When I was a little kid in junior high (about 1957), I saw a movie in 台北双蓮戲院. It was '白鲸記'. I was so excited at the white whale that I couldn't sleep well for a few days. '白鲸記' was refreshing as I had never seen the whale that big roaming the sea & destroyed a whale ship in such a dramatic way. When I grew older & learned that the tale was from the book 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville. It was published in 1851, a story of a struggle between a mad man & a white whale Moby Dick. I first read the book in Chinese translation and then later moved on to English edition. The English version turned out to be very tough for me. In novel, Melville spent a lot of pages describing the whaling industry & the way they processed the whale on the ship. You need to have a lot of interest and patience to read it in details. It also refers a lot of materials from the Bible. If you are not familiar with stories in Bible, you will miss a lot of metaphors and meanings of the adventure.When I grew up & watched the movie again. I found that my interests in this novel got more intense. Captain Ahab lost a leg in one encounter with the white whale & vowed to revenge. The whaling ship Pequod, however, was own & operated with the purpose of commercial profit, the welfare to the investors & the crewmen. But the Ahab's motivation & ambition ruined the whole operation, led to the destruction of the ship & the drowning of all crewmen except the story narrator Ishmel. It has been suggested that Hitler's adventure during WWII is awfully resemble to Captain Ahab's saga. Hitler fought on German side & got injured during WWI. German was in a shamble state after WWI with a running away inflation & jobless society. Hitler vowed to revenge. He found & set his demon to the Treaty of Versaillies & Jews. We know the rest of the story & it was so much like the fate of Ahab (Hitler) & Pequod (Germany). At the later stage of the WWII, it seemed there was no hope for German to win the war. But Hitler kept going & so some Germans rose to kill him but failed in the plot. Hitler than dragged all German people in a total defeat. The whole crew of Pequod perished except Ishmael who survived to tell us the story. Fortunately, many Germans survive to rebuild the country. If the scenario happened 2,200 years ago, the German might meet the same fate as Carthaginians---got wiped out from the map & history. A nation or people sometime got extinguished due to the lack of wisdom of the rulers. One example was 準噶爾 around 1757. 準噶爾汗國 and 準噶爾人 cease to exist and 準噶爾盆地 is only a geographical term (地理上的名詞) now.
A ship in a vast ocean is like a country in isolation. The captain is like a ruler with absolute power. In fact a ship with people on board is more like a totalitarian regime than a democratic society. 'Moby Dick' gives us some warning that we should not seek personal revenge by dragging other people in. It also gives us some lesson that we must use the reason (理性) & wisdom (智慧) to avoid conflict and war in dealing with the world affairs.
2 comments:
The only sensible man on Pequod is Starbuck, the First Mate. He is rational and courageous, but tries ineffectively to turn Ahab from his obsession. In a totalitarian regime, an issue can't be debated or put in open discussion. Very often a decision made without check can be fatal. Some people suggest that a modern example of Captain Ahab & Pequod can be found in North Korea. Starbuck seems a common name in the whaling industry. Starbuck Island in South Pacific was first sighted in 1823 by Valentine Starbuck and later by Obed Starbuck, both of them whaling captains. It is interesting to know that the famous coffee chain store Starbucks based in Seattle was named after Starbuck. It has little to do with coffee or bean, but because the name Pequod was rejected by one of the co-founders of the chain company when they tried to name the shop.
Moby Dick begins with "Call me Ishmael". This is regarded as one of the best opening lines in literature. Ishmael is a biblical figure. He was the son of Abraham by the servant Hagar, who was cast off after the birth of Isaac. Ishmael was banished by Abraham & considered a social outcast. Perhaps the narrator of the story carries this connotation. It is interesting to note that the narrator doesn't say "My name is Ishmael" or "I am Ishmael. It gives the reader some suspicion that the name may not be the true name. Although Ishmael's role in the book does not go much beyond that of narrator, will this be someone using alias that resonates with distinctive Biblical connotations?. I think it is up to the readers to interpret.
In literature, there are some other famous first liners. The followings are some of them:
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents."
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (小婦人)
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (傲慢與偏見)
"All children, except one, grow up."
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan (潘彼得)
"Lastnight I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (蝴蝶夢)
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, ..."
Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities (双城記)
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (安娜,卡累妮娜)
The famous last liners:
"After all, tomorrow is another day."
Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind (飄)
"Farewell."
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (唐 吉詞德 or 吉詞德先生)
Post a Comment