I was going to bring up the same! I feel like there's so many posts out in the internet by publishers and agents that's like, the first few pages must be perfect, etc
The whale facts may not push the plot onwards, but they do push Melville's vision for the book! These are only facts on a superficial level, because everything in that book has a metaphorical reading on a deeper level -- that is why, actually, it's about an underwater being... So, yes, totally totally agree with your points! The justification of each chapter / scene shouldn't be reduced to plot only, but also to the overall meaning / message / vision of that book.
yeah and it’s not just whale facts, right -- it’s transgressions into depths. Like that whole chapter about the meaning of the dubloon nailed to the mast
“Many of the film and TV rules for storytelling have to do with the basic constraints of filmmaking... But novels are not bound by production costs, fitting in commercial breaks, or the need to convey story only through actors’ actions and dialogue.”
See, these are the historically legitimate medium constraints that a certain type of writer never thinks to mention. Which convinces me they don’t know much about TV writing to begin with.
A fun and thoughtful read as always! I haven’t read Moby Dick but, based on descriptions, Melville pretended he had exactly one book to put out in his lifetime and he stuffed it with every weird, horny obsessively human aspect of his psyche that he could. Good for him.
This was certainly reassuring to read. My latest novel is including interludes, one of which has an interlude within the interlude, following a magical crystal as its traded from Britain to India along Roman trade routes
I loved the whale facts chapter when i first read it unabridged at the age of 10 or so. The problem is that Melville is utterly wrong on all the facts. Anyone who reads the chapter and believes it is horribly misinformed about whales. It’s all fiction, no facts.
I find that charming, but yes it's good to know going in. I'm using "whale facts" broadly though. The more interesting chapters (for me) are the philosophical degressions on the meaning of eyes or colors and such more than the literal whale (false) facts.
I think I remember that there was a chapter on the differentiation between dolphins and porpoises. That sort of sparked something in my 17- or 18-year-old brain and I chose to write about the way in which Melville went into such excruciating detail about every taxonomy of whale known to man, but all of that still couldn’t explain the white whale. And it still couldn’t explain how a whale and a man could have such a hatred for one another that they’d hunt each other to the ends of the earth.
So in that respect, the whale interludes were like tantric lit. 😆
I didn’t read Moby Dick until I was in college. And when I did, a teammate of mine said, “You’re probably the only guy on campus who’s ever actually READ Moby Dick. There’s a reason the Cliff Notes are sold out at every bookstore on campus. 😅
I don’t know if you’ve ever read “Watchmen,” but the whale stories in Moby Dick reminded me of “Tales of the Black Freighter” - aka the pirate story that was intercut within the body of the story.
Such a good post. I think this is why I have such a hard time reading a lot of contemporary novels; without the depth of the "whale facts" sections, a novel can quite honestly be boring. Also, if a literary work falls into the trap of adhering to Hollywood rules, I think it can become a bit like a bad movie, since it is following the rules for another medium; and wouldn't you rather watch a good movie than read a bad one? Tying into this, we hear over and over about film adaptations of books: "The book is better", because we know the film is trying to follow rules to which its medium isn't suited. Wouldn't it make sense that this goes for the other way around, too, and a book trying to be a movie falls flat?
Reading this immediately after teaching a workshop in which we discussed the exciting possibility of not relying on a clearly-demarcated narrative arc + protagonist model for a work in progress. Steering all my students to your Substack now!
Lincoln! I love this celebration of some of the strangest parts of MD! I'm enthusiastically teaching it to high school students right now, and this really fans my flames in a fantastic way. With your permission, I'd love to share this post with them. Lemme know. (PS: Hope you're doing well! S'been too long!)
I'm going to remember this the next time I run into one of those craft essays or books which maintain that "everything in the novel must be in service to the plot."
Melville probably would have been advised in his MFA workshop to "kill his darlings." Glad he didn't. (Also, glad the whale won.)
Books where that is the case can be good, or great. It depends on how well they are done.
But books where that is not remotely the case can also be good, or great. Again, it depends.
Dogmatism in this regard is likely to result in frustration and misery.
No great writer wrote according to any formula. They just wrote what was in their hearts crying to get out, then they edited the shit out of it to make readable and coherent and better focused on getting the effects they wanted.
I'm prepping query materials for my first novel (which was partly and very loosely inspired by Moby Dick) and this really hit home. All the advice I've read/received suggests forcing it into a formula that feels like stripping out what's distinctive and interesting about the book. When I think about the novels I love, I suppose I could describe them in these terms, but they'd be unrecognizable.
I wonder whether (1) I'm wrong and this truly is the universal core of all novels, (2) it's really what people buying books want, or (3) it's a mostly a matter of convenience for agents who have to sift through a million queries and need some standardized way of quickly comparing them.
I hate the conformist conventions of modern publishing. I agree that writing is about way more than moving plot forward. Most books I love have little to do with moving plot forward.
I totally agree, but literary agents seem to run from such discursive novels like the plague. Ask me how I know.
I was going to bring up the same! I feel like there's so many posts out in the internet by publishers and agents that's like, the first few pages must be perfect, etc
Well, yes. That's what readers look at when deciding whether to buy the novel.
Not all agents of course. But most.
