Whale

I once thought about buying a small house on the tiny island of Matinicus off the coast of Maine which was so far away from the mainland it took a three-hour boat ride to get there. It’s true. I found the house on Zillow and reached out to the real estate agent representing the home to discuss the potential of buying it and the complexities of owning a home in that kind of place. The island was only 1 mile long and half a mile wide and it was what the locals called “very seasonal.” It even had a little store on the island that sold snacks, including three types of beef jerky. One of the amazing things about the house was that you could see whales from the porch. Humpback whales, sperm whales, pilot whales, and other species that I couldn’t differentiate even if I saw them were often sighted in that part of the Atlantic Ocean. You could drink your hot black coffee on the porch in the morning and watch whales pop up out of the water. The idea seemed straight out of a fantasy. Didn’t matter in the end though, not only was it just too difficult in every logistical way imaginable, I couldn’t convince my wife to move there anyway.

I’ve never actually seen a whale in real life. I tried once. I took one of those touristy sightseeing boat tours out of Boston Harbor last summer. They told us we might see one, but they tell everyone that. They even put it on the dumb sign out front. I don’t think we went out far enough and instead just saw a few seals that followed us for a bit. I was told by the guide that whales are social animals with long lifespans and that they have massive hearts. Truth be told, spotting a whale wasn't exactly on my life’s bucket list. Watching whales in the wild seems like something that would feel exciting for a few minutes and then probably get boring quickly. I feel a bit ashamed for admitting that for some reason.

I bought my six-year-old son a book on whales a few weeks ago. Trying to be a good dad, I guess. My son has never shown interest in whales, but I saw the book in Barnes and Noble on a shelf near the new non-fiction area as I was making my way to the cafe, so I thought “Why not, the picture looks beautiful.” Like other toys or books you think are the smart parent choice, your kids just end up playing imaginatively with the pots and pans from the kitchen or sticks and rocks in the backyard, instead of the more expensive thing you thought they would like. I do love that my son gave it a sincere try, and now and again he references the book because he knows I like it. I find that sweet, even if we never read it.

The book was called “Secrets of Whales” and published by—you guessed it—National Geographic. I thought it was odd that director James Cameron wrote the foreward to the book. I remember how he became involved in ocean exploration and education after filming Titanic. It was still surprising, but I guess once you get famous enough you can jump in and out of various disciplines regardless of expertise level. And he is not the only entertainer mentioned in the book, there is a quote on the inside cover by Sigourney Weaver. Cameron directed her in Aliens. Small world.

Maybe one day my son will want to read about the world’s most famous literary whale. A book inspired by true events from around 1828. A whale off the coast of Chile attacked around 100 fishing boats before being killed by local sailors. The sailors nicknamed the whale Mocha Dick after Mocha Island, a small island near the Chilean coastline. One small name change and Herman Melville had his villain.

I’m always on the lookout for a beautiful edition of the book because it’s one of my favorites. You can purchase a true first edition of Moby Dick from Peter Harrington in London for $227,000 US dollars. The first edition and first printing were published in 1851 and the book was originally titled “The Whale.” Herman preferred Moby-Dick, but the publisher didn’t. It has significant textual differences from the version you probably own now and only 500 copies are in existence. I read somewhere that Moby-Dick is a favorite book of both Steve Jobs and Cormac McCarthy or at least one of their favorites.

Some people think it’s possible to be eaten by a whale, live in its stomach for three days, and then be spat up alive to swim to shore. We all know the story. “Jonah and the Whale” or some interpretations say “Big Fish.” Some say it happened, others say it was just an allegory or metaphor. Whether Jonah or another story, it’s sometimes hard to know if what you're reading is fiction or non-fiction. Melville also references the book of Jonah in Moby-Dick. Father Mapple in Chapter 9 famously says, “Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters— four yarns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable, but what is this lesson that the book teaches?”