how they might affect one's concepts of divinity and creation. He was still a century away from the discovery that whales evolved from land mammals or any of our understanding of the Pacific's geology. King simply quotes scholar Elizabeth Foster: "At some time between Typee and Moby-Dick, Melville's universe changed: the benevolent hand of a Father disappeared from the tiller of the world," and he leaves it at that. In the end it doesn't matter that Melville and Ishmael and Starbuck and Flask knew so much less than we know about the ocean and whales. King's description of the world as they knew it is more fascinating than limited.

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a truly fantastic book to read while re-visiting Moby Dick. It is a natural history companion that perfectly illuminates the novel. To write it, King traveled the world to uncover all that could be known today of the fateful voyage of the Pequod. Starting with the books that Melville is known to have owned or borrowed during the time he was writing, King discusses the natural science, as well as theological world-view of the time. He then presents possible routes of the whaler as he unpacks the whaling industry in general, before diving into chapters on the giant squid, the frigate bird, as well as the sperm whales themselves, from ambergris to the infamous Grandissimus!

As an artistic masterpiece, there are a myriad of possible interpretations for understanding Moby Dick. It is ageless. And not surprisingly, King has an environmental interpretation that is perfect for our age. He is not the first writer and thinker to see a “proto-Darwinian” understanding of the story. In fact, in addition to several other books including King’s, a new book is coming out this spring by essayist Barry Sanders called the Manifesto According to Herman Melville which also sees the novel as an ecological warning. King does not quite go that far, saying rather that in Moby Dick, the human being is marvelously decentered. And I do think he makes a great case, for the novel as a whole is really surprisingly cosmopolitan and tolerant. That Melville feels some sympathy for the whale and some worry about the greed of the industrialists is beyond dispute, I think—well, that is how I read it anyway. I loved all the chapters in the book. I learned so much about giant squid, krill, sperm whales and ocean ecology. Not to mention how much richer I came to understood so many details of the novel. His chapter on navigation was also fantastic. This book os a jewel and the University fo Chicago did a beautiful job with the printing and images.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not shy about admitting Moby Dick to be my favorite novel. Each time I read it I think it will probably be my last. I’ve always been opposed to whaling, and I’m a vegan to boot. Still, when someone gave me Richard J. King’s Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick I knew I was in for an add-on treat. I confess in my blog post about the book (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World) that this gift prompted me to read Moby Dick again. I finished it before I picked this volume up, and it was kind of like a commentary, but one that takes the reader beyond the story.

The basic idea is simple enough: go through Melville’s novel and do some “fact checking” about the animals he mentions. This is a cornucopia of information about various whales, fish, sea birds, and crustaceans. It isn’t comprehensive, but it is extensive. It gives the reader a taste of life on the sea. Or how the sea had been. Melville wasn’t a naturalist, and he wasn’t writing as one, but he got an amazing amount correct nevertheless. There was quite a lot of wonder in this book. There was also quite a bit about which to worry.

The final chapter—and much of the book engages with the spirit of Melville’s own irreverence—deals with the whale in the room. The ocean described by Moby Dick is much different than the ocean we know. Today it is much more empty. Many of the species mentioned by Melville are in serious decline, and many face extinction. This sobering thought is a necessary way to end a book about what is justly called the great American novel. We have to learn to control our species’ greed, otherwise the losses will be permanent. This is an enjoyable, but also an important book that really requires a wide readership, even for our own sake.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure, this was written by a professor I had at the Williams-Mystic program (F02), which was probably the semester of school that most influenced my worldview and values around environmentalism, sustainability, and human impact. Not to mention, going to sea just fundamentally changed the way I think about the shape of the earth and how humans use it. Rich was a really enthusiastic, supportive, knowledgeable part of that, and I'm happy to be able to revisit WM academically, in however a bite-sized, passive capacity.

This is also just a really interesting take on Moby-Dick or, the Whale, a book I was assigned three different times in school and never quite managed to generate my own love for. However, thanks to WM and others (I also later sailed on the Seamans), I have a deep appreciation and love for reading scholarly, interdisciplinary writing on maritime themes. This one is particularly appealing because a natural history interpretation of Moby Dick inevitably winds up at the state of the oceans today (which is to say, dire). On the surface, it might seem like a stretch to read Moby Dick and conclude that fossil fuels and plastics are destroying everything, but it's all connected. It's the natural progression from where Melville was, and hopefully his readers will be moved towards change either by Moby or by books like this one.

[Arianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Helena Emenhiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a Moby Dick fan, this is an ESSENTIAL read!!

I liked Moby Dick, but after reading this book, I now LOVE Moby Dick!! It been a month since I’ve read this, and I’m still thinking about it so much that I felt a need to write a review!