I'm fresh from a rejection due to whale facts-type reasons, so this was exactly what I needed to read today. Thank you.
The book might seem like it would work better without the whale facts, but it doesn't. It goes bland. Just need to find the person who sees that.
The whale facts may not push the plot onwards, but they do push Melville's vision for the book! These are only facts on a superficial level, because everything in that book has a metaphorical reading on a deeper level -- that is why, actually, it's about an underwater being... So, yes, totally totally agree with your points! The justification of each chapter / scene shouldn't be reduced to plot only, but also to the overall meaning / message / vision of that book.
yeah and it’s not just whale facts, right -- it’s transgressions into depths. Like that whole chapter about the meaning of the dubloon nailed to the mast
The doubloon chapter has an entire interpretive scheme for the book in it!
“Many of the film and TV rules for storytelling have to do with the basic constraints of filmmaking... But novels are not bound by production costs, fitting in commercial breaks, or the need to convey story only through actors’ actions and dialogue.”
See, these are the historically legitimate medium constraints that a certain type of writer never thinks to mention. Which convinces me they don’t know much about TV writing to begin with.
A fun and thoughtful read as always! I haven’t read Moby Dick but, based on descriptions, Melville pretended he had exactly one book to put out in his lifetime and he stuffed it with every weird, horny obsessively human aspect of his psyche that he could. Good for him.
This was certainly reassuring to read. My latest novel is including interludes, one of which has an interlude within the interlude, following a magical crystal as its traded from Britain to India along Roman trade routes
I loved the whale facts chapter when i first read it unabridged at the age of 10 or so. The problem is that Melville is utterly wrong on all the facts. Anyone who reads the chapter and believes it is horribly misinformed about whales. It’s all fiction, no facts.
I find that charming, but yes it's good to know going in. I'm using "whale facts" broadly though. The more interesting chapters (for me) are the philosophical degressions on the meaning of eyes or colors and such more than the literal whale (false) facts.
I think I remember that there was a chapter on the differentiation between dolphins and porpoises. That sort of sparked something in my 17- or 18-year-old brain and I chose to write about the way in which Melville went into such excruciating detail about every taxonomy of whale known to man, but all of that still couldn’t explain the white whale. And it still couldn’t explain how a whale and a man could have such a hatred for one another that they’d hunt each other to the ends of the earth.
So in that respect, the whale interludes were like tantric lit. 😆
I didn’t read Moby Dick until I was in college. And when I did, a teammate of mine said, “You’re probably the only guy on campus who’s ever actually READ Moby Dick. There’s a reason the Cliff Notes are sold out at every bookstore on campus. 😅
I don’t know if you’ve ever read “Watchmen,” but the whale stories in Moby Dick reminded me of “Tales of the Black Freighter” - aka the pirate story that was intercut within the body of the story.
Oh yes, I think that's an interesting comparison (and love Watchmen [the graphic novel....although also the TV show])
Such a good post. I think this is why I have such a hard time reading a lot of contemporary novels; without the depth of the "whale facts" sections, a novel can quite honestly be boring. Also, if a literary work falls into the trap of adhering to Hollywood rules, I think it can become a bit like a bad movie, since it is following the rules for another medium; and wouldn't you rather watch a good movie than read a bad one? Tying into this, we hear over and over about film adaptations of books: "The book is better", because we know the film is trying to follow rules to which its medium isn't suited. Wouldn't it make sense that this goes for the other way around, too, and a book trying to be a movie falls flat?
Reading this immediately after teaching a workshop in which we discussed the exciting possibility of not relying on a clearly-demarcated narrative arc + protagonist model for a work in progress. Steering all my students to your Substack now!
Thank you!
Lincoln! I love this celebration of some of the strangest parts of MD! I'm enthusiastically teaching it to high school students right now, and this really fans my flames in a fantastic way. With your permission, I'd love to share this post with them. Lemme know. (PS: Hope you're doing well! S'been too long!)
Of course, and thank you!
Endorse!
I agree with all of this, and also it's always delightful to see another person to whom Why Did I Ever is an important book.
I'm going to remember this the next time I run into one of those craft essays or books which maintain that "everything in the novel must be in service to the plot."
Melville probably would have been advised in his MFA workshop to "kill his darlings." Glad he didn't. (Also, glad the whale won.)
Books where that is the case can be good, or great. It depends on how well they are done.
But books where that is not remotely the case can also be good, or great. Again, it depends.
Dogmatism in this regard is likely to result in frustration and misery.
No great writer wrote according to any formula. They just wrote what was in their hearts crying to get out, then they edited the shit out of it to make readable and coherent and better focused on getting the effects they wanted.
I'm prepping query materials for my first novel (which was partly and very loosely inspired by Moby Dick) and this really hit home. All the advice I've read/received suggests forcing it into a formula that feels like stripping out what's distinctive and interesting about the book. When I think about the novels I love, I suppose I could describe them in these terms, but they'd be unrecognizable.
I wonder whether (1) I'm wrong and this truly is the universal core of all novels, (2) it's really what people buying books want, or (3) it's a mostly a matter of convenience for agents who have to sift through a million queries and need some standardized way of quickly comparing them.
I hate the conformist conventions of modern publishing. I agree that writing is about way more than moving plot forward. Most books I love have little to do with moving plot forward.