In April it was “The Great Gatsby,” and in August it will be “Moby-Dick.” Amazingly, in a world increasingly defined by technology, people are still occasionally gathering in person to read literary classics aloud.
On April 10, the Library of Congress hosted a public reading of “The Great Gatsby” on the exact (emphasis from the press release) date that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel was published 100 years ago. It’s a relatively slim volume, and the time for the reading was scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
I don’t know if it went over or under the allotted time slot. I do know that it occurred not only at the Library of Congress but also at multiple other sites around the country, even if not all were on the exact 100th birthday.
Coming up, July 31-Aug. 1, is the annual “Moby-Dick Marathon” at Mystic Seaport Museum. The exact publication date was Oct. 18, 1851, but never mind. This hefty book requires a 24-hour timeslot, and unlike “Gatsby,” which to my knowledge wasn’t read at a Long Island seaside mansion, “Moby-Dick” will be read at a site with built-in resonance — the whaleship Charles W. Morgan.
The Morgan is the Seaport’s flagship and the last surviving wooden whaleship in the country. Jan Larson, who started these readings of Herman Melville’s classic in 1986, once described the experience to me as “putting the words into the Morgan,” conjuring a kind of mystical rite.
I felt this keenly as one of the readers in 1990, back when I was arts editor of The Day in New London, Conn. I had read the novel in the early ’70s, inspired by a close encounter with a whale off Provincetown. That young gray whale dove back and forth under the small boat I was on, but unlike the great white whale that was Captain Ahab’s nemesis, it had no evil intentions.
For the reading, I chose “The Whiteness of the Whale,” one of the longest chapters, but the one what had haunted me for decades. I was relieved that it came up at 8 p.m., so — nice as it was to sit and read aloud on the Morgan — I didn’t have to spend the night. To prepare, I read it aloud first at home, and dressed for the part — sort of — by wearing a simple white skirt and blouse.
I was quite surprised when my presence and outfit took on greater significance in a 1991 Washington Post article (“Thar She Prose!”). The Post reporter wrote, “An early disappointment was the absence of Beth DuFresne (sic) of New London, who showed up in a flowing white gown last year to read the famous chapter on ‘The Whiteness of the Whale’.”
As the old satiric newspaper saying goes, “Some things are too good to check.” For another (totally accurate) view, here is part of what I wrote in a Day newspaper column (“Going overboard”) about my own experience:
“While I listened to the voice of Ishmael, sounding a lot like my own, trying to explain what was so terrifying about the whiteness of the whale, I was frightened by the multi-layered sentences whose rhythms eluded me, words I couldn’t pronounce with certainty, and references to cultures gone by that I did not know.
“As the whiteness of the whale scared him, so the deepness of the novel scared me. It wasn’t that way 20 years ago, when I fell in love with it, when I had plenty of energy for the hunt. I went home hoping it is not our culture that is too busy and too tired, but only me.”
That was 35 years ago, when I was working full-time, with daily deadlines. Today, both my fears about American culture and my own exhaustion have grown exponentially. But I am heartened that people are still gathering to read classics like “Moby-Dick” and “The Great Gatsby” aloud, and even more heartened that reading aloud has not disappeared entirely.
My best friend and her husband often read books aloud together, alternating chapters. At the last meeting of the Mystic Writers, I read aloud from the book I am writing, as each member always does before the critique begins.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Melville read a sizeable portion of “Moby-Dick” aloud to a similarly patient and trusted audience before he submitted it to a publisher. There’s just no substitute for reading aloud, for both writers and readers, whether it’s a classic or any book that aims to be.
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