This book is broken down in chronological order of Melville’s book by talking about every animal that Ishmael or the crew of the Pequod interact with. Every chapter is titled by an animal, then the chapter opens up with when this animal is mentioned in Moby Dick. Then it talks about if Melville’s description is accurate with said animal specialists. There were so many zoology and marine biology facts that just blew my mind! And finally, each chapter ends with why it was important for that animal to be mentioned at that point in time for the book. These were my favorite parts! I loved hearing about all the fish symbolism and how the book is so intertwined with Nature and Poetry that I couldn’t help but fall in love!

Maybe I just didn’t get Moby Dick the first time I read it but this book really helped me to understand and appreciate what a masterpiece Herman Melville’s work really is!

If I could give this book 6 stars, I wouldn’t even hesitate! 🌊💙

[Mike Flannery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! It scratched nearly every itch I had after reading "Moby-Dick." It also led me to other, more foundational, American whaling reads.

After reading Melville's classic, I wanted to know what he got right and what he got wrong when it came to chapters like Ceteology. I also had an underlying feeling much of the meaning of "Moby-Dick" sailed over my head due to my lack of seafaring knowledge. "Ahab's Rolling Sea" taught me what the state of science was during Melville's time, and how to sort out the potential meaning of many passages. In short, I learned a lot!

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

August 1st is Melville's birthday, and probably should get more notice than it does so when I saw this i thought, wonderful someone is going beyond Ahab and seeing the book as a piece. That idea is strangely supported in the beginning as King argues Moby is a "proto Darwinian decentring of the human and the elevation of the whale." OK, I can buy that. Further, he says it is an "ecological fiction" that shows sympathy for the whale against the impersonal backdrop of the sea. Again, fine.

But then King takes some mighty strange detours from those premises and makes Moby one of the top ecological fiction. I guess because you kill the leviathan, but he loses all sight of the literary aspects and the symbols underlying the book. He has the strangest idea that the whale is ingenious enough to spot the whaling ships and change their journey. I doubt that.

And that's the problem...it sounds good. But underneath this idiotic book is some strange 21st theories that Melville or the whale ever thought of making King one of the many literary critics that know better than the reader or author. Frankly, I thought the Moby motif was just an excuse because he so put too much emphasis on cetology that fills 1/2 of it and ignores the story that makes it a masterpiece.

[Daren Girard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is very interesting study of the "natural history" of Moby-Dick. The author reviews the marine science topics that underpin the novel and provides contrasts with the current evidence of understanding of them. It is well researched and thorough. The author talks about nineteenth century maritime navigation, sperm whale behavior, sharks, sea fowl, whaling, wind, storms at sea, among many others. It is fascinating to learn that Melville, himself a whaleman for a few years, really did have a deep (and pretty accurate) understanding of much of the subject matter in the book. Moby-Dick was published almost 10 years before "Origin of Species" yet Melville anticipates the importance of whale adaptations and evolution over time and between species. Before modern scientific equipment, before the theory of plate tectonics, before radio-carbon dating, Melville was prescient about many themes and theories that we now know to be valid, but were out of reach during his time. This perspective makes me appreciate Moby-Dick, the work of art (and science), even more.

[Edmund Wigley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since launching into popular culture, Moby Dick has become synonymous with obsession and the eponymous animal is often used as a metaphor for hopeless compulsion.

But as well as the individual story of Ahab’s quest, the book is a also vessel for Melville’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the sea and his views on man’s relationship with it.

In this fascinating analysis, Richard provides the subtext to show how Melville, with an astonishing understanding of maritime life and nature weaves a tale filled with the complexity of man’s connection to the sea and its contents.

In instances the book perhaps may extrapolate too much from too little. I was not too convinced of this book being any sort of Proto-Darwinian text. But the book takes you through many thought provoking ideas and I am sure there will be a lot of joy in re-reading Moby Dick armed with so much more.

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone reading Moby Dick for the first time is bound to be surprised by the quantity of biological discussions on whales and other marine life to be found among the more famous parts of the book. In this book, King aims to track where Melville got this information, how accurate it was for his own time and how it compares to what we currently know about marine life. This makes this book a unique mixture of marine biology, history of science and literary analysis. To King’s credit, he manages to flow from one aspect to another with perfect ease and take the reader along for the ride. He gives the reader new ways to understand what Melville intended to say as well as how his message was received, or not, in the many decades since the book’s publication. Definitely a unique reading experience that is well crafted, informative and that moves the reader to read, or re-read, Moby Dick.

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are three distinct but closely related aspects that make the sum of the parts more impressive than any considered on its own. First, it's a significant addition to the literary criticism of Moby-Dick, one that deepens even an experienced readers sense of how Melville deployed his sources and influences, accepting, arguing, and occasionally ignoring bits of the scientific knowledge of his time. Second, it's a very nice summary of the popular (not clearly distinguishable from scientific) knowledge of his time. Third, it's an effective lyrical contribution to contemporary environmental thought. No one of the three is entirely new, but King brings them together in a way that I found totally entrancing. Probably mostly for Moby-Dick afficionados, but it would resonate with many types of readers.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want all my literary analysis to be this detailed and this in depth. I learned so much from this book and it made me actually want to read Moby Dick! I loved that this was really a full analysis of the classic from a scientific, sociological, and literary point of view. I loved the discussion of Melville as an early environmentalist and the burgeoning of the conservationist and ecological movements of the time. The science of cetaceans was really quite interesting as well. I’ve already recommended this book to my dad, the only person I know who has read Moby Dick and enjoyed it. Even if Melville’s prose isn’t for you, this book is a fascinating and well rounded study of the novel and the world that birthed it.

[Matthew Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book's title is somewhat deceptive, in that while it does look at the natural history element of Moby Dick, it is as much a march through Melville's work from the literature perspective, interspersed with the author's own commentary on environmental and humanity. As such, at many times it seemed to ramble and diverge into curious tangents. It was certainly informative from the biological and natural history perspective, but - based on the book's title - I was expecting it to be more focused in this direction.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty and engaging exploration of the living ocean as portrayed in Moby Dick. Contains analysis not only of the novel's portrayal of marine biology, but what Melville would have understood at the time given currents in scientific knowledge (ie, at the time of writing Mendel's experiments were just starting and deep time was just a theory). Ends with a stunning chapter on Ishmael as environmentalist and climate refugee, a call to action to preserve and restore what we've done to the ocean in the Anthropocene.
4.5

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It may seem odd to review a non-fiction book this way, but the words that came first to mind were: Full. Kind. Generous. I read it while reading Moby Dick and found it extremely helpful in pulling together ideas and themes across that book - of course it's packed full of all kinds of fascinating oceanic and historical information - but also it was a joy to read, and the author's pleasure in his material was evident.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific book that answers the question, "how much does the novel 'Moby Dick' get right about whales, oceans and science?" Mostly, Herman Melville does okay! If you love Moby Dick, this is a highly enjoyable companion read. It makes a number of interesting points about the ethics of people in the whaling era compared with people today (and finds us roughly equal -- one group killed lots of whales, the other group has strewn the ocean with plastic and is causing global warming).

[Luca Siletti · Rating 5 out of 5]

needed something a little more chill after the... everything that was Death's End, and this dusty old Christmas gift certainly tickled that itch.

equal parts history, science, philosophy, and literary analysis, King writes with an undercurrent(heh) of humour that prevents what could be an incredibly dry book from becoming, well, incredibly dry, while still maintaining the weight of the environmental implications of the topics discussed

"Moby dickhead" did give me a chuckle on the bus.

[Luísa Andrade · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ahab’s Rolling Sea” é uma deriva entre literatura, história marítima e ecologia. King parte de Moby-Dick para explorar como o mar foi imaginado, explorado e transformado — tanto por artistas quanto por cientistas. A leitura é rica, mas às vezes se dispersa — faltam costuras mais firmes entre os temas. Ainda assim, é uma travessia valiosa para quem vê no oceano mais do que metáfora.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closely tracks the voyage of the Pequod and Ishmael's scholarly pursuits, and updates his narrations with modern day marine biology and environmentalism. Fascinating for anyone who loves the sea and its creatures, and of course, whales!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! In addition to being informative and illuminating, it helped me FINALLY finish Moby-Dick. Really a wonderful armchair guide through marine science and the history of marine science/knowledge in Melville's time.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough, if sometimes a bit long, exploration of the animals and environment Melville details in Moby Dick, and an interesting perspective on him as a whaleman-cum-natural historian. Definitely worth the read for anyone who loves the source and marine science.

[Mills College Library]

813.3 K542a 2019

[Will Gerrish · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times wonderful, but too often feels like an assigned paper written by a very intelligent college sophomore.

[Sophie Pesek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't stop won't stop thinking about whales

[Shannon Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really excellent book. A must-read if you’ve read and loved Moby Dick.

[Kerstin Ivonne Sy Tieng]

I've read Herman Melville 's novel Moby Dick as part of my English subject in 9th grade. I love the thrill of the chase for the whale. This book "Ahab 's Rolling Sea" brought back the memory of my 9th grade years and reading about Moby Dick