Wisdom and Woe

It is tempting to interpret Israel Potter (1855) as Melville described it: "very little reflective writing in it; nothing weighty. It is adventure." That is, in many ways it is conventionally picaresque.

The titular character, loosely based on a real-life 18th century figure, is chased from one situation to the next, changing clothes with the circumstances, demonstrating a survivor resourcefulness, and (like an American Revolutionary-era Forrest Gump) episodically meeting an array of conspicuously famous figures, including Ben Franklin, King George, John Paul Jones, and Ethan Allen.

But Brian Rosenberg calls it "more than it merely appears to be": an "anti-history" and "one of the most thoroughly overlooked full-length works by any major writer of the last two centuries." Comparing it to a slave narrative, Stephen Matterson calls it "an ironic bildungsroman" centred on "someone for whom an identity framework and contexts for self-understanding are disrupted."

Indeed, from the opening dedication--a satirical paean to "His Highness, the Bunker Hill Monument"--to the last chapter--where our hero returns home, only to die anonymously near the very monument intended to remember him--the book offers ironic commentary on the nature of history and memory. Israel experiences imprisonment and escape (without truly being free), entombment and "resurrection" (without truly being alive), and sacrifice and veneration (without truly being honored). Through the sharp contrast between fame and forbearance, Melville draws attention to the ways in which lives are fragmented, and the many are relegated by the few.

Note: This meetup will be recorded for private use.

Week 1: Chapters 1 - 13
Week 2 (April 19): Chapters 14 - 27

Israel Potter:

Peleg Nye first shipped out of New Bedford as a young whaler in 1834. By 1865, he was a veteran. As the first mate, he was responsible for firing an explosive lance to kill harpooned whales. It was dangerous work at the best of times, but on one particular trip, disaster struck. The whale hit the prow of Nye's small whaleboat, sending him over the side and into the animal's mouth. The dying whale slipped beneath the surface, Nye's legs protruding between its teeth.

Miraculously, he survived and returned home a celebrity, the "Jonah of Cape Cod." His story immediately reignited theological and scientific debates regarding the plausibility of the Biblical Jonah. But the next year, he was back at sea, commanding four more whaling voyages over the next five years.

Long known only through oral history, Nye's story is historical fact, revealed in Peleg Nye: The Jonah of Cape Cod (2015). Through Nils V. Böckmann's meticulous research, the intricate world of eighteenth-century whalers and the dangerous industry they served is (like another Peleg Nye) brought back to life.

Peleg Nye: The Jonah of Cape Cod:

Last Breath: Last Breath is a gripping, true-story thriller about Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), a saturation diver whose umbilical cord--supplying oxygen, heat, and communication--is severed 300 feet deep in the North Sea after a ship malfunction. With only 10 minutes of emergency air, he is trapped in darkness while crewmates David Yuasa (Simu Liu) and Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) race against time to rescue him.

About the movie:

Jay Gardiner is a 17-year-old scuba diver on a mission: to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. His dive begins well enough, until the sudden appearance of a giant squid and a sperm whale intent on devouring it. Jay becomes entangled in the chase, gets drawn into the whale's mouth, and swallowed into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out--one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Whalefall (Daniel Kraus, 2023) is a story of family, grief, and self-discovery. The book opens with a quote from Herman Melville, and the first reference to a whale's fluke, like "a comma in a sentence so large only gods can read it," reinforces the tone. This is a story that takes you somewhere unexpected and much deeper than any ocean depth. It is part Biblical allegory, the Old Testament theme retold in a contemporary setting.

A movie adaptation of Whalefall is currently in production and set to be released in October, 2026. Daniel Kraus is also co-author (with Guillermo del Toro) of the novelization of another ocean-based adventure, The Shape of Water.

Whalefall: