On book dedications

Book dedications are generally a pretty bland affair. From time to time, you come across a humorous or poignant dedication. C. S. Lewis dedicated a book to his close friend Owen Barfield, "wisest and best of my unofficial teachers". One of Tim Winton's novels bears the beautiful dedication to his wife, "Denise, Denise, Denise". But in exceedingly rare instances, there have actually been dedications that are works of art in their own right. One of the most moving and powerful is the dedication to Charles Olson's great essay in literary criticism, Call Me Ishmael (1947). This was Olson's first book; his father had died several years earlier; the dedication page reads:

O fahter, fahter
gone amoong

O eeys that loke

Loke, fahter:
your sone!

Moby-Dick: a drawing a day

I recently started following the awesome blog of Matt Kish, One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick. Yep, you heard that right: this guy is working through Melville's Moby-Dick one page at a time, creating a picture for each of the 552 pages. A project of cetological proportions! And he has produced some very striking and unusual interpretations of the story. (I must confess, I've started collecting illustrated editions of Moby-Dick – so I'm a bit obsessed with this sort of thing. I haven't quite managed to get a first edition though...)

If you're interested in this greatest of all novels, there's also a reading group blogging their way through Moby-Dick at the moment. Anyway, here are some examples of the daily pictures (click to enlarge):

A note on unwritten books

When life becomes a thicket of writing deadlines and commitments, I tend to escape into daydreams about the books that I would like to write one day. Just as a married person might dream of an affair, so writers find solace from their immediate duties by indulging in the subversive fantasy of other writing projects. (And the irony is equally cruel in both cases: as the mistress is destined to become another wife, so the fantasised writing project will be satisfied only when – triumphantly – it becomes merely another deadline.)

So anyway, here are a few of the books that I've been dreaming of writing:

• An extended essay on the ethics of friendship. (I've been planning this one for quite some time, and I'm hoping to start writing it by the end of the year.)
• A book on prayer, where each chapter is a meditation on one of George Herbert's poems. (If I'm ever asked to give a series of talks on prayer, I'll use that as my opportunity.)
  
• A book on Melville's Moby Dick as the great anti-theodicy, Nature's shattering reply to Paradise Lost. (Frankly, it baffles me that more theologians have not written on Moby Dick – though Catherine Keller is an outstanding exception.)

Of course, these are not the only writing projects ruminating in my mischievous head. But some fantasies – again marriage is the analogy – are best kept secret.

Quote of the day

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale (1851), ch. 104.

Orthodoxy

In chapter 69 of Moby-Dick, “orthodoxy” is humorously described as the “obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air!”

Moby Dick and open theism

There’s a passage in Moby-Dick that reminds me of that recent American theological fad, “open theism.” The native cannibal harpooneer, Queequeg, is lovingly devoted to a “black little god” named Yojo, and he is careful to consult Yojo about the future.

In chapter 16, the narrator says: “I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and surprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs.”

The pulpit

“Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.”

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale (1851), ch. 8.

"Presbyterians and Pagans..."

“I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects.... Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale (1851), ch. 17.

A holiday indulgence

Since I’m now on holidays, I’m treating myself by re-reading my favourite novel—a novel that is, in my opinion, the best ever written. I’m talking about that magnificent mythic monster of a book, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851). My friend Kim Fabricius aptly describes this book as “the Church Dogmatics of American literature.” Or, if you prefer, it is the Paradise Lost of prose.

I might indulge myself by posting a few theological quotes from Moby-Dick over the next few days.