What do you think?
Rate this book
Touching This Leviathan
Touching This Leviathan asks how we might come to know the unknowable—in this case, whales, animals so large yet so elusive, revealing just a sliver of back, a glimpse of a fluke, or a split-second breach before diving away. Whale books often sit within disciplinary silos. Touching This Leviathan starts a conversation among them. Drawing on biology, theology, natural history, literature, and writing studies, Peter Wayne Moe offers a deep dive into the alluring and impalpable mysteries of Earth’s largest mammal. Entertaining, thought-provoking, and swimming with intelligence and wit, Touching is Leviathan is creative nonfiction that gestures toward science and literary criticism as it invites readers into the belly of the whale.
166 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 2021
3 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 18, 2022
The author connects eclectic ideas to construct a wonderful reflection on mastery, language, and writing. Using his experience as an avid whale watcher, an English professor, and a father, Moe explores how to experience knowledge. This book's connections have haunted me and I plan on reading it again.
August 8, 2021
Touching This Leviathan is my favorite kind of nonfiction to sink into—weaving together deep research and personal narrative. Moe writes of theology, teaching, writing, science, history, speculation, patience, faith, and mystery.
April 6, 2022
I recently watched the Ken Burn two-part documentary on Benjamin Franklin. Walter Isaacson, who has written a biography of Franklin, said something curious about the editing of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Jefferson’s famous second sentence reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” However, the original draft of that sentence began: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” Putting on his editor and printer’s hat, Franklin suggested “sacred and undeniable” be replaced with “self-evident.” While Franklin did not hold many orthodox views on the subject of theology, he did believe in a Creator God so the word “sacred” was repetitious since the mention of “created” and “Creator” assumes sacredness. The word “undeniable” means unquestionable or common sensical—“self-evident,” which smooths out the syntax of the sentence without changing Jefferson’s meaning.
What does any of this have to do with Dr. Moe’s book? Quite a lot. His book isn’t about whales, though whales swim on every page. His book is about mystery—and here’s where the Franklin-Declaration-Isaacson issue applies. While speaking about the “self-evident” edit, Isaacson concluded that our rights come from reason and nature, not from our Creator, though the “Whale,” so to speak, on the parchment is staring Isaacson in the eye. Like the whale oil Dr. Moe writes about in the last chapter of his book, which penetrated his rubber waders, his jeans, and his skin, men like Isaacson have had their minds so saturated with the ideas of the enlightenment they can’t get the stench of it out of their thinking, even though the word “Creator” sits there on the page. The existence of a Creator doesn’t fit comfortably within enlightenment ideology because He doesn’t give Himself over to mere reasoning and scientific observation and experimentation. He is a mystery. And that’s the point of Dr. Moe’s book. He isn’t writing about the mystery of God—his book isn’t a theological tract—but is wrestling with the mysteries that surround our lives.
Dr. Moe is obsessively curious about whales, but his book isn’t about whales. That is to say, whales are the objects through which he writes about his subject: mystery. And though there is plenty of scientific data about whales sprinkled throughout the book, in Dr. Moe’s hands they are the very indicators used to strengthen his argument that mystery exist. The fact is, for all that’s known about whales, more is unknown. They remain a mystery. Dr. Moe endeavors to make us comfortable with the fact not all of life can be reduced to a 2+2=4 equation. To think along the lines that we can and will have it all figured out, rationally and scientifically, in time is not only arrogant to the point of idolatry, it is to miss the beauty that surrounds us—the mystery of life. To be fully human is to acknowledge and find comfort in mystery—to trust in a transcendent Creator that cannot be fully known with our human minds. As pastor Chuck Swindoll often says, “Pause and let the wonder in.” Dr. Moe’s book is a good place to begin and do just that.
What does any of this have to do with Dr. Moe’s book? Quite a lot. His book isn’t about whales, though whales swim on every page. His book is about mystery—and here’s where the Franklin-Declaration-Isaacson issue applies. While speaking about the “self-evident” edit, Isaacson concluded that our rights come from reason and nature, not from our Creator, though the “Whale,” so to speak, on the parchment is staring Isaacson in the eye. Like the whale oil Dr. Moe writes about in the last chapter of his book, which penetrated his rubber waders, his jeans, and his skin, men like Isaacson have had their minds so saturated with the ideas of the enlightenment they can’t get the stench of it out of their thinking, even though the word “Creator” sits there on the page. The existence of a Creator doesn’t fit comfortably within enlightenment ideology because He doesn’t give Himself over to mere reasoning and scientific observation and experimentation. He is a mystery. And that’s the point of Dr. Moe’s book. He isn’t writing about the mystery of God—his book isn’t a theological tract—but is wrestling with the mysteries that surround our lives.
Dr. Moe is obsessively curious about whales, but his book isn’t about whales. That is to say, whales are the objects through which he writes about his subject: mystery. And though there is plenty of scientific data about whales sprinkled throughout the book, in Dr. Moe’s hands they are the very indicators used to strengthen his argument that mystery exist. The fact is, for all that’s known about whales, more is unknown. They remain a mystery. Dr. Moe endeavors to make us comfortable with the fact not all of life can be reduced to a 2+2=4 equation. To think along the lines that we can and will have it all figured out, rationally and scientifically, in time is not only arrogant to the point of idolatry, it is to miss the beauty that surrounds us—the mystery of life. To be fully human is to acknowledge and find comfort in mystery—to trust in a transcendent Creator that cannot be fully known with our human minds. As pastor Chuck Swindoll often says, “Pause and let the wonder in.” Dr. Moe’s book is a good place to begin and do just that.
February 13, 2023
This is a book of essays, but there is a narrative arc to the whole. We follow Peter Wayne Moe, the author, as he learns and shares about whales. He is an English professor at Seattle Pacific College and we follow his classes as he uses the vehicle of whales to teach writing, and serendipitously, we (the readers) absorb a lot about the process of writing, too. Behind this is the journey Moe and his wife take to get pregnant and have a baby--and this is not a linear thread which makes the telling even more interesting.
It is a very carefully crafted book. Every sentence, every word, is deliberately considered in terms of construction and placement. Moe says he is not a poet, but I beg to differ. He has created a form all his own.
Reader's confession: I read Moby Dick as an undergrad. But I skipped all the chapters on cetology and only read the story narrative. Now, I am considering going back and doing it the other way around.
It is a very carefully crafted book. Every sentence, every word, is deliberately considered in terms of construction and placement. Moe says he is not a poet, but I beg to differ. He has created a form all his own.
Reader's confession: I read Moby Dick as an undergrad. But I skipped all the chapters on cetology and only read the story narrative. Now, I am considering going back and doing it the other way around.
December 27, 2024
Far too short! So much more that could be said outside of Moby Dick and the Book of Jonah. But that's the only reason it lost a star. Everything else flowed nicely and kept me reading.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews