麻豆传媒

Richard J. King

University of Chicago Press

ASIDE from being one of the greatest works of American literature, Herman Melville鈥檚 Moby-Dick spawned the term 鈥淢oby-Dickering鈥�, describing the activity of spending too much time hunting for meaning in the book鈥檚 pursuit of a giant white sperm whale.

Fortunately, marine biologist Richard J.King has approached the classic very differently in his own book, Ahab鈥檚 Rolling Sea. The process of unravelling fact from fiction can make it a slow read, and like Moby-Dick, you may want to put it down at times. Don鈥檛: you will be rewarded for persevering.

Moby-Dick teems with natural life. Aside from the sperm whale, there are other whales, seals, coral, giant squid, sharks, sea ravens (which King thinks are in fact cormorants), sky-hawks (frigate birds), albatrosses and more.

King has been rigorous. He studied Melville鈥檚 original sources to work out what he probably knew rather than what he wrote, delved into specimen tanks below the Natural History Museum in London, interviewed scientists and took to the seas himself. This results in some rare gems, from the biological to the linguistic.

Take right whales. How these mammals got their name is clear. 鈥淪ince it was slow, coastal, and plump with oil, hunters called it the 鈥榬ight whale鈥�, as it was the best one to chase,鈥� writes King. Today, we know these whales use the baleen plates in their mouths to filter plankton and krill out of the water. But Moby-Dick was published in 1851 and the word 鈥渒rill鈥� didn鈥檛 come into regular usage until the 20th century. In the novel, narrator Ishmael says right whales feed on 鈥渂rit鈥�. There are clues to suggest he meant krill, but we can鈥檛 be sure.

Other details are clearer. Ishmael refers to whales as fish, not mammals, even though he knows they have lungs and warm blood. This is deliberate, says King, because Ishmael 鈥減ositions the practical hunter鈥檚 knowledge of the whalemen above that of the 鈥榣earned naturalists ashore'鈥�.

Yet the novel鈥檚 claim that sperm whales migrate in predictable slim highways was a genuine mistake, says King. So were assertions that males act as lords of harems, and that those whales are the largest inhabitants of the globe.

Overall, though, the natural history in Moby-Dick seems spot on. For example, the white whale himself is described as streaked, spotted and marbled. It turns out that such patterning is created by years of scratches and scars from the suckers and talons of the large squid that sperm whales eat, as well as from other whales鈥� teeth.

King updates other aspects too, revealing the surprising intellect of sperm whales, with some learning to dive down to 鈥渇loss the fish off the longlines鈥� when they hear the sound of commercial boats hauling back the catch.

While King judges Moby-Dick鈥檚 scientific accuracy, he also reveals how the book helped raise the profile of sperm whales, opening the door to better protection for them. Yet King also writes that 鈥�Melville fed the period fear and contempt for sharks, writing of these fish as a ghastly, fierce and cannibalistic metaphor鈥�. So the novel may also be partly responsible for the widespread, irrational fear of sharks and the deaths of so many of these beautiful predators.

Ahab鈥檚 Rolling Sea will give you a new appreciation of the sperm whale. If you are studying Melville鈥檚 book, it will provide details far more original than any exam guide. It also underscores the more undesirable aspects of another animal that stars in Moby-Dick: humans, with our penchant for environmental destruction. Melville was as aware as we are of how we wipe out animals 鈥� he feared the effect of hunting on North American bison. As Ishmael says: 鈥淭here is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.鈥� Nearly 170 years later, it is time we got the message.